McNair told council members Monday that IBM
never actually used the building and that it sat
vacant.
Total boondoggle.
https://www.cleveland.com/news/2025/02/the-ibm-building-in-cleveland-is-always-empty-a-new-company-has-plans-to-change-that.html
By: Sean McDonnell
Updated: Feb. 04, 2025, 7:51 a.m.|Published: Feb. 04, 2025, 7:32 a.m.
CLEVELAND, Ohio — The IBM Building on Cedar Avenue, known both for being relatively new and consistently empty, is going to find new life as offices and a research facility — with the help from Cleveland’s incentives.
Canon Healthcare USA Inc. has plans to buy the IBM Building and to transform the facility into a state-of-the-art imaging and research center. The move means that the building, a longtime casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic, may finally get used.
Cleveland City Council voted to approve a plan Monday night that includes over $3 million in incentives to support the move. Cleveland’s Economic Development Director Tom McNair said the city would net about $2.75 million in new taxes over nine years if Canon Healthcare’s plan comes to fruition.
Tsuneo Imai, Canon Healthcare’s vice president of strategic partnerships and collaboration, told council members during a committee meeting that his company wants to become a “local citizen.” That’s why he said Canon Healthcare is spending $33.7 million to buy and renovate the building.
Canon Healthcare manufactures medical imaging machines, used for things like x-rays and ultrasounds. The company announced a strategic partnership with Cleveland Clinic in 2023.
The (former) IBM Building
Finished in 2018, the IBM building at Cedar Avenue and East 105th Street was supposed to be a new shiny office building at the north end of Opportunity Corridor. And while employees were supposed to move into the building in early 2020 — the COVID-19 pandemic ended those plans.
Employees worked from home because of the social distancing started during the pandemic. Then in January 2022, IBM sold Watson Health, its healthcare division that was supposed to use the space.
The parking lot sat empty for long enough that cleveland.com and readers alike asked questions like “Why is the parking lot always empty?”
McNair told council members Monday that IBM never actually used the building and that it sat vacant. With the Canon Healthcare project, he said the city is “bringing it back to life with a world class company.”
Council President Blaine Griffin, who’s ward 6 includes the IBM Building, said during the meeting it’s a project that’s been three years in the making, and that he’s excited to see it come to fruition.
Canon Healthcare says that the building will be home to 50 employees by the end of 2027, and that they will earn about $150,000 a year on average. The company is looking for a few incentives from Cleveland to support the project.
McNair said Canon Healthcare will get a job creation income tax incentive, which would give the company $469,000 in tax credits over five years if it hits its goals to create $7.5 million in new annual payroll.
McNair said during the meeting that Canon Healthcare could earn more tax credits if it hires more employees.
The city is also amending the original tax abatement for the IBM Building, transferring it to Canon Healthcare and extending it so that it stays in effect for another nine years. That’s worth an estimated $2.3 million in tax credits.
Cleveland will also give Canon Healthcare $300,000 in economic development grants, according to a presentation given to council members.
Imai told council members that Canon Healthcare will buy the building from its current owners. The company will also sign a 50-year lease with the Cleveland Clinic, which owns the ground the building sits on.
The first floor will include an imagining research center and an outpatient clinic. The second floor will house offices, with Canon Healthcare moving employees from Mayfield to the now former IBM Building.
Imai told council that the Mayfield facility will become a training center that is being relocated from the Los Angeles area, meaning that both Canon Healthcare employees and others who need training will be coming to the Cleveland-area.