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Higbee Name, $20M Redo May Lure Office Tenants

PHILADELPHIA-In transforming Downtown Cleveland's now-vacant Dillard's department store as a 700,000-sf office property, locally based-Forest City Enterprises is bringing back the 1931 building's original Higbee nameplate and pouring $20 million into a renovation to restore the property's bygone "elegance.

By Marita Thomas | Updated on July 01, 2002

PHILADELPHIA-The former Dillard’s department store in Downtown Cleveland’s Public Square is taking back its original Higbee name and is being converted by locally based-Forest City Enterprises into a 700,000-sf office building. Nostalgia for the landmark Higbee Building, built in 1931, is seen as adding value to the marketing efforts in a highly competitive office market.

Forest City, which long held a 50%-interest in the property, purchased the remaining half approximately 18 months ago from Little Rock, AR-based Dillard’s Inc., Patrick Lott, Forest City’s senior vice president for office leasing and development, tells GlobeSt.com. Lott would not disclose the purchase price.

The building remained an active department store until Dillard’s closed its doors six months ago. Now “essentially vacant,” Lott says, it is undergoing a renovation with “hard costs of $20 million–more than that, when soft costs are added,” Lott says, “to restore the building’s original elegance.”

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