A long-awaited transformation of Cleveland’s Erieview Tower is finally underway, marking a significant new development for the city’s downtown hospitality and residential market. The $218 million project will transform the iconic tower into a mixed-use destination featuring a new W Hotel, luxury apartments, and additional commercial space. The W Hotel will be the first of its brand in Ohio. H&LA’s David Sangree was recently quoted by Cleveland.com regarding the Erieview Tower redevelopment and the broader Cleveland hotel market. David provided perspective on the project’s significance and the challenges and opportunities associated with bringing a major hotel development to fruition in today’s market. H&LA has closely followed the evolution of the city’s hotel market and the continued redevelopment of downtown Cleveland. We are pleased to see this long-anticipated project moving forward and contributing to the ongoing revitalization of the downtown area.
Published by: Susan Glaser/Cleveland.com
Published date: September 2026
CLEVELAND, Ohio – After years of delays and uncertainty, the long-awaited transformation of one of downtown Cleveland’s most iconic buildings into a luxury hotel and apartment complex is finally under way.
ErieView Development, the Cleveland firm headed by the Kassouf family, announced this month that it had closed on $218 million in financing for a new W Hotel and apartments at Erieview Tower, the historic glass skyscraper at East 12th Street and St. Clair Avenue.
The project is expected to be completed in late 2027 or early 2028 and will include the first W Hotel in Ohio, a luxury Marriott brand known for its contemporary design and appeal to younger, upscale travelers.
It wasn’t supposed to be this hard.
“It took a little time longer to get everything buttoned up,” conceded Elias Kassouf, a principal at ErieView Development. “Not a lot of new hotels are getting built.”
In addition to 210 hotel rooms, the project will feature 215 high-end apartments, a spa and two restaurants, including one on the 38th floor.
Initial plans for the tower didn’t include a hotel, said Kassouf. But the W brand was sold on the location when company officials saw the tower’s 38th floor, the former location of the Top of the Town restaurant, which closed in 1995.
“Every W has a rooftop bar,” said Kassouf. The one in Cleveland will, as well.
The Kassoufs inked the deal with Marriott in early 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, Kassouf said he thought the shutdown would last a few weeks.
Instead, the pandemic upended the hospitality industry worldwide and made financing big projects more difficult.
“It’s still very hard to finance an expensive new project like this,” said David Sangree, president of Hotel and Leisure Advisors, a Cleveland hospitality consulting firm. “It’s very exciting for the city that it finally happened.”
Funding for the project includes a complicated mix of public and private money, including state and federal historic tax credits. The largest piece is a $93 million Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) loan that allows property owners to borrow money for energy-efficient upgrades and pay off the debt through property tax assessments.
Not included in the project’s $218 million price tag is the attached Galleria, which the Kassoufs also purchased in 2018.
The glassy mall, built in 1987 and once filled with high-end retail, has been largely dormant in recent years.
Kassouf declined to say exactly what is planned for the Galleria, although a financial document filed with Cuyahoga County in June said the space was “envisioned to include fine dining, a new food hall, indoor recreation and entertainment concepts and renovated event space, supporting both hotel guests and downtown residents and workers.”
Kassouf said more details would be released soon.
“It will be fun. It will be interesting,” he said. “I don’t want to pull the curtain back just yet.”
Kassouf said the tower is in good shape, with most of the necessary demolition complete.
“We’re starting the framing as we speak,” he said, adding, “It’s easier putting stuff in than taking it out.”
The hotel will occupy floors five through 12, while the apartments will occupy floors 17 through 28. Class A office space will fill floors 29 through 38.
Apartments – the first to carry the W brand – will range from studios to one- and two-bedroom units. Pre-leasing is expected to begin in early 2027, said Kassouf.
Apartment residents will have access to many of the hotel amenities, including the fitness center, spa, in-room dining and other services. The complex also includes a 450-space underground parking area.
Hotels with a residential component are becoming more popular, said Sangree, in part because adding apartments or condominiums can make financing easier. Residential units with hotel-style amenities can command higher rates.
“You’re offering a hotel lifestyle,” said Sangree.
There are some lingering concerns about the building’s glass exterior. During a Cuyahoga County Council meeting in August, Councilwoman Sunny Simon said she was worried about the large number of birds that have been killed flying into the building.
She suggested making the addition of a bird-safe coating to the exterior a condition of council approval of a $2 million loan for the project.
The loan was approved without the condition, although Kassouf said he was looking into the issue. The addition of any special coating, however, may run afoul of rules governing changes to historic properties that receive state or federal tax dollars, according to a spokesman for the State Historic Preservation Office.
The tower was built in 1964 as part of a larger urban renewal project intended to turn around an aging area of downtown. Designed by Harrison & Abramovitz, the 529-foot-tall structure is the fifth-highest in the city. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.
Kassouf said the project should bring some much-needed vibrancy to an area of downtown that could use more energy.
“It’s the artery of downtown,” Kassouf said of East 9th Street, which runs from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to the north to Progressive Field to the south.
“It connects the entire city,” he said. “And I just think it’s been overlooked the last couple of years.”
Sangree said the city should be able to absorb another high-end hotel. The W’s location, a couple of blocks from the Huntington Convention Center, should help.
Downtown Cleveland’s hotel occupancy in 2026 was 66.5% through July, according to CoStar, a hospitality data firm. That percentage is up from 61.9% for the same period in 2025.
At the same time, the downtown hotel market lost nearly 400 rooms earlier this year with the closure of the DoubleTree Hotel on Lakeside Avenue.
The new W Hotel will replace more than half of those rooms, although at a much higher overnight rate.
The W’s main competition in town, said Sangree, will likely be the Ritz-Carlton Cleveland and Metropolitan at The 9, both high-end Marriott properties.
Other hotels in development downtown include a 123-room Marriott Tribute hotel in the historic Rose Building complex at the corner of East 9th Street and Prospect Avenue and the conversion of the former Holiday Inn Express on Euclid Avenue into an AC Hotel by Marriott, also due to open in 2027.