Transformer Station

Combining a landmark historical building with a contemporary minimalist addition, the Transformer Station is a new anchor destination in Cleveland's rapidly evolving Ohio City neighborhood. The project brings a new cultural facility to a mixed residential and industrial neighborhood within walking distance of the restaurants and shops of the Market District and blocks away from the Gordon Square Arts District. The Transformer Station, built in 1924, is one of sixteen substations built by Cleveland’s one-time private transit provider, the Cleveland Railway Company. The substation converted power for the Detroit Avenue Streetcar Line, which carried 19 million riders annually at its peak. The building was used as a transformer station until 1949, when the City of Cleveland offered it for auction. From the early 1980s until 2010, it housed an art foundry. The building is a brick structure with solid, classical proportions, enhanced with intricate brick detailing.