Northeast Ohio Commercial Real Estate Intelligence
Northeast Ohio Market Signal
September 9, 2026 · Prepared by RCA Studio · Scope: commercial, with residential context · Data current through Q2 2026 / July 2026
| THE READ 01 Northeast Ohio is in the entitlement phase of the data center cycle, not the absorption phase. The NAR study measures markets where facilities already exist. Here, at least eighteen communities have moratoriums or new conditional-use rules, and the value question in most assignments is still whether the use is permitted at all. 02 The rate shock is muted here and the leading indicator is pending sales, not price. Tri-county median price rose 4.5% year over year in July while pending sales fell 16.2%. Price is the lagging number. 03 Office-using employment is the binding constraint on Cleveland CBD value, and it has not recovered. Downtown towers are trading between $8.40 and $16.84 per square foot, which is conversion-option pricing, not income pricing. |
01
Data centers lift commercial values nationally. Northeast Ohio is still deciding whether to allow them.
LAND & INDUSTRIAL · HIGHEST AND BEST USE
| NATIONAL SIGNAL · NAR 2026 DATA CENTER IMPACT REPORT · SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 Of 885 agents reporting a data center in their market, 50% said nearby commercial property values had increased, including 22% reporting gains above 10%.Demand for nearby commercial space rose for 42% of respondents against 7% reporting declines. Industrial led at 58%; land followed at 38%.Residential was split: 25% saw higher nearby home values, 22% lower, 32% unchanged.Median home value in counties with ten or more data centers was $431,750 in 2024 against $174,500 in counties with none. NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun cautioned that these were already high-income tech hubs: “There is no single data center effect.”Residential electricity rates rose 21.4% from 2020 to 2024 in high-concentration counties against 15.7% elsewhere, but counties with only one or two facilities saw the largest increase at 22.9%. |
The Northeast Ohio read
Ohio ranks fifth nationally with roughly 217 mapped facilities, but the concentration is not here. Data Center Map counted 113 in the Columbus area against 23 in the Cleveland area as of December 2025. Northeast Ohio’s exposure is almost entirely prospective, and the prospective pipeline is running into local government faster than it is running into the ground.
That is the single most important framing difference for an appraisal file. NAR’s 50% commercial-value figure describes places where facilities are built and absorbed. In Portage, Trumbull, Stark and Cuyahoga counties, the live question in most assignments is whether the use is permitted on the effective date, and that answer has been changing month to month.
LIVE NORTHEAST OHIO PROPOSALS AND THEIR STATUS
| PROJECT | LOCATION | SCALE | STATUS |
| Bitdeer / Geis | Shalersville Twp., Portage | 257 ac · 150→750 MW · $300M+ | Zoning amendments tabled Aug 12; township moratorium expires early Nov 2026 (contested) |
| Stargate (SoftBank) | Lordstown, Trumbull | $375M plant purchase · <0.3 GW est. | Land cleared as of Feb 2026 imagery; Epoch AI reads it as AI-server manufacturing, not a conventional data center (unconfirmed) |
| Bristolville 25 | Lordstown Village, Trumbull | ~130 ac · 1.65M sf · $3.6B | Village ban Nov 2025; mandamus pending at the Ohio Supreme Court; moratorium extended to July 5, 2027 (litigation) |
| Panattoni | Perry Twp., Stark | 240 MW · ~100 ac farmland | Approved by Stark County Regional Planning; development underway |
| Lakeland Equity | Slavic Village, Cleveland | 35 ac · 300,000 sf · 150 MW · $1.6B | Permit rejected May 14, 2026; no end user identified |
| H5 Data Centers | 1625 Rockwell Ave., Cleveland | 59,720 sf fit-out · 10 MW · $30M | Permit filed June 12, 2026; expansion of an existing facility |
| ark data centers | Akron and Independence | $136M · 10 new / 27 retained jobs | Announced March 4, 2026 |
| Advanced Mfg. Megasite | New Russia Twp., Lorain | 622 of ~1,000 ac proposed for rezoning | Rezoning voted down 3–0 on March 17, 2026; county proceeding with $440M infrastructure regardless |
The regulatory overlay is now the value driver
Cleveland City Council paused new standalone data centers 14–1 on July 16, 2026, exempting in-house corporate facilities. Akron adopted a conditional-use review on July 27 requiring submissions on noise, water, wastewater and electrical demand, with existing facilities exempt when they expand. Massillon passed zoning on August 3 limiting the use to I-2 districts with a 400-foot residential setback and a reported 25 MW cap. Moratoriums are in place or recently expired in Lordstown, Vienna Township, Norton, Ravenna, Shalersville, Massillon, Plain Township, Painesville Township, Niles, Cortland, Hubbard, Braceville, Ellsworth, Newton Falls and Westlake, which enacted a six-month freeze on September 3 despite having no data centers at all.
