As U.S. Multifamily Construction Hits a Six-Year Low, One of Cleveland's Largest Residential Projects Is Delivering Anyway

Belle Oaks Marketplace, the $300 million redevelopment of the former Richmond Town Square mall, began construction when the financing math still worked. Its developer says the projects breaking ground today face a very different equation, and affluent renters will feel the consequences.

CLEVELAND, June 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- New federal data shows U.S. multifamily construction has fallen off a cliff. According to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, multifamily starts dropped 40.2 percent in May to an annualized pace of 295,000 units, down 14.2 percent from a year earlier, as overall housing starts hit a six-year low. Industry analysts have described the figures as a real-time stress test of how far today's financing costs can push apartment development before the math stops working.

Against that national backdrop, Belle Oaks Marketplace, the $300 million, 70-acre mixed-use district rising on the site of the former Richmond Town Square mall in suburban Cleveland, is moving ahead on schedule. The project will deliver 798 luxury residences across a phased construction plan, with the first residential building expected to be ready for occupancy in October 2026.

"We started Belle Oaks when the financing math still worked," said Sterling McGregor, President and Co-Founder of DealPoint Merrill, the project's developer. "We are completing it as that same math has broken for projects trying to break ground today. There is a hard lesson in that about which buildings actually get built in this environment, and which ones stay on the drawing board. Our first residences come online this October. The developments competing to start now will not deliver for years, if they pencil at all."

The May data carried a regional split that favors the Midwest. While the South and West saw new construction fall by roughly 17 percent and the Northeast declined nearly 27 percent, the Midwest was the only region where overall housing starts rose month-over-month, and it leads the nation in year-to-date residential permit growth. For developers and renters alike, the implication is the same: the supply of new luxury rental housing is contracting nationally, and the projects already under construction are becoming materially scarcer.

McGregor argues the consequence will land on consumers before it lands on the trade press.

"The forty percent drop in multifamily starts is not really a real estate story. It is a consumer story," McGregor said. "Affluent renters in markets like ours are about to discover that the buildings they would actually choose to live in were started two years ago, and there are not many of them. When new supply contracts this sharply, the developments already coming out of the ground are not just early. They are, for a while, the only option."

Belle Oaks Marketplace is positioned for the affluent east-side Cleveland market, including Beachwood, Shaker Heights, Pepper Pike, and the surrounding communities. The project, designed by Cleveland-based Bialosky, centers on a walkable street grid, 24 acres of open space including a five-acre nature park, a 159,000-square-foot Meijer Grocery Supercenter that opened in May 2025, and the Sterling Club, a private residents' club designed for hospitality, wellness, and resident-hosted business meetings.

The project broke ground following the demolition of the shuttered Richmond Town Square mall, which closed in 2021 after fifty-five years of operation. Belle Oaks is one of the largest mixed-use residential developments currently under construction in the Cleveland market.

"The Midwest is showing more resilience than the rest of the country in this cycle, and that is not an accident," McGregor said. "We are building where the cost structure, the labor market, and the demand profile still align. I expect that regional advantage to become a much louder story over the next eighteen months, and Cleveland's east side is one of the places it will be most visible."

About Belle Oaks Marketplace

Belle Oaks Marketplace is a $300 million, 70-acre mixed-use lifestyle district in Cleveland's east side, designed around the conviction that the best places integrate where people live, eat, shop, walk, and gather. Developed by DealPoint Merrill and designed by Bialosky Architecture, the project features 798 luxury residences, 24 acres of open space, a 5-acre nature park, a 159,000-square-foot Meijer Grocery Supercenter, more than 120,000 square feet of restaurants and daily-needs retail along a walkable street grid, and the Sterling Club, a hospitality-grade private residents' club designed for unwinding, entertaining, and conducting business without leaving home. Built on the site of the former Richmond Town Square mall, Belle Oaks is one of Northeast Ohio's most ambitious examples of hospitality-inspired suburban placemaking. Live where your lifestyle lives. Learn more at belleoaksmarketplace.com.

SOURCE Belle Oaks Marketplace