First look: ‘Vision for the Valley’ plan for the Flats, Cuyahoga River ready for Wednesday unveiling online - cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — With apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein, the soundtrack for a new long range plan for the Flats and the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland could be “The Farmer and the Cowman Should be Friends,” a song from the 1943 musical “Oklahoma.‘'

That’s because the Flats — the flood plain on either side of the river — has been the scene of a slow-motion land-use war for decades.

Instead of farmers versus ranchers in the Broadway musical, it’s been truckers and heavy industry versus residential developers, bars and bicyclists on land, and recreational boaters, rowers, and paddlers versus big ore boats on the river.

The question is whether everyone can coexist and thrive in one of the most important parts of the city.

Consultants working on a new plan for the area, called “Vision for the Valley,” say the answer is yes. They’ll unveil a video and a near-final draft of their recommendations Wednesday on the project website.

“We want to see this become the organizing and rallying cry for all the stakeholders and agencies and organizations within this area,‘' said Arthur Schmidt IV, a senior planner with OHM, the Michigan-based consulting firm that led the planning team.

The City of Cleveland initiated the yearlong, $250,000 plan, funded by $125,000 from the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, NOACA, plus $50,000 each from the city and Cleveland Metroparks, and $25,000 from the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority.

“This initiative is the first step in the process of transforming the river in a way that is comprehensive, rather than just looking at [it] through the lens of a series of individual projects,‘' Freddy Collier, Jr., the city’s planning director, said in an email.

Notable recommendations in the plan call for:

· Using zoning and other tools to create continuous waterfront promenades extending from the entertainment and housing districts near the mouth of the river south to the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge.

· Turning one track of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s Waterfront Line into a multi-purpose greenway trail.

· Extensive redevelopment of riverfront areas now occupied by vacant lots or surface parking, including Collision Bend.

· Carving a new safe harbor for small craft into the West Third Street Peninsula, just north of the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, to provide safety from big ships serving industries upstream.

· Automating and centralizing control of all lift and swing bridges.

· Extending the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad, which operates between Akron and Rockside Road, north into Tower City Center.

· Connecting East Side residents to the river with a new waterfront park north of the I-490 bridge, on property owned by Zaclon LLC, a chemical company.

· Creating public access to the site of the 1969 fire on the river, near the ArcelorMittal steel plant.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the planners won’t convene public meetings to gather responses to the draft. Instead, they’ll hold six online “office hour” meetings between Aug. 3 and 14. Details will be posted on the project website, visionforthevalleycle, by Wednesday.

Schmidt said the plan could be reviewed and adopted by the city’s planning commission by early fall, at which point it would guide development in the Flats and use of the river for several decades.

The plan boils down to a search for “one river, one vision, one Cleveland,” and for harmony among more than 200 stakeholders consulted by planners, including industries, developers, residents, and bars and nightclubs.

When asked whether they achieved a unified vision, the planners answered with humility.

“To say that we do have a singular vision that all parties agree to would not be saying the truth,‘' said OHM project manager Matt Hils. But he said: “We have moved significantly in that direction.”

A major theme of the plan is to explore opportunities between parts of the river and the valley that have already received significant attention over the past 20 years.

Private developers are repurposing fallow industrial land on the Scranton Road Peninsula. Final sections of the Towpath Trail and other multipurpose recreational routes are nearing completion. The city of Cleveland and Cleveland Metroparks are planning parks at Irishtown Bend and Canal Basin.

The Vision for the Valley planners see additional huge opportunities in places that have received less attention, such as Collision Bend, downhill from Tower City Center.

Sherwin-Williams Co. plans to relocate its research facility from a riverfront site there to Brecksville, creating the potential for what the planners are calling “a key mixed-use destination'' that connects downtown to new, publicly-accessible spaces along the river.

Specifically, the plan calls for extending three sloping landscapes, or grand staircases, from Huron Road and Ontario Street behind Tower City Center and the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse downhill to a big crescent of new development and parks along the river’s edge.

Further south, along Jennings Road at Harvard Avenue on the city’s south side, planners envision creating a new parklike setting at the confluence of Big Creek and the Cuyahoga River, with connections to the Towpath Trail, and a spur connecting to the new Brighton Park in Old Brooklyn, a Cleveland Metroparks project under construction this summer.

The planners also said the city and other public agencies could trigger additional development by improving infrastructure along the river and the Flats, including roads and riverfront bulkheads. Suggestions include turning the disused Eagle Avenue Lift Bridge into a pedestrian connection.

The plan doesn’t identify costs or funding sources for its proposals, although it will include generic estimates for bulkheads and roads. More detailed estimates would depend on future studies of individual projects, the planners said.

Vision for the Valley also doesn’t specify a timeframe for its proposals. But Sara Maier, the senior strategic park planner at Cleveland Metroparks, who participated in the planning process, said the pace of redevelopment is quickening.

The impending completion of the 101-mile Towpath Trail and other improvements along the river are triggering extensive private development and creating fresh awareness of the area’s potential, she said. The coronavirus pandemic is also creating greater public interest in linking people to parks and waterfronts.

“The beauty of this effort is that there is indeed momentum,‘' Collier said, speaking of redevelopment along the river. “Investments have already begun; however we have not scratched the surface with respect to tapping the full potential of this unifying asset.”

Early reactions to the new plan from some industries have been mixed.

David Jeras, operations manager for Ontario Stone Corp., which distributes limestone aggregate from bulk piles on docks along the Cuyahoga’s old river channel, said it’s unrealistic for the plan to propose controlling dust by draping the piles with giant tarps decorated by artists because the piles change in size constantly due to shipments.

Robert Zadkovich, vice president for business development at Lake Erie Towing, a Great Lakes shipyard and ship-towing business located on the old river channel, said meetings between businesses and the planners were “a little heated'' because “people are passionate about their views.‘'

But he said the plan was “put together very thoughtfully. Great efforts were taken in terms of getting feedback from everyone.”

Duane Steelman, the plant manager for Zaclon, the chemical company north of the I-490 bridge, said it’s “great'' that Vision for the Valley calls for turning 11 acres of the company’s riverfront into a park with trail access to underserved East Side communities.

The company is willing to sell or lease the property, which he said has been environmentally cleaned, he said.

Although the planners worked hard to coordinate their project with existing plans for the river and the valley, they said the City of Cleveland did not share proposals it is developing for improving truck routes into and out of the West Bank of the Flats from Whiskey Island, a major point of friction in the area.

Collier said that improving truck routes is “not the focal point” of Vision for the Valley. Instead, he said, the plan will suggest ways to “reconfigure the underbelly'' of the elevated West Shoreway to create better connections between Lakeview Apartments and the Ohio City neighborhood – areas now sharply separated by the highway.

Overall, Vision for the Valley emphasizes that Cleveland is a two-waterfront city, and that could do much more to capitalize on the Cuyahoga River than it has in the past.

Specifically, the planners want to avoid repeating mistakes such as allowing private residential development to block access to much of the city’s lakefront.

“You really do have most of the lakefront privatized for people with lots and lots of money,‘' Maier said, “We don’t want to do that again for the river.”

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First look: ‘Vision for the Valley’ plan for the Flats, Cuyahoga River ready for Wednesday unveiling online - cleveland.com

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