Cuyahoga County published a Data Center Development Guide on June 10, 2026 that recommends temporary moratoriums, dedicated zoning categories with setback and noise standards, and conditional-use permits with enforceable conditions. It explicitly warns communities not to sign nondisclosure agreements and not to accept developer projections without independent verification. At the state level, Governor DeWine paused new data center tax exemption requests on May 27, 2026 pending the General Assembly’s Joint Data Center Committee study. A proposed constitutional amendment banning facilities above 25 MW failed to qualify for the 2026 ballot, gathering roughly 70,000 of the 413,000 signatures required, with Stark County producing the second-highest county total in the state.
Power is the scarce input, and it prices
FirstEnergy reported a data center pipeline of roughly 25 GW at Q2 2026, up about 30% year over year, with 6.4 GW under contract through 2035 after adding 2.1 GW in the quarter alone. Against a July system peak of 34.8 GW, the contracted book alone is close to 70% of peak. Transmission cost runs about $250 million per gigawatt of new load. The PUCO ordered FirstEnergy to establish a separate data center tariff in May 2026; the terms were not publicly accessible at the time of writing, and that gap matters for any assignment that turns on utility cost allocation.
Canton sits in AEP Ohio territory, where the approved tariff already requires facilities above 25 MW to pay for at least 85% of subscribed monthly capacity for twelve years with an exit penalty of three years’ minimum charges. After that tariff took effect, AEP’s projected new data center demand fell from 30,000 MW to 5,700 MW of signed contracts. The tariff is under challenge at the Ohio Supreme Court by the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association.
PJM’s 2028/29 capacity auction cleared at $325 per MW-day and fell 6,831 MW short of the reliability requirement, the first RTO-wide shortfall on record. Every Northeast Ohio property is inside that market.
| WHAT THIS CHANGES IN A FILE Highest and best use is doing more work than usual. Legally permissible now turns on a moratorium calendar that moves, so confirm zoning status as of the effective date rather than the inspection date, and document the ordinance version. For a land assignment near a proposed site, the speculative premium a seller quotes is frequently priced off an approval that has not been granted. The comparable set is thin and mostly out of market. The verified Northeast Ohio data-center land trades are Bitdeer’s 42.6 acres in Weathersfield Township at $3.4 million, roughly $80,000 per acre in May 2025, and SoftBank’s $375 million purchase of the Lordstown plant, which is a going-concern industrial transaction rather than a land comparable. The nearest in-state benchmark is Prologis at $55,100 per acre for 141 acres in Butler County in October 2025. Expect to bracket rather than match, and disclose the adjustment reasoning. Power access is now a site attribute worth adjusting for. Mahoning Valley brokers reported developers seeking raw land with heavy power along the I-90 corridor as early as October 2025. Substation proximity and interconnection queue position belong in the site description. |
02
Rates hit a 2026 high and demand slipped. Northeast Ohio’s price floor is holding, but pending sales are not.
RESIDENTIAL CONTEXT · LENDING · REAPPRAISAL
| NATIONAL SIGNAL · MBA / FREDDIE MAC VIA COSTAR · SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 Total mortgage application volume fell 2.7% for the week, with refinances down 6% and purchases down 3%.Refinances were 25% below the comparable week a year earlier, the lowest weekly pace since May 2025.The 30-year fixed averaged 6.71%, the highest weekly reading of 2026 per Freddie Mac.The ARM share of applications reached 8.5%, the highest since June. MBA’s Joel Kan: “Higher mortgage rates continue to weigh on prospective homebuyers looking to act, even as housing inventory has increased in many markets.”Homes.com chief residential economist Brad Case attributed the pressure to bond investors’ concerns over inflation, fiscal policy and foreign policy. |
The Northeast Ohio read
The region’s insulation from rate shock is arithmetic. Against a national median existing single-family price of $434,900 in Q2 2026, the Akron Cleveland Association of Realtors tri-county median runs roughly 39% below, Cleveland proper about 66% below and Youngstown about 73% below. A 21-basis-point year-over-year move in the 30-year fixed removes materially less purchasing power from a $265,000 transaction than from a $435,000 one. NAR ranked Canton-Massillon seventh nationally for Q2 price appreciation at 7.7%.
