CLEVELAND — Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert’s real estate company, Bedrock, will seek conceptual approval from the Cleveland Planning Commission on Friday morning for the firm’s ambitious and potentially catalytic riverfront master plan.
Estimated to cost upwards of $3 billion and to be completed over the course of at least a decade, the project includes the addition of thousands of residential units, new commercial and retail spaces and, perhaps most importantly, up to a dozen acres of parks and public access to the river.
First announced in December 2022, the master plan largely received praise from the planning commission in February. Ahead of this week’s planning commission meeting, Bedrock and the project’s designer, renowned architect David Adjaye, released updated renderings and drawings of the proposal.
One of the images captured the keen eye of Jim Ridge, the founder of Share the River, an advocacy organization that promotes the recreational and economic benefits of the Cuyahoga River.
“[Bedrock is] smart to provide a [kayak] inlet because there is an incredible demand for access to the Cuyahoga River,” Ridge said. “In terms of public spaces, where people can come down and interact with this natural resource, the Cuyahoga River, those are precious spaces to have.”
The dramatic expansion of the riverfront, if completed, would entirely reshape one of the river’s most important and least utilized oxbows, which stretches from the eastern side of Irishtown Bend to Collision Bend in the shadows of Tower City. The redevelopment of the site could ultimately create 1.4 million square feet of non-residential space and 2,000 housing units. Construction could encompass roughly 3.5 million square feet.
An expansion of Tower City would serve as the nexus of the entire project and serve as the all-important conduit in the project’s “core to shore” promise. The substantial increase in the amount of publicly-accessible parts of the riverfront is what Ridge is most excited about.
“It’s neat to see folks like Bedrock recognizing the appeal and the hunger for better access to the Cuyahoga River,” Ridge said. “There is precious little public access along the river.”
Share the River’s annual event, Blazing Paddles Paddlefest, highlights the potential of the Cuyahoga River when it comes to recreational tourism. In each of the event’s previous four — the event was canceled in 2020 because of COVID-19 — the total attendance has nearly doubled. Ridge is projecting a total of 1,000 participants in this year’s event. In 2022, the event drew 600 participants from 15 states.
“It’s fun to see the response by the paddling community. When we get 15 states traveling to Cleveland, that little river over there is now a conduit for recreational tourism,” Ridge said. “That speaks to the appeal of this historic river. There is a curiosity. A lot of people have heard about the river. They’ve also heard the 50-year-old notions of what this river used to be like.”
And soon, they’ll see firsthand how far it’s come. Blazing Paddles Paddlefest is scheduled for July 22, 2023.
