I Think Ed Hauser Would Like This - A Proposed Path To Wendy Park

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Graphic From: http://blog.cleveland.com/pdgraphics/2009/01/10EGFLATS.pdf [1] (1.8 Megabite PDF File)

'Flats Connections Plan' would add parks, trails on west bank site

Posted by [2]dsims [2] January 09, 2009 22:50PMThe gray industrial landscape and parking lots on the west bank of the Flats, now edged with housing and nightclubs, could soon be crisscrossed with parks, trails and green spaces. The new "Flats Connections Plan," completed by the nonprofit organizations ParkWorks, Cleveland Public Art and Building Cleveland by Design, shows how an abandoned railway and the vacant strip under the Main Avenue Bridge could become playgrounds, bikeways and artificial wetlands. "We think there's a huge opportunity to realize this in the short term," said Ann Zoller, director of ParkWorks. She said major elements of the proposal could be achieved within several years, despite the recent economic downturn and the sudden halt of major projects, including the $522 million Flats East Bank development. "We think [the plan] is dynamic and wonderful and creates just the right kind of connections," said Jon Ratner, sustainability director for Forest City Enterprises, which has vacant industrial property along the proposed route on Scranton Road Peninsula. "I can't think of enough superlatives to describe the kind of park they're planning," he said. A diagram of the plan shows how the rail path and the land under the bridge would intersect like a giant green cross in an area where industrial properties and vacant lots are slowly being converted to housing and offices. The paths would link the Tremont and Ohio City neighborhoods to the Cuyahoga River and Whiskey Island on the Lake Erie waterfront, via the Willow Street Bridge. Two pedestrian bridges -- one over the river and another over rail tracks on the south side of Whiskey Island -- would complete the connections. The backers used part of $740,000 in grants from the George Gund Foundation for the plan, which has been under discussion since 2006. The proposal is gaining strong support from landowners, developers, the city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. Zoller and other supporters said the concept is relatively feasible because few landowners are involved, and because major developers in the Flats like the idea. Willett Moss of CMG, the San Francisco landscape firm that authored the plan, said the goal was "to see what you can do for very little money to give the site definition and identity." Among the ideas proposed by CMG is to turn the land under the Main Avenue Bridge into play areas, a trail and wetlands that would filter runoff from the traffic lanes high overhead because the water enters the Cuyahoga River. County Engineer Robert Klaiber said Friday that the county, which owns the land under the bridge, supports the idea. The trails proposed by ParkWorks would connect with a much larger regional hike-and-bike trail under development along the old route of the Ohio & Erie Canal towpath from Cleveland 110 miles south to New Philadelphia in Tuscarawas County. The final northern sections of the towpath trail could reach Canal Basin -- the original starting point of the canal -- in four or five years, Tim Donovan, director of the nonprofit Ohio Canal Corridor, said Friday. Zoller and her partners haven't completed cost estimates for their Flats proposal or raised construction money. But they're moving quickly to acquire the major pieces of property. In addition to the area below the Main Avenue Bridge, the other big chunk is the abandoned rail bed of the Ohio & Mahoning Valley Railroad, finished in 1856. The rail path, which includes massive stone retaining walls and bridges, slices 1.2 miles from the base of Scranton Road Peninsula north to River Road along the old channel of the Cuyahoga River. The route is owned by Cleveland investor and former Cuyahoga Community College professor Earl Walker, who said through a spokesman that he supports the plan and wants to help close a deal. "He's very excited about the transaction, not only for himself but for the city of Cleveland," said Walker's broker, Keith Brown, president of Progressive Urban Real Estate. "Everybody's on the same page and has the same goal in mind." William Carroll, director of the Ohio branch of the nonprofit Trust for Public Land, is leading negotiations to acquire the railway path from Walker in an arrangement that could include a $1.3 million grant from the state's Clean Ohio Fund. "We think we can get site control . . . within the next year," Carroll said. He said he hoped some construction money might be available under the economic stimulus proposal being discussed by President-elect Barack Obama. Carroll said the Flats proposal is similar to efforts carried out by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Depression. Ratner, of Forest City, said his company might allow a portion of the fallow industrial land next to the proposed trail route to be used at least on a temporary basis as a park. Along the next section to the north, the rail path skirts Irishtown Bend, the site of a 19th-century shantytown, before passing under the massive twin stone arches of a bridge below Detroit Avenue. The span is the oldest extant bridge in Cleveland, according to the federal Historic American Engineering Record. Zoller and other advocates said the Irishtown Bend section of the trail couldn't be built until after the Army Corps of Engineers completes a study in February on how to stabilize the riverbank, which is slowly sliding toward the river. Cleveland Planning Director Robert Brown said that while the city supports the plan, it also recognizes that industrial activity in the district -- including the Cargill salt mine on Whiskey Island -- is firmly rooted in the Flats. Zoller said, however, "there's a recognition that the Flats is shifting, that change is coming, and there's a need to work together for a balanced vision. The industrial nature of the Flats gives it its grit and character. We don't see this as either-or." From: http://blog.cleveland.com/architecture/2009/01/flats_connections_plan_would_a.html [3]