CLEVELAND — Clevelanders say the city needs to fix up its parks and recreation centers.
A new master plan, the city’s first in decades, lays out a strategy for doing just that. It argues for a more proactive approach to renovations and repairs, along with new ways of paying for projects. It also shows that Cleveland is facing tough choices, including the possible closure of some buildings.
“We’re really hoping to elevate the facilities, the programs and the services available to residents,” said Alexandria Nichols, the city’s new parks and recreation director.
Over the next year, she and her coworkers plan to dig into the report’s recommendations, crafted by a team of consultants, to figure out what makes sense.
“Parks and recreation facilities evolve all the time,” she said during an interview on the second floor of the busy Zelma Watson George Recreation Center on the East Side.
“We can’t expect … what was built in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and even ’70s to continue to meet the needs of today’s residents," she said. "We have to look at our neighborhoods. We have to look at the proximity of services to people and what their needs are.”
Marcus Lurns visits Zelma Watson George most days of the week. At 65, he’s trying to stay in shape.
“If you don’t work out, then the rigor mortis is gonna set in,” he said, laughing.
But he views city rec centers as much more than places for exercise. They’re hubs for the community, spaces for gathering and learning, for finding direction and support.
“This facility is good for a lot of things and a lot of people,” he said. “Even the kids. It gives them a place to come and kind of gets them out of the streets.”
City Council got its first look at the master plan on Monday, during a brief discussion at a committee meeting. The city subsequently released an executive summary of the plan.
The entire document will be published in early May, when the Cleveland City Planning Commission is scheduled to vote on adopting it.
The executive summary shows that the city needs a lot more money to maintain and staff its 161 parks and 22 recreation facilities, including an ice-skating rink.
The consultants suggested a gradual increase in annual spending on parks and recreation, from $33 million today to $54 million in 2032. Most of that money would be for operations, not capital projects.
To build up its budget, the report says the city should explore corporate sponsorships, naming-rights deals and other ways of bringing private-sector cash into public facilities.
But, the consultants said the city’s best bet would be a levy, a request to the voters to approve a new tax to support parks and recreation.
The plan suggests that Nichols and her team spend the next few years improving customer service and demonstrating the value of the city’s new, standalone parks department. Then, officials could put a levy on the ballot in 2028, during a higher-turnout presidential election year.
“A levy is really the only potential funding source that could match the magnitude of the investment that’s needed in the system,” Andrew Dobshinsky of OLIN, the consulting firm that led the master plan work, told council members on Monday.
Nichols cautioned that the recommendations in the plan are just suggestions. The city hasn’t made any decisions on closing facilities or asking voters to chip in for parks.
“What we know is that our services are underfunded and we need to find creative ways to try and meet our funding needs. … A levy’s a good idea,” she said. “Will it work for the city of Cleveland? We’ll have to take the time to analyze that.”
The consultants came up with a formula for deciding which parks the city should focus on first, based on usage, size, deferred maintenance, crime rates, environmental conditions in the surrounding neighborhoods and proximity to other major city projects.
This list shows the top 10 parks flagged as priorities for investment.
The report also lays out a schedule for potential spending at recreation centers.
The plan says the city should build a new regional rec center in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood, on the near-West Side, during the next decade. It also suggests consolidating some buildings on the East Side.
“The real challenge here is that we have a system with too many amenities for us to properly maintain,” James DeRosa, who leads Mayor Justin Bibb’s office of capital projects, told City Council members on Monday. “And it’s going to take some bold moves for us to move forward under the Bibb administration.”
In Glenville, the consultants proposed shuttering Cory Recreation Center, a leased space at an old church complex at East 105th Street and Drexel Avenue, while upgrading the Glenville James Hubbard Recreation Center about 1.5 miles away.
The consultants say the city also should explore closing or repurposing Woodland Recreation Center, at 9206 Woodland Ave., and Alexander Hamilton Recreation Center, at 13200 Kinsman Road.
“We are looking at closure recommendations very cautiously and carefully,” Nichols stressed, noting that the consultants compared Cleveland to similar cities as part of the analysis.
“They’re looking at it from the 30,000-foot perspective,” she added. “We’re on the ground. We have to look at it from our own perspective.”
Councilman Kevin Conwell, who represents Glenville, said losing Cory would be a blow to the neighborhood. He grew up playing basketball at the building, which was quiet on Wednesday. It's a stark contrast to the bustle at Zelma Watson George.
“The city doesn’t own the building, and they have really ignored it. … It’s not inviting,” Conwell said of Cory. “You have to have it where it’s inviting so that children will feel safe. Senior citizens will feel safe. And that the people of the community will feel safe, and they’ll look at it as a gathering place.”
He wants to see City Hall tackle deferred maintenance and prevent buildings from deteriorating more. But Conwell isn’t convinced that a parks and recreation levy is the answer.
“People are trying to survive,” he said. “People are trying to just make it and put food on the table for their children.”
Other council members expressed similar concerns this week.
“You definitely caught me off-guard with this levy,” Councilman Anthony Hairston told the master-plan team during Monday’s committee meeting.
Councilwoman Deborah Gray described the idea as “just outrageous.”
DeRosa and Nichols said there will be many more conversations with residents over the next year or so, now that the master plan is complete. The consultants started working on the project in 2023 and asked more than 2,000 people for their opinions during surveys, workshops and community events.
The city launched its freestanding parks department last year and hired Nichols to run it. She was previously the director of recreation for Shaker Heights.
“Even before I took the job at the city of Cleveland, I spent time going out, visiting facilities, looking around,” she said. “And I was concerned at the quality of the facilities as a professional. … I can only imagine how the community feels.”
She knows her department has a lot of heavy lifting to do.
“We have to build trust,” Nichols said. “And we build that trust by elevating and just fixing what’s already broken.”
