CLEVELAND — Dozens of Cleveland residents made their way to city hall to reimagine downtown Cleveland.
The city hosted the first of 6 listening sessions to see how downtown Cleveland can be better connected to the lakefront.
Cleveland’s location, nestled on the shores of a Great Lake, is no doubt our greatest asset, but many argue the asset isn’t easily accessed.
“You look around the country and people are making major investments in their downtowns, specifically areas of their downtowns that access waterways, and I think the city of Cleveland can do a lot better,” said Alec Spriggs, a Cleveland resident.
In downtown, the Shoreway highway, the railroads and bluffs separate the city and the water.
“You can’t use something if there’s no access to something,” said Malek Abumeri, another resident. “This has been something on the mind of Cleveland and the residents for quite a while. I always felt that the Cleveland shore has been quite underutilized.”
Mayor Justin Bibb hopes to be the leader to bridge that gap.
“We have a historic opportunity to finally get it right,” he told the crowd at city hall Thursday.
The proposal is a NorthCoast connector, essentially creating a land bridge between Downtown’s Mall C and Great Lakes Science Center and First Energy Stadium.
Annie Pease is a project coordinator for the city of Cleveland. She said the feasibility study kicked off at the end of 2021. The city and the Ohio Department of Transportation split the cost of the $5 million study.
“We want to make the connection. We want to have a better pedestrian, bike, better access from downtown to the lakefront,” she said. “To make the land connection, if you were to go straight across you’d hit the highway, so the feasibility study helps us understand how to feasibly construct the [land]bridge and what happens to the Shoreway. If the Shoreway is to remain intact as a highway, and this is what we are studying, it would likely need to be adjusted lower, for example.”
Thursday, the city presented four proposals:
- A: No land bridge, keep Shoreway as is, the traffic and land use stay the same
- B: Build land bridge, keep Shoreway as is, the traffic stays the same but more land available for use
- C: Build land bridge, Shoreway becomes a boulevard
“It would have intersections, crosswalks, driveways. It would be different than a highway,” said Pease.
Finally, the last option.
- D: Build land bridge, remove the Shoreway entirely, traffic would be very different and this provides most land usage
“We are starting with these four concepts. We want to narrow down to one concept and know what is feasible from a geometric standpoint, a traffic standpoint and what has public support,” said Pease.
At the end of 2023, the hope is to have the plan, public support and know the logistics of cost and engineering.
If you’d like the city to hear your input on the plan, there are 5 more public meetings:
November 10, 2022
Zelma George Recreation Center
3155 Martin Luther King Jr Dr., Cleveland, OH 44104
November 15, 2022
Collinwood Recreation Center
16300 Lakeshore Blvd., Cleveland, OH 44110
November 16, 2022
Saint Joseph Academy
3470 Rocky River Dr., Cleveland, OH 44111
November 17, 2022
Eastbrook Recreation Center
4125 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44144
November 29, 2022
Church of Christ at the Blvd.
8837 St. Clair Ave., Cleveland, OH 44108
