Ohio City's McCafferty Center to Become Neighborhood's Latest Home for Affordable Senior Housing

The city confirmed Friday it will be lining up the McCafferty Center, a health clinic on Lorain Avenue, for conversion an affordable senior living complex in the next two years. Credit: Mark Oprea

It’s confirmed: Ohio City will be expanding its affordable housing stock sometime this year.

The McCafferty Center off 42nd and Lorain Avenue, currently an outpost of the Cleveland Department of Public Health serving mostly residents of the neighborhood, will be host to 72 units of housing for seniors, the city and Ohio City Inc. confirmed on Friday.

To be developed by Pennrose, the project will take root in the two-story beige-and-brick building built in 1971 that is currently three-quarters empty.

Besides being the neighborhood’s first new senior housing complex in two decades, since Fairview Gardens off Franklin Circle was built in 2000, backers say McCafferty’s renovation is a push in the right direction—as to sort of even out Ohio City’s influx of luxury mid-rises and million-dollar condos.

“As rents rise, so does the need to increase the focus on affordable housing, especially for Clevelanders on fixed incomes,” Trudy Andrzejewski, Cleveland’s Bureau Chief for Neighborhood Revitalization, said in a press release. “A thriving neighborhood balances growth with preservation. And a big part of that is keeping longtime residents who built the community within the community.”

McCaffety’s new era, which does not have a fixed build timeline as of now, follows some good news for Lorain Ave.

In the past year or so, storefronts nearby have been refurbished to welcome new business, including Guitar Riot off West 45th, Imposters Theater off West 50th, the long-in-the-works Greek Village Grill off West 47th, and the Green Wave Café off West 52nd.

And in 2024, plans moved forward for the Lorain Avenue Midway, a two-mile-long cycle track, and a new RTA Bus Rapid Transit line to boot. Both could greatly boost the area’s foot traffic and overall bikability, as well as its look in general.

“That means you don’t need a car to get around,” Ward 3 Councilman Kerry McCormack, long an advocate of the McCafferty-as-housing plan, told Scene.

“It means that you can get to your health appointment. It means that you can get your grocery store,” he added. “So it’s not just rent that’s important—but it’s building affordable housing in the right area. That’s critically important.”

According to Pennrose’s plans, the ground floor of the building will include a range of local nonprofits, although the exact tenants have not yet been confirmed. Pennrose and Ohio City Inc. are to host a community engagement event on February 10 at 6 p.m., at the nearby Urban Community School.

Department of Public Health head David Margolius confirmed that the vaccinations, birth control and STI screening will be hosted in the Blanket Mills building in Clark-Fulton.

And for those in the neighborhood that regularly go to McCafferty, help is will remain nearby at the MetroHealth Family Center off Lorain and 47th, Margolius said.

“It’s a great resource with primary care and urgent car just a few blocks away,” he said. “Most folks already made that switch.”

Pennrose had responded to a request for proposal last year from the city to best redesign McCafferty for its new phase, one backed up by the city’s 2030 Housing Equity Plan, intended to prop up the affordable housing market on a local level.

Construction may start this year after design plans head to the City Planning Commission. The new senior apartment complex will open sometime in the next two years.