Tower City Center - Cleveland Union Terminal Becomes Tower City

Cleveland Union Terminal Becomes Tower City

Amtrak's short-lived Lake Shore served Union Terminal for seven months in 1971, but the railroad found the rents prohibitive and when the new Lake Shore Limited began in 1975 Amtrak chose to construct a new station on Lake Erie just north of the downtown. The former Erie railroad commuter service, ultimately inherited by Conrail, was discontinued on Jan. 14, 1977, ending the facility's use as a train station. However, the three rapid transit lines – which by 1975 were all controlled by the newly created Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority – continued service.

Most of the platform area was demolished in the late 1980s renovation of the building. The station area itself was converted by Forest City Enterprises into a mall and food court known as The Avenue, which opened in 1990. As part of the renovation, RTA rebuilt its rapid transit station beneath the center. The rest of the platform area was turned into a parking garage for the new complex. The complex was renamed Tower City Center in 1991. When it opened, the mall housed many high-end retailers, including Bally of Switzerland, Barneys New York, Fendi, Gucci, Versace, and even had a letter of intent from Neiman Marcus to build a 120,000-square foot anchor store in 1992. Over the following 17 years, many of those shops were replaced by more modest stores, some of them local retailers.

In 1991, two new 11-story office towers, the Skylight Office Tower and the Chase Financial Tower, were added. The Chase Building houses Cleveland's Ritz-Carlton Hotel and The Skylight Office Tower houses the Hard Rock Cafe. After the completion of the nearby Gateway project in 1994, RTA built an indoor walkway connecting Tower City to the complex. A second walkway was built in 2002 to connect Tower City with the Carl B. Stokes U.S. Courthouse.

Higbee's (by then bought by Dillard's) closed its department store in the complex in January 2002. Positively Cleveland (formerly the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Greater Cleveland) and the Greater Cleveland Partnership (the local chamber of commerce) opened offices in the Higbee Building in 2007. Until recently, the Cleveland Plus Visitors Center occupied the first floor. Now, the first four floors are occupied by the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland, which opened on May 14, 2012.

In 2001, Time Warner Cable Amphitheater opened as an outdoor stage along the Cuyahoga River near the Tower City Complex. A site on the Cuyahoga River side of the complex was proposed as a location for a new Cleveland convention center, but in January 2009 the Cuyahoga County Commissioners decided to redevelop the existing facility.