Cleveland City Hall is moving to grab one of the West Side’s most argued-over corners, proposing a $635,000 purchase of the long-vacant CVS at 10022 Madison Avenue as a possible site for a new fire station. The offer lands in the middle of a yearslong neighborhood fight over whether the property should become a gas station and retail plaza, even as its owner, Shaker Madison LLC, insists the building is not for sale and says no agreement has been reached.
According to Cleveland.com, the administration is introducing legislation that would authorize the $635,000 purchase. City records show the same parcel was the subject of a February 2025 letter of intent offering $1,025,000, a much higher figure. The new, lower proposal comes as officials try to nail down options for replacing aging Fire Station 23.
Shaker Madison bought the former CVS in late 2023 for roughly $575,000, and a company representative told Cleveland Scene the owner has spent more than $1 million acquiring the building and related assets. That purchase price, along with the owner’s claimed investment, has sat at the center of tense back-and-forth between the city and the developer.
Developer’s gas-station plan and denial
Last year, the company floated a plan to carve up the site into a service station, a Papa John’s and a bank, a setup that immediately set off neighbors who warned it would clog traffic and plaster tobacco and alcohol ads near a school and the neighborhood rec center. The Board of Zoning Appeals denied the variance in mid‑2024, and Shaker Madison responded by challenging that decision in court, according to Signal Cleveland.
Design filings and alternate uses
Since then, the owner has submitted design and landmark filings to divide the vacant store into multiple tenant spaces and strip the gas-station component from the project. That sequence of applications could still move to design review and then on to the planning commission, keeping the corner in play while residents lobby for something different, Cleveland Scene reports…