Volume is where the strain shows. ACAR’s July 2026 tri-county report has closed sales up 8.9% and new listings up 8.5%, but pending sales down 16.2%, with months of supply rising 9.1% to roughly 2.4 and days on market flat at 31. Closed sales reflect contracts written in May and June. Pendings reflect September conditions. The Cleveland Fed’s September 2 Beige Book described existing-home sales facing headwinds “despite continued strong buyer interest,” with contacts attributing the constraint to rate lock-in and expecting minimal to no demand growth ahead.
MEDIAN SALE PRICE BY COUNTY, YEAR OVER YEAR (REDFIN THREE-MONTH TRAILING, JUNE–JULY 2026; CUYAHOGA PER ZILLOW ZHVI)
| COUNTY | YOY | MEDIAN | DAYS ON MARKET | NOTE |
| Geauga | +30.9% | — | 18 | Only 113 closed sales; read as small-sample noise |
| Ashtabula | +19.0% | $209,386 | 41 | |
| Mahoning | +12.2% | $209,409 | 44 | |
| Portage | +10.8% | $309,128 | 26 | Bitdeer/Geis site county |
| Medina | +7.1% | $362,936 | 14 | Fastest market in the region |
| Stark | +5.8% | $249,197 | 20 | Canton-Massillon 7th nationally, NAR Q2 |
| Cuyahoga | +3.5% | $223,376 | 8 | ZHVI; days to pending |
| Lorain | +3.2% | $294,669 | 21 | |
| Summit | +0.8% | $239,325 | 21 | Sexennial reappraisal, ~18% avg increase |
| Lake | −0.6% | $248,499 | 23 | |
| Trumbull | −2.9% | $184,480 | 40 | Weakest median and slowest turn |
Cash is retreating faster here than elsewhere. Realtor.com put the Cleveland metro cash share at 30.6% for the first four months of 2026, down 2.9 percentage points year over year, a steeper decline than Columbus or Cincinnati. Investor ownership remains structurally high: the Cleveland Fed measured investor-owned single-family shares of 33% in Summit County and 26% in Cuyahoga as of 2024, with out-of-state investors holding 17% and 22% of those investor-owned homes respectively.
Multifamily is the outperformer
Cleveland apartment rent growth ran roughly 2.8% to 2.9% year over year against 0.2% nationally in July 2026, with occupancy tightening and a construction pipeline below typical annual demand. The exception is downtown, where apartment occupancy fell to 86% in 2025 from 90% in 2024 as roughly 900 new units opened and Downtown Cleveland Inc. described three to five years of inventory from new builds plus conversions.
| WHAT THIS CHANGES IN A FILE Support time adjustments off pendings and listings, not closings. With closed sales up 8.9% and pendings down 16.2% in the same month, a trailing-twelve-month closed-sale trend will overstate current market conditions in a Q4 assignment. Marketing time and exposure time conclusions should reflect the pending series. 2026 reappraisals will hit expense loads in January 2027. Summit and Ashtabula counties are in the sexennial cycle at roughly 18% and 30% average value increases; Geauga, Mahoning and Trumbull are in the triennial update. Values are effective January 1, 2026 and first appear on bills mailed January 2027. Ohio’s HB 920 dampens the tax effect, and Mahoning’s auditor cited a 38% valuation increase producing a 7% tax increase in the prior cycle, but income-approach expense projections written now should reflect the new base rather than the trailing bill. Do not use the widely cited “Akron and Youngstown are America’s last affordable metros” finding. It is from September 2024 using April 2024 NAR data and is two years stale. |
03
The August jobs rebound was built on low-wage services. Office-using employment kept shrinking, and Cleveland’s CBD shows the price.
