Modular Housing Manufacturer to Redevelop Historic Factory in Cleveland
Hulett ore unloaders made in Cleveland were once in use throughout the lower Great Lakes. Photo courtesy Library of Congress
CLEVELAND—A historic factory here that once built huge material handling machines is being redeveloped by a modular housing manufacturer. MMY US Inc. has acquired a vacant building that housed the Wellman-Seaver-Morgan Engineering Co., a firm that specialized in making equipment for mines and steel mills.
Its most famous product was the Hulett unloader, which revolutionized iron ore shipping on the lower Great Lakes. The giant machines were once a common site at ports and steel mills in Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Toledo and elsewhere (see photo above). Each electrically powered device used a giant bucket to unload up to 1,000 tons an hour from ships such as the legendary Edmund Fitzgerald.
MMY US is a subsidiary of a British company that specializes in turnkey multifamily housing units. It claims that its modular products are affordable and sustainable.
The 13-year-old company uses a cold-formed steel process that enables it to slash average construction time. Because more than 80 percent of the work is done offsite, MMY claims that new homes can be delivered in just 16 weeks.
According to Robin Bartram Brown, CEO of MMY US, the company’s investment “will support the City of Cleveland’s Housing Innovation District, a focused strategy…designed to accelerate housing production through modern zoning, incentivized permitting, innovative construction techniques and infrastructure investments.”
Founded by Samuel Wellman, inventor of the first open-hearth furnace in the United States, and John Seaver, Wellman-Seaver-Morgan occupied the historic facility on the east side of Cleveland until 1978. The company earned an international reputation for engineering some of the largest material handling systems ever built, including the Hulett unloaders.
The 185,000-square-foot building has been vacant since 2007.
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