AKRON, Ohio — Downtown Akron's Lock 3 is a hot spot for events all year long—from spring and summer concerts to ice skating and WinterBlast in the colder months—but soon the event hub will have a new look as the City of Akron celebrated the groundbreaking for the redesign and renovations to the area on Thursday.
Last March, the city released details of Akron’s Lock 3 Vision Plan, a $10 million plan to create a better park space for residents, travelers, and outdoor enthusiasts. Included in the vision plan were designs to create shaded seating and gardens for relaxation, a more permanent performance structure to replace the current seasonal tent-like structure currently in place, a space catered to runners along the Towpath, and two ice skating rinks for winter activities.
RELATED: Akron's Lock 3 vision plan to include new pavilion, ice skating rinks, trails and shaded seating
On Thursday, not long over a year since those plans were announced, the city broke ground on putting those plans into action.
"Imagine coming here two years from now, next fall, where there's going to be landscaped gardens, there's going to be a beautiful balcony off of Main Street. There's going to be trees, there's going to be an ice skating rink in the wintertime and there's going to be a nice area here—it's going to be an internationally-designed performance pavilion named in honor of our great community friend Phil Maynard," said Daniel Rice, President and Chief Executive Officer at Ohio & Erie Canalway Coalition.
More than 300,000 people flock to Lock 3 regularly for the annual rotation of concerts, events and festivals. Knowing how much residents already use the space and how many desired improvements across the city, making Lock 3 more modern, more prominent and more accessible to all was important to project leaders.
The design of the project compares to parks in major destination cities. Should all go accordin to plan, Lock 3 will rival any park in the state—with hopes it could stack up to very well-known outdoor spaces around the country.
"This can be an intimate space similar almost like Central Park in New York City," Rice said. "That’s exactly what we’re marking this as, this is Akron’s Central Park."
Thursday's groundbreaking was ceremonial and symbolic, but some of the work on the project has already begun. New, upgraded sewer lines have been prepped for install, foundations for features like an ice cream facility have also been started. The major groundwork for the renovation will take place over the next six to eight months.
As Rice notes, that timeline crosses over the spring and summer concert series. However, those with plans to hit a show at Lock 3 or hopeful for the summer events like Rib, White & Blue won't have to worry about missing out.
Through construction, Lock 3 will remain open and events will go on as scheduled, with work spread out in ways that allows the project to be completed without harming planned events and the impact those event have on surrounding businesses.
"Downtown is still open. We want to minimize the impact of the construction on businesses and neighborhood residents," Rice said. "So yes, the concerts are still going to take place. Winter activities already took place just behind us here just to the south, and just to the west is actually where the concerts for this upcoming summer—preparations are being made for that. So yes, downtown is open for business. Lock 3 is open for business."
Project organizers have created ways to keep residents fully up-to-date on the work they have scheduled and as the summer months approach, those attending events will be able to see the vision slowly come to life.
"We're going to have a very robust communication strategy. We're going to have a website, some time-lapse cameras, some peepholes up here on the Main Street so people can see what's happening as the park comes into fruition," Rice said. "If you come down to enjoy the concerts or festivals, you're going to have a front-row seat to the reconstruction of this amazing destination park."
Keeping residents in the loop is an important part of the project because the project itself was resident-led.
Akron residents and co-chairs Bill and Becky Considine have been happy to see such involvement from those around Akron, from feedback on the plans to helping with funding.
"What is so exciting to me about it is that they brought residents into the whole planning. So they have a really an investment themselves. And what we're going to do here, it is something that is going to make a difference," Bill said.
Funding is still ongoing and leaders are still encouraging those interested in getting involved to reach out. But the Lock 3 transformation is well underway—now officially with the groundbreaking—and the entire project is expected to be constructed over the span of 18 months with a target completion date of fall 2024.
Watch live and local news any time:
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
