New York Life to Leave Lakewood for Downtown Cleveland

New York Life currently located at 14600 Detroit Ave. in Lakewood plans to move their Cleveland operations and 350 jobs to downtown Cleveland.

New York Life revealed their destination in downtown Cleveland to Crain's Cleveland Business, they will be moving to the former BP building at 200 Public Square.

The plans to move at the end of 2016 made sense when building owner, Brad Kowit revealed that he had plans to convert 11 floors of office space in Lakewood Center North to apartments.

New York Life spokeswoman, Theresa Wolcott told Crain's Cleveland Business “In this case, our expanding business required higher quality business space. To meet this need and stay in Cleveland, which we are committed to doing, New York Life is moving to new office space in downtown Cleveland. The new space provides the updated work environment we needed for our employees, access to the amenities of downtown Cleveland and room to add jobs in the years ahead.”

According to Dru Siley, Lakewood's planning and development director, New York Life was looking for amenities such as an attached cafeteria and a fitness center which the Cleveland location has. Siley went on to tell Crain's that “Their big concern was that they could not find a Class A building in Lakewood with all the amenities."

Siley also said that New York Life was offered "a seat at the table" for planning offices at the site of the now closed Lakewood Hospital across the street. New York Life didn't want to wait and moved forward with plans to move to 200 Public Square reported Crain's.

When the subject of Lakewood Center North's conversion to apartments came up, Siley told Crain's, “This is an exciting opportunity, market rate units in a high-rise are not available in our downtown. It’s important for Lakewood to have a diverse range of rental options.”