Valleyview Homes, now Tremont Pointe, was originally built in 1939 in the Tremont neighborhood, overlooking

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

's industrial valley. As one of the country's oldest

public housing Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...

estates, the original design was a

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

barrack style layout with small units lacking contemporary amenities and was separated by 72 vertical steps. In addition, the site was adorned with a large number of

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

(WPA) artwork. By 2004, Valleyview Homes had become one of CMHA's most distressed public housing estates, and some of the art was badly damaged.

Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority The Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) is a governmental organization responsible for the ownership and management of low-income housing property in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The organization was founded in 1933, making it the first hou ...

, in partnership with City Architecture, redeveloped Tremont Pointe as the first multi-family green development in the

State of Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

under the Enterprise Green Communities Initiative. The project was designed to integrate a previously separated estate into its surrounding community using innovative site planning and design structure.

Green building Green building (also known as green construction or sustainable building) refers to both a structure and the application of processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from planni ...

practices employed in this project have created energy efficient units, easing financial and environmental burdens. Partnering with

Intermuseum Conservation Association The Intermuseum Conservation Association ( doing business as ICA-Art Conservation or ICA) is the oldest non-profit art conservation center in the United States, currently located in Cleveland, OH. The ICA offers conservation and preservation tre ...

(ICA) Art Conservation, CMHA preserved, restored and reintroduced the artwork into the new construction.

Construction

Tremont Pointe was a two-phase

HOPE VI HOPE VI is a program of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. It is intended to revitalize the worst public housing projects in the United States into mixed-income developments. Its philosophy is largely based on New Urban ...

redevelopment project designed to integrate a previously separated community into its surrounding community using innovative

site planning A site plan or a plot plan is a type of drawing used by architects, landscape architects, urban planners, and engineers which shows existing and proposed conditions for a given area, typically a parcel of land which is to be modified. Sites plan ...

and design structures. One of the first public housing developments, Valleyview Homes, now known as Tremont Pointe, was originally built in 1939. The new, mixed-income development is a 189-unit property.

Amenities

Tremont Pointe has the following green amenities: home energy rating systems, green-label carpet, low volatile paints, formaldehyde-free composite woods, walkable neighborhood with access to transportation and services.

Recognition

Tremont Pointe was selected as a Building of America Award project and was featured as a Gold Medal Winner. It was also recognized with an Award of Excellence by the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO).

References

{{Reflist Housing in the United States Geography of Cleveland