Commercial Locksmith in Cleveland, OH

Warehouse District buildings and their doors

Cleveland's Warehouse District covers eight blocks north and west of Superior Avenue and West 3rd Street. According to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, wholesale grocers and dry goods and tool suppliers filled buildings put up mostly in the 1870s and 1880s, and from the 1980s many were rehabilitated for uses from residential lofts to offices.

A converted building like that can put several kinds of doors under one roof:

• a street entrance shared by residents and office tenants
• suite doors, each leased to a different business
• rear, service and mailroom doors

Sort out which of these your business controls under its lease, since a shared entrance usually needs the owner's or manager's sign-off. Tremont, an industrial and residential neighborhood on the near west side, mixes both uses too, so say whether your door is a storefront, a shop entrance or a shared entry.

Landmark review for storefront and egress doors

The city named the Warehouse District a Cleveland Landmark District in 1982. Under Section 161.05 of the Codified Ordinances, an environmental change to property in a designated district needs a Landmarks Commission certificate of appropriateness. The commission's design review page lists egress doors, along with windows, among the changes that count as exterior work and need review, while Section 161.07 leaves room for ordinary maintenance or repair that keeps an exterior feature's design and outer appearance the same. Rekeying works on the inside of an existing lock; replacing an entrance door or its exterior hardware is a question for the commission's office first. This is general information, not legal advice.

Staff and tenant turnover

Offices and shops change hands, and so do the people holding their keys. When an employee leaves without returning a key or a new tenant takes over a suite, rekeying retires every old key while the hardware stays. A business with frequent turnover may move to a master key system, where each person carries only the keys for their area. Keep a written list of who holds which key.

Ohio Locksmith Pros takes requests from businesses in Cleveland. For commercial locksmith work, send the building and suite, which doors are involved, who controls each, whether the property is in a landmark district and how many keys are out. See lock rekeying and Cleveland for more.