The 9 Cleveland is a residential and commercial complex located in Downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, at the corner of East Ninth Street and Euclid Avenue. It includes three buildings, the largest of which is a 29-story, 383ft tower commonly known by its previous name of Ameritrust Tower and formerly known as the Cleveland Trust Tower. The tower was completed in 1971 and is an example of brutalist architecture, the only high-rise building designed by Marcel Breuer and Hamilton Smith. The complex also includes the adjacent Cleveland Trust Company Building, completed in 1908, and the Swetland Building.Although plans called for a second mirror-image tower, the second building was never constructed. The Breuer tower initially served as headquarters for Ameritrust Bank before its merger with Society Bank. Society Bank has since merged with Key Bank. The tower was vacant from 1996 until September 2014, before it was converted to apartments and a hotel as part of a larger project involving the other buildings in the complex. The space also includes a wine cellar and restaurant, with a rooftop restaurant opening in 2015. The rotunda was renovated and reopened as a Heinen's Fine Foods grocery store in 2015 and the Swetland Building was restored for residential use.Ameritrust Tower 1997 proposalIn 1990, developer Richard Jacobs proposed constructing a new tower for the AmeriTrust Corporation on Cleveland's Public Square. About $500 million was budgeted for the project. The Architectural firm of Kohn Pedersen Fox or KPF of New York City would have designed the new AmeriTrust Tower. Coincidentally, KPF would have designed the new Cuyahoga County Administration Building which was planned in the late 2000s to replace the Ameritrust Tower (built in 1971). In 1992, Ameritrust merged with Society Bank (now KeyBank), obviating the need for the Ameritrust Tower. Had the Ameritrust Tower been built, The Tower was planned to have a curved glass curtain wall, a Hyatt Hotel, and high-end shopping including Giorgio Armani and Versace as anchor tenants.
