CLEVELAND — The City of Cleveland just took a huge stride toward a more accessible Downtown lakefront – winning a $69 million grant from the federal government.
Congresswoman Shontel Brown and Mayor Justin Bibb announced the award early Friday. The money is coming from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program, which is focused on healing wounds created by highways and rail lines.
At this point, Cleveland has secured $150 million in state and federal commitments for a land bridge that will link North Coast Harbor to the heart of Downtown and a makeover of the Shoreway as it slices through the central business district.
The city is on track to start construction on those projects in 2027 – after years of talks and decades of planning.
In a written statement, Bibb described the grant as a key step toward making the city easier to navigate.
“This funding will allow us to reimagine our waterfront access, transform outdated infrastructure and build a safer, more vibrant connection between our residents, the lakefront and the Port of Cleveland,” he said.
Now the city has a clear path to realizing the first phases of its ambitious lakefront vision – infrastructure that will set the stage for public spaces and private development on largely barren land north of Huntington Bank Field.
The Cleveland Browns are planning to leave that city-owned facility for an enclosed stadium surrounded by mixed-use development in Brook Park. Bibb told News 5 in October that he’s committed to redeveloping the lakefront with or without the Browns.
“Clevelanders have been talking about this for generations,” he said at the time.
'We believe in Downtown Cleveland'
The General Assembly allocated $20 million to the land bridge last summer. In October, the city won a $60 million federal grant for the Shoreway. Now the federal commitment to the project has more than doubled to nearly $130 million.
RELATED: Cleveland wins $60 million federal grant to help connect Downtown to the lakefront
The state and federal money will go toward the first wave of construction on what the city is calling the North Coast Connector. That work, which will cost $284 million, includes the land bridge and a reconfiguration of the Shoreway between West Ninth and East 12th streets.
The land bridge will start at Mall C, the grassy area west of Cleveland City Hall, and touch down near the Great Lakes Science Center. The Shoreway will be partially razed and replaced by a slimmer, much slower boulevard with sidewalks, crosswalks and a multipurpose trail.
The city expects the rest of that initial $284 million budget to come from a federal, interest-free loan – which, unlike the grants, is not competitive – and bonds tied to future property-tax revenues from Downtown development and real estate appreciation.
The entire lakefront infrastructure project could cost roughly $450 million and will extend the new Shoreway boulevard to East 18th Street. It will replace the existing Amtrak station Downtown with a modern bus-and-rail hub connected to the land bridge.
The city is looking at additional federal and state funding sources to help pay for the balance of that work.
Brown, a Democrat who represents the state’s 11th congressional district, said investments in Cleveland’s lakefront will pay dividends for decades.
“We believe in Downtown Cleveland,” she said in a news release. “Visionary projects like this are not possible without visionary leaders locally and nationally.”
'For all Clevelanders'
The Reconnecting Communities program sprang from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which was championed by President Joe Biden and approved by Congress in 2021.
The program pays for planning and construction to remove, cap or otherwise remake freeways, rail lines and other transportation routes that divide cities and towns.
Last year, the Central Ohio Transit Authority won a $41.9 million grant for a 9.3-mile bus-rapid transit project that will link several neighborhoods to Downtown Columbus.
In early 2023, Akron received a $960,000 planning grant to study the future of a mile-long, decommissioned segment of its Innerbelt, a freeway that bifurcated a majority Black stretch of the city in the early 1970s. The Department of Transportation just followed up with a $10 million construction grant to help Akron move that project forward.
RELATED: What's next for Akron's decommissioned Innerbelt? City looks for firm to help design for future
The Biden administration announced a flurry of grants this week, just days before President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House. Cleveland’s award, at $69,291,428, is much larger than any of the grants from previous years.
“This was a highly competitive grant opportunity,” Brown said in her news release, “and my office was honored to support the bid.”
Bibb said the project had tireless advocates in Brown and former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who lost a high-profile race to keep his seat in November.
“I applaud the collaboration between city leadership, our federal partners and the community to bring this transformative vision to life, enhancing our lakefront for generations to come for all Clevelanders – from Lee-Harvard to Kamm’s Corners and all points in between,” City Council President Blaine Griffin said in a written statement.
Over the last 18 months, the city has taken notable steps toward its lakefront goals. Cleveland created a new tax-increment financing district Downtown to help pay for public infrastructure projects, with a heavy emphasis on the lakefront and riverfront.
A new nonprofit called the North Coast Waterfront Development Corp. is focusing full-time on getting the land bridge and other development projects off the drawing board.
RELATED: Cleveland eyes a new tool - and user fees - as a way to remake the Downtown lakefront
In August, the city released a lakefront master plan that puts a premium on public spaces.
RELATED: Cleveland unveils final lakefront master plan as momentum grows for land bridge Downtown
The 120-foot-wide land bridge is a linchpin of that plan – and an idea the Haslams endorsed during a 2021 design exercise and discussions about the future of the stadium.
The Browns ended talks with the city over a stadium lease extension and major renovations in October. They’re focused on assembling the public and private money for a potential $3.4 billion-plus project in Brook Park instead.
If the Browns succeed in leaving for the suburbs, the existing stadium is likely to be demolished. It’s too early to say what would replace it.
But the federal funding commitments for the land bridge and Shoreway aren’t tied to the Browns. And Bibb has stressed that better waterfront access is an essential part of making Cleveland a more appealing and economically viable city.
“You have my word and my vow,” he said during a town hall meeting last fall, “we’re going to build one of the best damn lakefronts this country has ever seen.”
