Dive Brief:
- Cleveland-based Sherwin-Williams is adding another delay to a list of problems that have plagued the construction of its forthcoming headquarters, according to local media reports.
- The opening ceremony, originally slated for March 12, has been pushed back to Oct. 22 due to delays in construction, according to Cleveland Magazine. Fire protectant wasn’t sufficiently applied to the building’s structural steel, the magazine reported, and the construction team was performing rework on the project as of Feb. 6.
- A joint venture of Akron, Ohio-based Welty Construction and Providence, Rhode Island-based Gilbane Building Co. is leading construction on the headquarters and a new research and development facility in Brecksville, a suburb of Cleveland. Gilbane declined to comment on the developments and referred questions to Sherwin-Williams.
Dive Insight:
Sherwin-Williams, which makes intumescent coatings used for fire protection of steel in some beam assemblies, said that a third-party certification provider changed its listing for one of these protective coating products in July 2024, according to Julie Young, vice president of global corporate communications for the company. As a result, the coating’s applied thickness that’s necessary to achieve certain fire ratings increased.
“Sherwin-Williams has been working proactively with stakeholders to ensure that all applicable fire ratings are met in our new facilities,” Young said.
The 1 million-square-foot headquarters comprises three buildings, according to Sherwin-Williams — a two-story pavilion that will act like a front porch to downtown Cleveland’s Public Square park, a 36-floor office tower and a multilevel parking garage.
This isn’t the headquarters’ first delay. In March 2024, the local NeoTrans blog, which covers Northeast Ohio economic news, reported that the headquarters’ opening was pushed indefinitely into 2025. Following that news, Sherwin-Williams set the grand opening for March, NeoTrans reported in January. NeoTrans noted that while the date was set, occupancy of the structure was still up in the air as crews worked to complete repairs.
Sherwin-Williams committed a minimum of $600 million for both the HQ and the R&D facility, per a 2021 news release, while the headquarters section of the project was originally slated for a cost of $300 million, Cleveland Magazine reported in March 2022. Sherwin-Williams said in a Dec. 2022 newsletter it was updating the cost to $750 million.
