Fire ravages under-construction apartments in Cleveland Heights

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — A large fire late Friday ravaged an under-construction apartment complex in the Cedar Lee district.

Fire officials warned people to avoid the area of The Marquee at Cedar Lee, a $60 million mixed-use development that broke ground in May 2023. Talked about for decades as “the Cedar-Lee-Meadowbrook project,” the development planned to include 204 luxury apartments and 8,500 square feet of commercial retail space on 5.2 acres of city-owned land.

No one lived in the complex yet.

At 10:30 p.m., when one firefighter said they’d been working for at least an hour and a half, flames were shooting through the structure. Smoke blew northbound toward Heights High School, according to the city.

The fire department blocked off the Cedar-Lee intersection, a vibrant street of shops, restaurants ad a movie theater, as well as Cedar Road eastbound starting at Kildare Road.

Around 1 a.m. Saturday, Cleveland Heights Mayor Kahil Seren took to social media to provide an update on the fire, saying it’s “being managed but is not out.”

First responders from Highland Heights, Maple Heights, Mayfield Heights, Mayfield Village, Orange Village, Shaker Heights, South Euclid, University Heights, Warrensville Heights, Willoughby Hills, responded to the scene to assist, Seren said. The Cuyahoga County Fire Mobile Command and the Hillcrest-Heights Regional Fire Investigation Unit was also called out, he added.

“City of Cleveland is supporting our fire station while this is going on as well,” he wrote.

The temperatures Friday night was around 12 degrees with a light wind from 5 to 10 miles per hour, said Zach Sefcovic, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Cleveland.

This time of year, the atmosphere is cold and drier in comparison to the summertime where you can feel the moisture in the air that helps with containing a fire, he said. When it’s drier, a fire has an easier time maintaining, he added.

The city of Cleveland Heights and Flaherty & Collins Properties announced the real estate and financial “closing” for the Cedar Lee Meadowbrook project in March 2023.

“After two decades of work toward developing this site, we’ve cleared the last hurdle and are poised to break ground,” Seren said in a news release at that time. “This will be a transformative project, offering new housing options not currently available in Cleveland Heights and making the Cedar Lee District an even more compelling place to eat, shop and live.”

WKYC has drone video.

cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reached out to the city of Cleveland Heights for comment.