OFFICE · INDUSTRIAL · RETAIL
| NATIONAL SIGNAL · COSTAR ECONOMY, COOPER & MCSHANE · SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 Employers added 162,000 jobs in August, well above expectations, with June and July revised up a combined 55,000. The three-month average is roughly 71,000.Gains concentrated in lower- and middle-wage industries: accommodation and food services +68,000, government +35,000, private education and health +29,000.Construction added 22,000 and manufacturing 16,000, consistent with continued investment in structures tied to the AI and data center buildout.Information fell 23,000 and financial activities 11,000. Over the past year the two have shed roughly 200,000 jobs combined, a continued headwind for office demand.Unemployment held at 4.1%. Average hourly earnings rose 3.1% year over year, the slowest annual pace in several years, with goods-producing wages near 4% and construction at 4.2%. |
The Northeast Ohio read
The national composition story repeats locally with sharper edges. Cleveland-Elyria added 5,800 jobs year over year in July 2026 to 1,102,000 total nonfarm, a 0.5% gain that led Ohio metros, at 3.3% unemployment. Leisure and hospitality supplied 6,100 of those jobs, more than the net total. Professional and business services fell 900 and information fell 400. Akron added 1,200 to 339,500, with construction up 6.0% and professional and business services down 1.7%. Canton, Youngstown and Akron all contracted in the first half of 2026 on NEOtrans’s read of the state series. Ohio’s labor force participation is 61.4%, down 1.2% year over year, roughly 74,000 fewer workers.
Cleveland office-using employment stood at just over 235,000 in May 2026, against a 2021 peak near 249,000 and a 2019 average near 246,500. That gap of roughly 11,500 jobs is the demand shortfall that Q2’s absorption number reflects.
CLEVELAND MARKET FUNDAMENTALS, Q2 2026 (NEWMARK, EXCEPT RETAIL)
| SECTOR | VACANCY | NET ABSORPTION | ASKING RENT | UNDER CONSTRUCTION |
| Office | 22.8% YTD / 23.4% Q2 | −666,072 sf Q2; −757,190 YTD | $22.17 (A $24.43 / B $19.81) | 56,700 sf |
| Industrial | 6.2% YTD | +34,953 sf Q2; +712,284 YTD | $5.95 NNN, flat YoY | 311,315 sf |
| Retail | 4.9% | +16,800 sf | $16.15, +0.5% YoY, 8.8% cap | 106,000 sf |
Office leasing in Q2 totaled 361,013 square feet, the third-lowest second quarter in sixteen years. Industrial looks stable in aggregate but the composition is not: warehouse and distribution absorption was negative 513,795 square feet, offset by R&D and flex at positive 303,716 and general industrial and manufacturing at positive 245,032. Class A leasing fell to 16.6% of year-to-date activity from 24.7% to 26.8% in prior years. Asking rent is flat year over year and fell 5.9% quarter over quarter.
The CBD is trading at conversion-option value
RECENT CLEVELAND OFFICE TRADES, PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT
| PROPERTY | SUBMARKET | $/SF | NOTE |
| 9150 South Hills Blvd. | South | $96.29 | |
| 3781–3799 Green Rd. | East | $40.88 | |
| 3100 E. 45th St. | CBD | $34.14 | Q1 2026 |
| Rockefeller Building | CBD | $16.84 | Conversion negotiations failed; deteriorating |
| 1020 Bolivar Rd. | CBD | $14.93 | Q1 2026 |
| Former Progressive HQ | East (Mayfield) | $10.53 | Remains in office use |
| AmTrust Tower, 800–826 Superior | CBD | $8.40 | 475,000 sf for $4.0M; Allstate to Prime Properties, May 2026 |
1100 Superior Avenue, 576,500 square feet, sold for $8.1 million after foreclosure against a prior valuation of $47 million. Cleveland has converted or begun renovating 6.6 million square feet of office since 2013 with 2.1 million more proposed and roughly 4,000 units delivered, but conversion feasibility is not automatic: 1801 East 9th is headed to auction after its plan collapsed, and the 1.4 million square foot Huntington Building at 925 Euclid is in foreclosure and receivership with financing gone. Note also that the Tower at Erieview and 1100 Superior were removed from inventory while under renovation, which flatters the reported vacancy rate.
On the demand side, Sherwin-Williams opened its $750 million, 600,000 square foot, 36-story downtown headquarters on May 11, 2026 with roughly 3,100 employees and a return-to-office mandate effective January 1. That is real absorption, and it is largely a relocation within the market rather than net new demand.
