Our Founding
Naomi Sabel, Ben Ezinga, and Josh Rosen founded Sustainable Community Associates while they were undergraduates at Oberlin College.
At the time, between final exams and worrying about their futures, they had no idea their initial conversations about how to help improve the town of Oberlin would turn into an almost two-decade partnership. Among the common threads over the years have been copious amounts of coffee, amazing mentors, a strong mixture of idealism and realism, and the belief that real estate development, when done well, is a synthesis of good business and catalytic change.
SCA owns, manages and maintains all of their properties—working with a dedicated leasing, operations and maintenance staff who share their vision and sense of stewardship.
Our
Portfolio
SCA has worked on sites including old gas stations, dry cleaners, and chrome plating facilities; we have collaborated with cities on rezonings, variances, TIFs, and grants; and have navigated complicated financing structures including Housing and Urban Development appropriations, New Market Tax Credits, State and Federal Historic Tax Credits, County Brownfield loans, Opportunity Zone investments as well as Ohio Water Development Authority and JobsOhio grants and loans.
To date, SCA has brought over $120 million of projects from concept to occupancy, and tackled all of the approvals, permits, variances, delays, price hikes, financing gaps, and mishaps that have occurred along the way.
2025 | The Hawthorne
CLEVELAND, OHIO
The renovation of the vacant Hawthorne Elementary will transform the historic 1917 school into 37 apartments. Facing risk of continued decay and possible demolition, SCA saw the opportunity to re-create neighborhood pride by breathing new spirit and life in the building.
2023 | West 17th St. Townhomes
CLEVELAND, OHIO
Building on SCA’s four successful mixed-use projects in Tremont, the West 17th Street Townhomes envision for what a high caliber Tremont townhome project should look like — a development with the same emphasis on quality architecture and modern design as SCA’s previous work.
2022 | The Lincoln
CLEVELAND, OHIO
Opened in 2022, The Lincoln represents the latest phase in SCA’s work to fill in and reinvigorate the Scranton Corridor. The building was inspired by the push and pull between nature and industry. The 82 unit community offers two commercial spaces for entrepreneurs.
2020 | The Tappan
CLEVELAND, OHIO
Opened in 2020, The Tappan is a 95 unit project built along the historic Scranton corridor. The project utilized opportunity zone designation to create workforce and market-rate housing as well a neighborhood bakery.
2018 | Mueller Lofts
CLEVELAND, OHIO
Originally the Mueller Electric Factory (and home of the alligator clip), Mueller Lofts is the reimagining of a 1922 factory into 51 apartments. The building was one of the last neighborhood-scale manufacturing plants in the city and again serves as an active part of Cleveland’s Asiatown.
2016 | Wagner Awning
CLEVELAND, OHIO
Built in 1895, the Wagner Awning Building is a long-standing anchor of the Scranton corridor that made tents and awnings across the midwest. Today it is a mixed-use property featuring 59 apartments and 12,000 sq feet of commercial space.
Our Sustainable Design Principles
All of our projects, which include seven completed multi-family residences (many of which are mixed-use) and one currently under renovation, are Enterprise Green Communities or LEED Certified. The East College Street Project in Oberlin was part of the USGBC LEED Neighborhood Development Pilot Program.
Regardless of points or certifications, we invest heavily in the envelopes and thermal efficiencies of our buildings—always exceeding requirements. In one project we implemented an energy-use monitoring system so that residents and businesses can track in real time how their consumption compares to those around them. In another, we integrated a series of bioswales and rain gardens into the landscaping. In yet another project, we designed such a thermally-efficient envelope that apartments typically heat or cool for less than a dollar per day.
We design to maximize natural light and fresh air, and emphasize the use of sustainable materials. Our goal is always to reduce the water and energy consumption of, and ultimately the energy expense for, our tenants.
Our Work with the Community
Our work focuses on catalytic projects larger developers overlook because of the size or complexity but have an oversized impact on the neighborhood.
Our commitment extends beyond the building itself. We create public, outdoor spaces that welcome our neighbors in and invest in businesses like Leavened and Tremont Athletic Club that become neighborhood assets and destinations.
We’ve worked with local block clubs to install wayfinding signage for the neighborhood, registered new voters, organized food drives for neighbors in need, and supported the local schools. This focus resonates with those who become residents in our communities. They often become engaged, active neighborhood advocates, frequently donating and volunteering within the communities that we work.
SCA in the News
Cleveland Jewish News: “Park Synagogue project receives $10M in tax credits”
Developers behind the preservation and redevelopment of Park Synagogue’s Cleveland Heights campus recently received $10 million in state historic tax credits – the highest award in the most recent round of funding, writes Betsy Raspe in Cleveland Jewish News.
