Dealer Tire eyes new Cleveland HQ

By Jay Miller, Crain News Service

CLEVELAND (Nov. 18, 2015) — Dealer Tire L.L.C. reportedly is moving its headquarters in Cleveland, but not very far.

Dealer Tire's new home will be the Victory Center, a four-story, 166,000-sq.-ft. building on Euclid Avenue about a mile east of the wholesale tire distributor's decades-old home on Cleveland's near east side. That structure is unoccupied.

The company, which specializes in supplying tires to new-car dealerships, is getting help from the city of Cleveland in the form of $6.5 million in loans and grants.

Dealer Tire had been rumored to be looking at sites in Independence, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb, and Indiana as well as Cleveland's midtown area. Those rumors were confirmed by legislation introduced Nov. 16 to Cleveland City Council.

One piece of legislation would authorize a $1 million grant to Dealer Tire to partially finance the company's relocation. Other legislation describes $5.5 million in grants loans to assist the building owner, Victory Midtown L.L.C., with the move and with improvements to the building, and to construct an adjacent parking garage to accommodate what is eventually expected to be 600 Dealer Tire employees.

Dealer Tire was the name given to the wholesale business retained by the Scott and Dean Mueller after their family sold its Mueller Tire & Brake retail tire business in 2002 to TBC Corp.'s Tire Kingdom subsidiary.

Earlier this year in a Cleveland Plain Dealer article, Dealer Tire CEO Scott Mueller described the company as the second-largest distributor of tires in the U.S. in announcing a $20 million donation he was making to the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Neither Mueller brother nor other Dealer Tire officials were available for comment. Rico Pietro, the real estate broker with Cresco Real Estate, which has been representing the owner in leasing the building, declined to comment.

The legislation — which still must be reviewed and passed by two Cleveland city council committees before it comes before city council for final approval — includes two $1 million grants to help finance the company's move and for improvements to the building. The assistance also includes tax increment financing and $4.5 million in loans to finance the cost of any demolition and asbestos removal as well as the planned parking garage.

Realtors Cushman & Wakefield describe the Victory Center as converted warehouse office space that is LEED-certified and includes medical space, lab space and areas amenable to research and biomedical organizations.

Built originally in 1917, the former Arts Building has been vacant since 2005 and was renovated from 2012 to 2014 to its current configuration.

Dealer Tire invested $15 million in 2006 to renovate its existing headquarters, a project that included relocating warehousing to separate locations.

This report appeared on the website of Crain's Cleveland Business magazine, a Cleveland-based sister publication of Tire Business.