File:Republic Building and Cleveland Thermal coal steam plant - 2015-08-22 (20356212354).jpg

The Republic Building (foreground) and Cleveland Thermal plant (smokestack) on "Collision Bend" of the Cuyahoga River in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.

The Republic Building is part of the Tower City complex of buildings. Also known as the Terminal Tower complex, and the Landmark Office Towers, the complex is dominated by Terminal Tower. The 52-story Terminal Tower was built by the Van Sweringen brothers from 1926 to 1927 to serve as an office building atop the brothers' Cleveland Union Terminal (a "union" railroad and streetcar station). The complex was designed by the firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst, and White.

Three massive office buildings were constructed adjacent to Terminal Tower/Union Terminal from 1927 to 1928: The Medical Arts Building, the Builders Exchange Building, and the Midland Building. In 1936, Republic Steel moved its headquarters into the Medical Arts Building, and the structure was renamed the Republic Building. Republic Steel merged with LTV Corporation in 1984, after which the building was called the LTV Building. In 2000, LTV Steel declared bankruptcy and was purchased by billionaire Wilbur Ross. Ross merged LTV with Weirton Steel to create the International Steel Group (ISG). ISG vacated the offices in the building, and the name reverted to the Republic Building.

The Cleveland Union Terminal Co. was incorporated by the Van Sweringens to construct and operate Union Terminal, while Terminal Tower and its associated office buildings were owned by the Cleveland Terminals Building Co. (CTB). Investors in the Cleveland Union Terminal Co. were the railroads and streetcar systems which used the station (the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway, also known as the "Big Four"; the New York Central; and the Nickel Plate).

In 1936, the Van Sweringen railroad and real estate empire went bankrupt under the pressures generated by the Great Depression. Reorganization took nearly a decade. The Terminal Tower Company (owned by Columbus real estate investor John W. Galbreath) was incorporated in March 1943 to take control of Terminal Tower from the CTB. This transfer was finally approved in June 1946. The Terminal Tower Company sold the property to Cleveland Terminal Property Inc. (owned by the Sixty Trust, the pension fund for Textron, Inc.) in 1950. Another subsidiary, the CLS Building Company, was formed in 1952 to take control of the property. CLS Building Company was taken over by a syndicate headed by Broadway investor Roger L. Stevens in 1956. On May 23, 1959, a new company -- also named Terminal Tower Company -- was formed by Cleveland Terminal Properties, IMM Inc., Robert K. Lifton Inc., and Cleopatra Investments, Ltd. (a Canadian company). (New York City investor Robert Lifton owned his own company, while IMM was owned by NYC investor Ira J. Hechler. Cleopatra Investments was owned by Toronto investors Monty Simmonds and Lawrence G. Candler.) CLS became a subisidary of TTC. On September 25, 1964, U.S. Realty purchased Terminal Twoer from TTC/CLS. It purchased the three associated buildings in September 1978, November 1982, and December 1982.

In 1972, U.S. Realty purchased Union Terminal from the Cleveland Union Terminal Co. (by this time, 71 percent owned by the Penn Central Railroad -- which had purchased or merged with most of the previous owners).

Forest City bought the entire Terminal Tower complex from U.S. Realty in 1980.

Cleveland Thermal is a relic of the early 1900s, when cities believed it was more economical to have a central plant providing steam heat and air-conditioning via vast underground networks of pipes. Cleveland Thermal has more than 20 miles of pipe beneath downtown Cleveland, and as of 2015 provided heat and cooling to more than 125 buildings.

The Canal Road plant is Cleveland Thermal's heat generating station. It can produce 450,000 pounds per hour of 150 psig steam for distribution. It sold the plant to the Corix Group, a privately held Canadian company, in August 2015. Corix Group will tear the plant down, and use its natural gas-fired plant at East 18th and Lakeside to provide heat to customers.