| WHAT THIS CHANGES IN A FILE Below roughly $20 per square foot, the income approach stops describing the asset. At $8.40 to $16.84 per square foot, buyers are pricing land plus a conversion option net of carrying cost and demolition risk, not a stabilized income stream. Reconciliation should weight sales comparison and a cost-to-convert analysis, and the report should say plainly which buyer profile the value reflects. Segment industrial absorption before citing it. A positive headline number covering a negative 513,795 square foot warehouse and distribution result will mislead a lender on a big-box assignment. Flex and manufacturing are carrying the market; large-format distribution is not. Manufacturing and construction are the genuine local bright spots. The Cleveland Fed’s September Beige Book reports manufacturing demand increasing robustly on data center development and defense spending, and strong nonresidential data center construction demand persisting district-wide, even as Northeast Ohio communities block individual projects. Ultium Cells recalled roughly 850 union employees in Lordstown beginning July 27, 2026, which likely explains Youngstown MSA manufacturing at +3.6% year over year. |
04
Dates that will move these numbers
WATCH LIST
WATCH LIST
| WHEN | WHAT |
| This week | August CPI release. CoStar’s economists flag it as the read on whether the tariff pass-through is reaching consumer goods prices, which drives the rate path behind Section 02. |
| Sept 9, 2026 | Shalersville Township zoning commission takes up the revised data center amendments, including a proposed 25 MW “excessive power demand” threshold. |
| Early Nov 2026 | Shalersville moratorium expires. If the amendments are not finalized first, Bitdeer/Geis can apply as a conditionally permitted use on 257 acres. |
| Nov 30, 2026 | PUCO staff report due in FirstEnergy’s three-year Ohio rate plan. Hearings begin March 1, 2027. |
| Jan 2027 | 2026 reappraisal values first appear on tax bills in Summit, Ashtabula, Wayne, Ashland, Geauga, Mahoning, Trumbull, Harrison and Richland counties. Formal appeals open the same month. |
| July 5, 2027 | Lordstown Village moratorium expires, assuming the Ohio Supreme Court has not ruled on the Bristolville 25 mandamus petition before then. |
| Pending | Ohio General Assembly Joint Data Center Committee study, which gates the resumption of state tax exemptions. HB 706, HB 695, SB 374 and SB 381 are all live. |
SOURCES
Source articles
— CoStar News Staff, “Commercial properties gain traction near data centers, study finds,” September 9, 2026 (supplied PDF)
— CoStar News Staff / Moira Ritter, “Mortgage demand slips as rates hit highest level of 2026,” September 9, 2026 (supplied PDF)
— Christine Cooper and Chuck McShane, “August hiring rebound surprises, but keeps overall low-hire trend in place,” CoStar Analytics, September 9, 2026 (supplied PDF)
— NAR 2026 Data Center Impact report coverage
Data centers and policy
— Signal Cleveland, Ohio data center map
— Cuyahoga County Data Center Development Guide, May 1, 2026
— Signal Cleveland, Cleveland moratorium
— Ideastream, Akron conditional-use ordinance
— News 5 Cleveland, Massillon zoning rules
— The Portager, Shalersville zoning
— DataCenterDynamics, Bitdeer 750 MW campus
— Signal Cleveland, Slavic Village rejection
— Epoch AI, Stargate site status
— Business Journal Daily, Bristolville 25 litigation
— Ideastream, Lorain County megasite
— Ohio Governor’s Office, tax exemption pause
— Ohio Capital Journal, ballot measure
Power
— Utility Dive, FirstEnergy Q2 2026
— RTO Insider, PUCO orders FirstEnergy data center tariff
— Ohio Capital Journal, AEP Ohio tariff results
— PJM 2028/29 capacity auction results
— Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, data center facts
Housing and lending
— Akron Cleveland Association of REALTORS, July 2026
— Ohio REALTORS, July 2026 statistics
— Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey
— NAR Q2 2026 metro price report
— Cleveland Fed Beige Book, September 2, 2026
— Cleveland Fed, investor-owned home trends
— Ideastream, 2026 reappraisals
— Zillow, Cuyahoga County home values
Employment and commercial markets
— BLS Cleveland area economic summary
— BLS Akron area economic summary
— Newmark, Cleveland office Q2 2026
— Newmark, Cleveland industrial Q2 2026
— Cushman & Wakefield, Cleveland MarketBeats
— Propmodo, Cleveland office conversions
— NEOtrans, Ohio metro job growth 2026
— The Vindicator, Ultium Cells recall
— Ideastream, Sherwin-Williams headquarters
Compiled September 9, 2026 from the three supplied CoStar articles plus public sources. Market data is current through Q2 2026 for commercial fundamentals and July 2026 for closed residential sales; no August 2026 closed-sale series was available at the time of writing. Figures are reported as published by each source and have not been independently verified against county records. This brief is market commentary, not an appraisal, and is not intended to be relied upon as a valuation of any specific property.