CLEVELAND — Clevelanders will see small steps toward the city’s grand lakefront vision this year, from a pop-up park north of the Great Lakes Science Center to surcharges on parking.
The nonprofit North Coast Waterfront Development Corp. hopes to start work in April to build the North Coast Yard, a temporary installation made of shipping containers and fabric-covered Quonset huts. Drawings shared with News 5 show a deck at the water’s edge near the Steamship William G. Mather, with potted plants and places to sit and stroll.
Late Monday, Cleveland City Council approved a new way to help pay for public spaces, including an expansive, permanent park. By fall, you could start to see special fees – 50 cents here, perhaps, or a few dollars there – on your receipts for lakefront spending.
These moves are part of a strategy to bring more people down to the water north of Huntington Bank Field, where 25 acres of city-owned land sit vacant for much of the year.
“I feel that we are finally putting the resources and capacity behind getting this work done,” said Councilman Kerry McCormack, joking that there have been more than 3 million Downtown lakefront plans over the years – and most of them are still sitting in boxes.
Council’s Monday vote created Cleveland’s first New Community Authority, a quasi-governmental entity with the power to collect special fees in a specific area.
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The authority’s footprint will run from the western end of Huntington Bank Field to the eastern end of Burke Lakefront Airport. The land is city-owned, but nonprofits and businesses lease some of it.
The district ultimately will include the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Great Lakes Science Center, the football stadium, and small apartment and retail buildings at North Coast Harbor. It will also capture the Willard parking garage at City Hall and the Muni Lot, a huge parking lot on the south side of the Shoreway.
It’s too early to say how much more visitors will pay when they park, go to an event, buy museum tickets or grab dinner on the lakefront. City Council set limits on surcharges, including a cap of $5 for parking, $2 on admissions and 5% on retail sales.
But Scott Skinner, executive director of the North Coast Waterfront Development Corp., said the initial fees will be much lower. The authority will have to negotiate the fees with each stakeholder in the area, including the city’s division of parking facilities.
Institutions and businesses will get to decide whether to participate – and what their patrons can afford. The hope is that everyone, from longtime tenants to future developers, will see value in helping to turn a chronically underused waterfront into a destination.
“This is a tool that, yes, levies opt-in charges on things like parking at a fairly minimal value,” Skinner said of the authority, or NCA. “But in exchange for that, it allows us to build out the free public spaces that are part of Cleveland’s lakefront master plan.”
The first fees will likely show up on parking, particularly during Browns games and special events. Parking fees alone could generate $800,000 a year, Skinner said.
But his organization isn’t sitting around until that money starts flowing in. The North Coast Waterfront Development Corp., a start-up organization the city seeded with federal economic-stimulus money, plans to break ground next month for a temporary park.
The North Coast Yard will be open from June to October, with free activities going on every weekend. That will include community basketball games, outdoor roller skating and pickleball. Live music on a small stage. Food trucks and pop-up retailers.
“All of the development that we’re talking about that this NCA will contribute to, that’s all 5 years away,” Skinner said. “And the land north of Browns Stadium is owned by the city of Cleveland. It’s public land.
“And one of the priorities of our organization is we don’t think Clevelanders should (have) to wait 5 years to actually access that space. And then above and beyond all that, we want to spend some time creating a sense of place.”
The city released a new lakefront master plan last summer, with a heavy emphasis on public spaces. Those plans call for a protected beach, a fishing pier, athletic courts, a nature playground and walking paths, along with a hotel, a food hall and apartments.
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Even as the Cleveland Browns eye a move to the suburbs, the city and its partners have won $150 million in federal and state grants to make it easier to reach the lakefront.
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Their plans call for turning the Shoreway into a slimmer, slower boulevard as it cuts across Downtown and building a land bridge that will start at Mall C, the grassy area west of City Hall, and touch down north of the Science Center.
Construction on that massive infrastructure project is scheduled to start in 2027.
On Monday, Skinner told council members the federal funding is still intact, despite spending freezes and shifting priorities in Washington, D.C.
“Could that change tomorrow? Absolutely,” he said. “But everything we’ve seen so far, the U.S. Department of Transportation programs that fund primarily infrastructure … they’re being reviewed but are not items that we’ve seen the new administration want to toss out outright. So, we feel cautiously optimistic we’ll be able to hold onto these.”
Council President Blaine Griffin said the city must get creative to pay for some of the generational projects on the drawing board. He expressed support for the New Community Authority, a tool created by state law and commonly used in other parts of the state.
Griffin described the existing lakefront as “balkanized,” with little public access.
But Councilman Mike Polensek, who represents the Collinwood neighborhood and part of Glenville on the East Side, said he doubts that all the stakeholders will sign on.
“I can just see Jimmy Haslam agreeing to increase ticket prices,” Polensek said sarcastically of the owner of the Cleveland Browns, who are looking to leave their city-owned stadium on the lakefront after the 2028 NFL season. “I believe in that, and I believe in the tooth fairy. … In fact, I believe in the tooth fairy more, quite frankly.”
McCormack, who represents Downtown, said it’s crucial to keep momentum going on the lakefront – regardless of where the Browns ultimately end up.
“A lot of that property is owned by the public. ... But they can’t get to it. They can’t enjoy it. They can’t have a family picnic there,” he said. “They can’t fish off the lakefront there. None of that.”
On Monday afternoon, Aundrea Banks was walking near the Rock Hall with a few of her colleagues. She lives in the suburbs but comes down to North Coast Harbor regularly.
“I think people are drawn to the lakefront. People love being on the water,” she said. “If there were more activities, I think people would really want to be down here.”
Banks, 41, is open to the idea of paying modest fees on food, drinks and shopping to support lakefront development. She balks at the idea of parking surcharges, though. In the busy season, when there’s a special event going on, she’s paid $18 for parking in the area.
“The parking can be expensive, especially in the summer,” she said. “I think I’d rather see it maybe on a ticket price or something like that. Not the parking.”
Many other pedestrians near the Rock Hall on Monday were visitors who traveled to Cleveland from other states for tourism or medical appointments. They said they wouldn’t object to an extra parking fee or a small surcharge on a restaurant receipt if the money goes toward building a better lakefront.
Banks said she loves the idea of a pop-up park, which is expected to go before the Cleveland City Planning Commission for approval this month. “That would be amazing,” she said.
McCormack said that, after decades of planning, the momentum now is real.
“We’re actually doing the darn thing,” he said. “And to me, that is a substantial difference between where we are today … and where we’ve been”
