Legacy Village, Lyndhurst, Ohio

Legacy Village, a lifestyle center that opened in Lyndhurst, Ohio, an eastern suburb of Cleveland, in 2003, occupies a modest portion of what was once Franchester, the wooded park-like estate of renowned United States congresswoman Frances Payne Bolton. Remaining portions of that estate are occupied by the private Hawken School and the former headquarters of TRW, Inc. (now devoted to various offices of The Cleveland Clinic).

Developed by First Interstate Properties (also of Lyndhurst), Legacy Village is situated on 67 acres bounded by Cedar Road and Richmond Road. The project’s initial 610,000 square feet (of which 96% was retail area) are now occupied by such tenants as Crate & Barrel, Dick's, L.L. Bean, Loft, Soma, Chico's, Pier 1 Imports , Arhaus, Ethan Allen, Joseph A. Bank, Talbot's, Nordstrom Rack, Coldwater Creek, and a Giant Eagle foodstore, among others. Enhancing the projects appeal are such restaurants as The Cheesecake Factory, The Capital Grille, Starbucks, Wild Mango, Granite City Brewery, Bar Louie, Chipotle, The Melting Pot, and Brio Tuscan Grille. Valet parking (within congested lots and a byzantine network of drives) serves the project and its restaurants, while light entertainment at the development’s modest central ‘town square’ livens weekend evenings and special events.

The more recent opening of Hyatt Place Legacy Village further anchored the lifestyle center and diversified its tenant mix.

The architecture of Legacy Village is heavily tricked out with offsets, material and color changes, ornate details, pseudo-French Normandy influences, and gingerbread embellishments with a gentrified upscale visual appeal. The end result is a somewhat haphazard, though picturesque, effect. However, the ‘anchors’ of Crate & Barrel, Cheesecake Factory, The Capital Grille, Giant Eagle, and Hyatt Place each depart from the village style to assert their own individual identities. To make the parallel-parked interior streets more tolerable to both auto and pedestrian throughout biting Cleveland winters, pavements are heated to melt fallen snow and ice.

While Legacy Village draws from a significant and fairly affluent trade area to its east and southeast, it also competes with the nearby La Place boutique center and Beachwood Mall, both in adjacent Beachwood, Ohio, as well as Eton on Chagrin, a mere few miles away along the interstate, and Pinecrest, just recently opened at Harvard Road and Interstate 271 to the southeast. And, while the lifestyle center clearly offers attractive retail options for area residents, there are many who miss the unspoiled and wooded pastoral beauty of the former Bolton Estate, and rue the significant traffic congestion occasioned by the project.