Nela Park: The Lighting Campus That Put East Cleveland on the Map

Nela Park is a campus of Georgian Revival buildings at Noble and Terrace roads in East Cleveland, begun in 1911 by the National Electric Lamp Association and for most of its history home to General Electric’s lighting business. The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History calls it “one of the earliest (if not the first) planned industrial research parks in the nation,” and for a century it staged a holiday light display that became a tradition in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.

The campus was sold to a developer in 2022, and GE Lighting now leases a single building there. This article covers how Nela Park began, what made it unusual, the history of its lights and what is known about its status today.

What is Nela Park?

The name comes from NELA, the National Electric Lamp Association, formed in 1901 under Franklin Terry and Burton Tremaine. Cleveland Historical reports that General Electric became a major stockholder as early as 1902 and housed NELA in the former Brush Electric Co. buildings. When GE’s stake reached 75 percent, federal courts ordered the association dissolved in 1911, and GE absorbed it as its lamp division.

In 1910 Terry and Tremaine chose a plateau 234 feet above Lake Erie, a site Cleveland Historical says was known as Panorama Heights, where German immigrants had kept vineyards. On April 18, 1913, the move from the old Brush factory on East 45th Street to Noble Road took nineteen hours.

Was Nela Park the first industrial park?

This is the claim most often repeated about Nela Park, and the sources do not word it the same way. The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, the most cautious, calls it “one of the earliest (if not the first) planned industrial research parks in the nation.” Cleveland Historical calls the finished campus “the first ever industrial park,” and the 2022 buyer’s announcement said it “is considered the first industrial park in the world.”

We use the Encyclopedia’s wording, which claims no more than the evidence supports: Nela Park was a very early, deliberately planned research campus. It was promoted as a “University of Industry,” according to The Cultural Landscape Foundation, and Cleveland Historical notes that it developed a reputation as a “University of Light.”

What do the buildings look like?

The early buildings were designed by the New York firm of Wallis and Goodwillie, and the architect Frank E. Wallis had studied Georgian architecture. The result is a campus of Georgian Revival buildings arranged around a quadrangle, with the Lamp Laboratory as its largest building. The Austin Co. built the campus, and the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History notes that the work led to standardized methods of industrial construction. Utilities ran through underground tunnels.

The Encyclopedia counts about 20 major buildings on about 90 acres, all but four built between 1911 and 1921. Other sources give different acreage, from about 70 acres to more than 138, depending on what parcels are counted and when. The Institute building of 1921 has a 72-foot bell tower and a pool with a bronze group symbolizing the triumph of light over darkness. Employees also had a cafeteria, a library, medical and dental care, and recreation facilities including tennis courts, ball fields and a swimming pool, according to Cleveland Historical.

When was Nela Park added to the National Register?

Nela Park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 as a historic district. The National Park Service record, reference number 75001365, lists its areas of significance as industry, landscape architecture and architecture, names Frank E. Wallis as architect, and gives 1911 and 1921 as its significant years. The listing recognizes the campus as a whole, not a single building. The Cultural Landscape Foundation also documents Nela Park as a designed landscape, noting that recreation amenities were built on the grounds in 1914.

What happened to the Nela Park holiday lights?

The holiday display began in 1924, and News 5 Cleveland calls it a holiday tradition in East Cleveland. Cleveland Historical reports that the 1924 to 2024 centennial display ran from December 6, 2024, to January 6, 2025, with more than one million LED lights visible from Noble Road, and calls it “the last of Nela Park’s displays.”

In December 2025, News 5 Cleveland reported that Savant had downsized the show dramatically, to a selfie station and a replica of the National Christmas Tree, which GE Lighting sponsors each year. The company opened its warehouse to cities and nonprofits across the region. Decorations went to places such as Highland Hills, Downtown Cleveland, the Western Reserve Historical Society and the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, and illuminated wreaths from Nela Park now hang in East Cleveland.

Who owns Nela Park now?

In 2020, Savant Systems Inc. of Massachusetts acquired GE Lighting from General Electric. Cleveland Historical reports that two years later GE Lighting sold Nela Park to Milwaukee-based Phoenix Investors, which announced its purchase agreement on March 9, 2022, and Cleveland Historical describes plans to consolidate GE Lighting in one building and attract other tenants to the rest of the campus.

As of News 5 Cleveland’s reporting in December 2025, the developer had not done much with the campus yet. GE Lighting had roughly 70 employees at Nela Park and remained a tenant, leasing a single building for its headquarters. The campus at 1901 Noble Road is not open to the public.

How is Nela Park connected to the rest of East Cleveland?

Nela Park helped shape early East Cleveland, which became a city the same year construction began. Our short history of East Cleveland places it alongside Rockefeller’s Forest Hill estate and the city’s growth along Euclid Avenue. The connections were sometimes small and personal: when the East Cleveland Public Library opened in 1916, NELA donated 129 light bulbs, as told in our history of the East Cleveland Public Library.

Before Nela Park, NELA worked out of the former Brush Electric Co. buildings, a link to Charles F. Brush, whom Cleveland Historical lists among the prominent figures who built mansions on Millionaires’ Row. Cleveland Historical’s Nela Park page includes oral history clips from the Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection, including memories of summer days on the campus and of the light displays.

Why does Nela Park’s history matter now?

For a century, Nela Park tied East Cleveland to national research and to a holiday tradition shared across the region. With the lights dispersed and the campus in new hands, its buildings and records are the clearest evidence of that history, and decisions about its future will shape how the next generation remembers it.

Mays HisToracle Consulting helps companies, institutions and communities research and document the histories of places like Nela Park.