Greyhound Likely Staying in Downtown Cleveland Following Playhouse Purchase of Historic Building

Transit activists and travelers can breathe easy: Greyhound isn't straying too far away from its original spot. And neither is its general aesthetic of its historic home.

All that's thanks to the Playhouse Square Foundation, which bought the somewhat neglected Art Deco bus hub for $3.4 million last week, with high hopes to integrate the facility, along with its ocean of parking lots, into a gradually growing Theater District.

That building at 1465 Chester Avenue was originally bought by Twenty Lake Holdings in September 2022. The goal at the time, according to design renderings, was to fill in hundreds of parking spaces with a mid-rise apartment complex. And somehow integrate the original building into the mix.

Its originality — the architecture that put the Greyhound on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999 —  was key to Playhouse Square's interest, whether they build more housing or buff up the Greyhound's potential for, say, a throwback restaurant of sorts.
"In the meantime, we are committed to respecting the historic integrity of the building," a spokesperson for Playhouse Square wrote Scene in an email, "and to working with the City of Cleveland and Greyhound to ensure the transition to Greyhound’s new base of operations occurs on a timetable that works for all parties."

That transition, as reported on by Cleveland.com and NEOTrans, seems bound three blocks south to the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Transit Center off East 22nd St. As reiterated to both NEOTrans and Scene, RTA Spokesman Robert Fleig said that the Red Line Station at Puritas—a 25-minute trek from where the Greyhound Station stands, as many bemoaned—is "no longer being considered as a primary location."

With discussions about the eventual relocation of Downtown's Amtrak station, or faraway hopes of a station at Tower City Center for the lofty train line to link Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, keeping an interstate bus hub in the central city seems to buck several national trends.

Other cities, like Chicago and Cincinnati, are seeing their Greyhound lines flee to the suburban fringe, as their own Art Deco buildings wait for the chisel of the curious developer. Which doesn't seem like what's at play here, as Playhouse CEO Craig Hassall told the Plain Dealer's Steven Litt.

“The building is an absolute gem," Hassall said. "Whatever we do, we are absolutely not going to compromise the architectural integrity of the building. It’s spectacular.’’

The itch to highlight integrity bodes well for Hassall and Playhouse as of recent.

In the winter of 2023, Playhouse began work remodeling its Bulkley Building into 84 units of market-rate housing, namely for in-town and traveling performers vying to stay above the theaters they're working in.

And last summer, the district held a five-hour-long street festival, complete with live bands and two blocks full of raining confetti, for four brand new show marquees, those that took influence from marquees of decades past.

Fleig at the RTA said that Barons Bus will be licensing a section of the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Transit Center for its own usage. It will then sub-license a part of that section for Greyhound passengers.

What RTA did not mention is how the transit center itself could be enhanced to accommodate the hundreds of passengers daily that use Greyhound.

Touted as a 2,000-square-feet, "airport-like" facility, the 15-year-old stop would likely need improvements to usher in two new bus lines to merge snuggly with the four lines the center serves already—the Cleveland State 55, 55B and 55C; and the Strongsville Park-N-Ride.
Subscribe to Cleveland Scene newsletters.

Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed