Cleveland's CMBS market runs to $2.1 billion across 99 loans, and the weight sits squarely on office. At $630 million it is the metro's largest book, and it is also the most troubled: a 35.5% distress rate against an 11.3% national mark — a status the servicer has already declared, either special servicing or 60-plus days delinquent, not a projection. The overall book carries a 22.5% distress rate, and the filed record has been rising, reaching 21.8% as of July 2026.
The refinancing calendar is front-loaded toward the end of the decade. The heaviest maturity load lands in 2029, at $553 million, or 27% of the book. Median debt-service coverage across the market stands at 1.47.
The strain shows up on the ground as well: 30 distress events over the past year — store closures and layoff notices — accounting for 804 jobs. That runs alongside a metro unemployment rate of 3.1% as of July 2026, down 1.2 points year over year, with office-using employment of 195,211 flat over the same span.
Cleveland, OH shows elevated distress across several fronts, with the realized credit side and the real-economy side firing together. On the banking front, distressed lender CRE exposure stands at $1.12bn, while the bank CRE-at-risk rate at the 90th percentile is 0.5%—both materially elevated, even though distressed bank assets are reported as 0 (no bank failures). In CMBS, the special-servicing UPB is $469.0mm, representing 21.6% of metro UPB, a sharply high ratio. Ground-level signals are also active: there were 11 CMBS loans in special servicing, 16 store closures over the past year, and 11 WARN notices. The overall phase is peak, with a confirmed sequence, and convergence stands at 4. Notably, the reading on bank CRE allocation share is 0.9%, but that is an aggregate share, not a distress signal per se. The only figure that cannot be read from this dataset is the count of distressed banks—it is 0, so that signal is not elevated, though the bank distressed CRE exposure clearly is.
| Bank | Deposit share | CRE / Capital* | Room contributed | Noncurrent CRE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dollar Bank, Federal Savings Bank PA | 23.8% | 168% total 187%
|
🔒 | 0.42% |
| First Federal Savings And Loan Association Of Lakewood OH | 99.1% | 138% total 185%
|
🔒 | 0.83% |
| Northwest Bank PA | 4.7% | 109% total 145%
|
🔒 | 1.53% |
| Buckeye Community Bank OH | 100.0% | 145% total 353%
|
🔒 | 0.01% |
| The Farmers National Bank Of Canfield OH | 5.4% | 198% total 285%
|
🔒 | 1.02% |
| Union Savings Bank OH | 3.3% | 128% total 128%
|
🔒 | 0.21% |
| Cnb Bank PA | 8.3% | 269% total 341%
|
🔒 | 0.61% |
| First Commonwealth Bank PA | 0.7% | 205% total 260%
|
🔒 | 0.71% |
| Main Street Bank Corp. OH | 3.8% | 151% total 285%
|
🔒 | 0.68% |
| Civista Bank OH | 3.6% | 261% total 329%
|
🔒 | 0.63% |
| Cfbank, National Association OH | 8.0% | 279% total 362%
|
🔒 | 0.53% |
Over the trailing 365 days, Cleveland, OH has recorded 19 store closures and 11 WARN notices affecting 804 jobs, with 0 CRE bankruptcies — though that last reading is a STATE PROXY — bankruptcy filings carry the filer's state, not the property's location, so this counts CRE-likely filings in the states this metro's collateral sits in. It is not a metro-native count. Note also that the jobs figure is a floor, since affected_employees is nullable — notices that state no headcount are counted but contribute 0 jobs.