The Land: “Two vacant Cleveland school buildings will become apartment buildings”
For years, Cleveland residents and city council members have complained that the Cleveland Metropolitan School District has closed school buildings without a plan for maintaining, mothballing, or redeveloping them, writes Lee Chilcote in The Land. Many sit empty for years, if not decades.
The Plain Dealer: “Project to preserve and re-use Park Synagogue in Cleveland Heights gains momentum, and nearly $3M in grants”
The future of Park Synagogue’s Conservative Jewish congregation lies in Pepper Pike, where it is expanding a new religious and educational campus established in 2007 at Shaker Boulevard and Brainard Road – writes Steven Litt in the Plain Dealer.
In Our Backyard: MetroHealth Main Campus Transformation Project
If you follow the Historic Scranton Corridor past The Tappan and Wagner Awning, you’ll eventually come to MetroHealth System’s main campus—which is currently undergoing a significant transformation. The hospital’s campus is nearing the finish line for the first phase of its transformation project, which adds an 11-floor hospital known as the Glick Center to the campus.
The Land: “West 17th Townhomes in Tremont will include terraced “park walk” open to all”
A proposed development from Sustainable Community Associates on West 17th Street in Tremont won high praise from the Cleveland Planning Commission for its elegant, contemporary design and incorporation of a landscaped “park walk” open to the public, writes Lee Chilcote in The Land.
The Plain Dealer: Park Synagogue, Mendelsohn Masterpiece, Awarded to SCA
THE PLAIN DEALER Park Synagogue, Mendelsohn Masterpiece, Awarded to SCA Park Synagogue alarmed historic preservationists and fans of mid-century modern architecture earlier this year when it listed its main…
NOVOGRADAC: “Implementing Green Building Practices with Historic Preservation Requires Complicated Balance”
An enduring challenge with historic tax credit-financed (HTC-financed) properties is a high-wire act of balancing green building practices with opportunities to restore, preserve, reconstruct and rehabilitate existing structures, writes Nick Decicco for NOVOGRADAC’s Journal of Tax Credits.
FreshWater: “The Lincoln will have living façade”
While the team at Sustainable Community Associates (SCA) is usually known for repurposing historic Cleveland buildings into hip apartments, writes Karin Connelly Rice for FreshWater, the developers are well into their second new construction, and latest, apartment project—The Lincoln at the corner of Scranton Road and Willey Avenue in Tremont—just across the way from their 2014 Fairmont Creamery project down the street from their last new-construction project, The Tappan, completed last year.
The Plain Dealer: “Fairmont Creamery developer nears finish line on latest project”
More than 80 new apartment units are slated to rise in a part of Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood, writes Jordyn Grzelewski for The Plain Dealer, where real-estate group Sustainable Community Associates has developed a sizable portfolio of rental housing, offices and retail space.
Cleveland.com: “Historic electric building reinvented”
Before it became an apartment complex, writes Anne Nickoloff for Cleveland.com, the Mueller Electric building was the working place of Cleveland electrical engineer Ralph S. Mueller.
FreshWater: “Mueller Lofts will offer historic apartments”
A piece of Cleveland’s manufacturing history will be honored, writes Karin Connelly Rice for FreshWater, when the 1922 Mueller Electric Company factory building at 1587 E. 31st St. is transformed into Mueller Lofts—51 studio, one-, two-, and three- bedroom apartments in the heart of AsiaTown. In addition to creating a new residential option in the neighborhood, the developers will offer residents a way to have a portion of their rents go back into the community via a volunteer program.
The Plain Dealer: “Tremont project The Tappan includes apartments, bakery”
A local developer plans to build on its previous work in Tremont, writes Jordyn Grzelewski for The Plain Dealer, with a mixed-use, mixed-income project in the near West Side neighborhood’s Scranton corridor.
Sustainable Community Associates, a development group made up of three Oberlin College graduates who made a name for themselves by successfully redeveloping a blighted block in their college town, will present plans for The Tappan project to Tremont’s community development corporation next week.
FreshWater: “Scranton listed on National Register of Historic Places”
An area of town heretofore dwarfed by the venerable Ohio City and Tremont neighborhoods is on the verge of getting a brand of its own, writes Erin O’Brien for FreshWater. Last month, the historic preservation consulting firm Naylor Wellman, LLC, presented a 120-page nomination to the Ohio Historic Site Preservation Advisory Board for the Scranton South Side Historic District to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Crain’s Cleveland: “Area’s latest industrial rehab project”
The $15 million Fairmont Creamery rehab represents one of Cleveland’s latest creative reuses of an abandoned industrial building rich in history, writes Kathy Ames Carr for Crain’s Cleveland.
The five-story brick structure — constructed in 1930 as a national distribution hub for dairy products — has been repurposed from its recent largely abandoned state into a 106,000-square-foot, mixed-used project featuring residential and commercial space, and parking.
