American Interiors is Relocating to Ohio City

This article was published through an exclusive content-sharing agreement with neo-trans.blog.

A fast-growing American Interiors Cleveland Showroom is relocating from Downtown Cleveland to a larger, more visible location at The Carriage Co., 2168 W. 25th St., a major redevelopment nearing completion at the south end of the Market District.

There, Michigan-based American Interiors is leasing nearly 18,000 square feet of space on two floors overlooking busy West 25th. It will join other retailers topped by 139 luxury apartments, offices and co-working spaces in the historic Rauch & Lang Carriage Co. and, later, Voss Aerospace complex.

MRN Ltd. and its construction partners are renovating the 239,000-square-foot property for more than $62 million. They are on track to complete the renovations and deliver the project in the second quarter of 2027.

The largest single tenant in the development will be American Interiors, a company founded in 1993 by Steve Essig in the Detroit suburb of Novi. The company designs and builds interior spaces for commercial and institutional clients — be they offices, lounges or lobbies, including for residential buildings.

American Interiors has offices in Novi, Cleveland, Toledo, Orlando and Tampa. Among its local customers are Benesch, Bendix, CBIZ, Cleveland Guardians, CrossCountry Mortgage, Dix & Eaton, Park Place Technologies, Shaker Heights Public Library, Walter Haverfield and presumably themselves at their new Cleveland location.

The company plans a big investment — about $2.1 million to build out and furnish 17,385 square feet of interior space at The Carriage Co., according to a building permit application submitted yesterday to the Cleveland Building Department.

That is a significantly larger space than their current location — 10,750 square feet on the first floor of the 19-story North Point Tower, 1001 Lakeside Ave. East where they have been since 2015. But there is a retail space the company will have to address.

In March, American Interiors acquired the Northeast Ohio operations (Cleveland and Akron) of Cincinnati-based APG Office Furnishings. APG has had a storefront location at 2516 Detroit Ave., on the ground floor of The Quarter since the mixed-use building opened in 2018.

With that acquisition, American Interiors has officially become the sole MillerKnoll dealer in Northeast Ohio. American Interiors said in a press release in March it would transition the Detroit Avenue site into its Northeast Ohio dealer network.

But that was before it committed to The Carriage Co. It remains to be seen if American Interiors will retain the Detroit Avenue site. The remaining operations of APG merged in May with OfficeWorks.

NEOtrans e-mailed American Interiors Director of Marketing Jessica Unverferth for more information about the move but she has yet to respond.

Alex Smith, a vice president at Cushman & Wakefield | CRESCO Real Estate of Independence, said the spot taken by American Interiors was marketed as office space and its use is not considered retail.

He noted that there is one retail space available at The Carriage Co., although it can be subdivided for more than one tenant based on need. The real estate brokerage is marketing office and retail spaces at The Carriage Co.

“No retailer committed to the site yet, but we are actively negotiating with a few retail users for the 5,407-square-foot balance of the commercial space fronting West 25th,” Smith said.

He also noted that the ground-floor area in the center of the complex, earmarked as “retail” on the site plan posted in this article, is actually more of a back-of-house storage space as needed for commercial tenants.

The surrounding area is active with redevelopment. Behind The Carriage Co. on West 26th Street is the under-construction Ambler Apartments. The large Intro development opened several years ago across West 25th.

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