CLEVELAND, Ohio - The owner of a popular diner near the Cleveland-Lakewood border hopes to have the eatery open again by the end of the year.

Perry Drosos is in the process of moving his longtime Northeast Ohio establishment, the Diner on Clifton, from the Cleveland side of the city line to the Lakewood side. He said in a recent phone interview that the process is more complex than he anticipated.

He said he can't commit to an opening date, but hopes the Cleveland institution will have its doors back open in December.

The diner was located at the corner of Clifton Boulevard and West 117th Street - which divides Cleveland and Lakewood - but closed in April of 2016.

Drosos owns the building that houses one of Lakewood's two Huntington Banks roughly a block away on Clifton Boulevard on the Lakewood side, and is in the process of applying for the necessary permits to reopen his business in a vacant section of that building.

Lakewood's building department acknowledged Monday that the city has approved a permit to renovate the building.

"Things have gotten expensive since 20 years ago," Drosos said, referring to the last time he closed and remodeled the diner, when he gave it a more modern feel.

He said he plans to start construction on the new diner in the coming weeks.

For now, the building that will house the diner features "coming soon" signs the windows of an empty segment on its west side. A Clifton Medical Center sign remains erect on the front lawn.

Drosos closed the old diner after the landlord, Constantine Katsoros, remodeled the facade in 2016. The restaurant was initially slated to close in February of that year, but Katsoros and Drosos worked out a short-term lease agreement to keep the eatery open until the following April.