By Alyssa Schmitt
In Shaker Heights – a city renowned for its rich history and timeless architecture – a new chapter is being written in glass and concrete with RAYE. The 199-foot new luxury apartment complex illuminates the hustle and bustle of the Van Aken District, and brings a unique opportunity for high-rise living to the east side.
Still under construction, the 227-unit complex is set to open in September. It’s phase two of the Van Aken District development plan conducted by RMS Developers. The complex boasts luxury amenities like a full-service concierge, heated saltwater pool, fitness facility, private yoga studio and treatment rooms, and ground-floor and eighth-floor lounges.
The complex is comprised of three types of apartments: standard, the least expensive starting at $1,500 monthly, will have one to two bedrooms; premium units will have two to three bedrooms, starting at $5,400 a month; and penthouse, the most expensive set at $12,000 a month, will have three to four bedrooms. The apartment units range from 650 to 3,200 square feet.
Jon Ratner, principal at RMS Developers, says each apartment style speaks to the finishings of the unit and the size, but the distinguishing characteristic is the placement of the units in the building. This makes the premium and penthouse units sit higher up, capitalizing on the expansive views and natural light. The elevated position allows residents to enjoy panoramic vistas of the cityscape, Lake Erie and Shaker Heights Country Club’s golf course across the street.
Due to a heavy influx of inquiries, leasing for the premium and penthouse units became available earlier than planned, Ratner tells Jstyle. All seven of the penthouses have been claimed – including one by Ratner, who plans to move into the complex – and about half of the 35 premium units have signed tenants.
“We’ve had an overwhelming amount of interest in this building from early on,” says Ratner, who is a congregant at Park Synagogue in Pepper Pike. “Architecturally, it’s different. But it’s just a unique housing option, particularly for the east side.”
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE VAN AKEN DISTRICT
Ratner and his family have owned the area containing the Van Aken District since Albert Ratner purchased it in 1955 – then on four acres of land. It started off as a plaza shopping center.
The idea to re-energize the area started in 2012, when Shaker Heights knew it wanted a new city center, Ratner explains, and the family business was familiar with building mixed-use town centers. A planning period took place with input from the community as to what that would look like, and demolition started in November 2016.
The Van Aken District reopened in October 2018, marking its first phase. That phase included restaurants, stores, offices and Upstairs at Van Aken, a 103-unit apartment complex.
Ratner says the redevelopment of Shaker’s Van Aken District was done in partnership with the city, adding that the city was the true catalyst in many ways.
“To do great public-private partnerships, you truly need a spirit of collaboration, and we’ve had that,” he says. “The goal was to create a new downtown for Shaker. … And I’m hoping the new building can just add to the sense of that.”
A LIGHT, MODERN DESIGN
Since the beginning of the Van Aken District development, the plan was to take the open lot on Farnsleigh Road and build an apartment during phase two of the process, says Ratner.
The question then became how tall the building would have to be to contain about 250 units on two-and-a-half acres of land, while fitting in a suburban community like Shaker. The answer came from architectural firm SCB, based in Chicago, which designed a complex with two towers – one with 18 floors and the other with 15 – with two bridges connecting the buildings. The bridges are not passageways but rather units that offer floor-to-ceiling windows on both sides.
This creates a hole-in-the-middle concept, allowing the building to capture light and the essence of space, providing the desired density and urbanity while maintaining an ethereal, light-filled aesthetic. This design enables the building to gracefully reflect its surroundings as sunlight filters through a canopy, not overshadowing its neighbors.
“The building doesn’t feel so imposing and so massive – it’s got this lightness to it,” Ratner says.
The complex’s name was carefully chosen to reflect that same feeling of lightness and transparency the building evokes.
“We want the building to always live with a sense of lightness and openness,” Ratner explains. “RAYE speaks to rays of light. (It) could be sunlight bouncing off the building, it could be moonlight kind of casting light onto the building, it could be light emanating from the building and glowing outward.”
While not setting out to change Shaker’s cityscape, the complex inevitably did so by becoming the tallest building in the city. Previously, that notability had gone to Tower East on Chagrin Boulevard, which is 12 stories.
The grandeur of the building begins to set in once one ascends to the eighth floor, where views of downtown Cleveland start to come into sight. Ratner says the full effect takes place on floors 10 and up, once a complete view of downtown and Lake Erie appears.
“Being in a suburb in the way Shaker is located, we don’t really have very many options particularly from a housing perspective to be so high up and look back upon the city and see these great views kind of unfolding before us,” Ratner says.
When SCB set out to find a design to anchor the building into the city while also establishing a modern element, the firm drew inspiration from the Tudor homes in the surrounding neighborhood. These homes are characterized by their distinctive black and white patterns, created through a combination of dark wooden beams and light stucco walls. In a nod to this aesthetic, SCB adapted this design pattern for the new apartment complex by incorporating glass panels and using mullions to frame it in a similar, Tudor-like style.
“What we tried to do is use modern materials and modern execution but in a very pared-down way,” Ratner says. “There’s not a lot of embellishment, there’s not a lot of extra detail for extra detail sake. It’s clean. It’s simple. It’s meant to be elegant. It’s meant to be crystally and again goes back to the name, RAYE.”
A DOWNSIZING OPTION
Shaker Heights is known as a “garden city,” Ratner says, meaning it is predominantly residential and parks are easily walkable. However, the city’s large number of homes has created a scenario where people are aging in place and now considering downsizing.
“While Shaker is known for its housing, it becomes very hard to move out,” Ratner says. “It becomes these legacy assets for people, and it’s like, where do you go next?”
RAYE could serve as that next move for adults entering their next stage of life and wanting to downsize into an amenity-filled apartment. And as those individuals leave their houses, it gives younger families the option to move into a Shaker house and re-energize the city, Ratner says.
“This has given us an outlet,” Ratner says. “It’s sort of taking the pressure off a little bit of the housing stock in Shaker because we can sort of help those people downsize out of their current homes and help a whole new cohort of people move into the city.”
One such future RAYE resident is Sonya Vogel, a congregant of Park Synagogue who plans to move into a penthouse on the 17th floor with her husband, Mark, in September.
Vogel explains that she and her husband recently became empty nesters when their youngest child went off to school, and they wanted to shift away from managing a house but didn’t want to leave Shaker Heights, where they’ve lived for 25 years.
“We love Shaker,” she says. “We’ve been here for a couple of decades. We love the diversity of it. We wanted to stay in an area that was close to restaurants. … RAYE was the perfect place for us.”
The couple is already familiar with high-rise living from their apartment in Florida where they spend winters, Vogel says.
“We’ve already kind of experienced that easier living experience and we really enjoyed it,” she says, adding they’ll be spending longer chunks of time in Florida so they wouldn’t be using their house as much.
She says they were also interested in the complex because of its high-end offerings, providing all the amenities they need.
“There’s nothing quite like Van Aken in this area,” she says. “For me, I wanted a brand new, high-end building with the specific amenities that RAYE is offering.”