The Beacon is a luxury, residential skyscraper in downtown Cleveland that began construction at 515 Euclid Avenue in late 2017 and was completed in late 2019. The tower rises tall, with approval from the city council to exceed the city's limit. The Beacon sits at 29 floors; 8 floors of parking garage, 19 floors of one and two bedroom residential suites and rooftop lounge. Part of the need for the tower is due to the two decade old resurgence of interest in downtown Cleveland. Residential population has up ticked, spearheaded by a 77% increase of new housing units and 95% occupancy rate from 2000 to 2015. This surge in residential growth has seen nearly 15,000 people living in the Cleveland neighborhood as of 2017. That makes downtown Cleveland the largest populated downtown in Ohio which illustrates the need for more housing capacity in the central location of Cleveland. It is the third-tallest residential building in the citybehind the Terminal Tower, which is slated to be converted into apartments, and The 9 Cleveland.
Design
The tower sits atop an eight-level parking garage that was built several years earlier for a project that never materialized. This kept additional infrastructure costs down. The winning design that was presented to the Cleveland City Council was by Cleveland architecture firm of Westlake Reed Leskosky and the Boston firm NADAA. The Beacon features a facade interlocked with colored interchanging metal panels that reflects the sun and brightly illuminates with exteriorcolor progression from darker to lighter tones creating the impression of height and slenderness. The chosen site is notable because over ten years ago it was proposed that an apartment tower should sit on the lot behind the Huntington Building on East Roadway and Euclid. For various reasons, mostly due to financing and design flaws, that tower never rose. The Beacon is the first new residential high rise erected in Cleveland's central business district since 1974.
