Cleveland Secures $60M from Feds to Build Pedestrian Landbridge to Lakefront

Cleveland just got $60 million closer to seeing its lakefront finally redone.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced a whopping amount of cash to help fulfill Mayor Justin Bibb and the city’s dream of tearing down sections of the Shoreway and converting the highway into a more pedestrian-centered boulevard.

That $60 million will go toward, the city said, knocking down parts of the Main Avenue Bridge, from West 9th to Erieside. It will also be used to build a brand new bike-friendly bridge linking West 3rd with the area still occupied by Huntington Bank Field, along with a ground-level, tree-lined Shoreway segment from West 3rd to East 9th.

The federal money is framed by Bibb and Senator Sherrod Brown as recognition from the Biden administration of the value of urban cores post-pandemic, as U.S. cities near the end of their American Rescue Plan dollars to fund development projects centering people over cars.

“This grant will allow us to reimagine our waterfront access, transform outdated infrastructure, and build a safer, more vibrant connection between our residents, the lakefront, and the Port of Cleveland,” Bibb wrote in a press release. “This is a crucial step forward in making Cleveland a more connected and accessible city.”

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Mark Oprea

Scott Skinner, the head of the city’s North Coast Waterfront Development Corporation, shown here, will most likely use that $60 million grant win as a chess piece in securing the remainder of the funds needed.

Though today’s federal grant only covers a fourth of the quarter-billion-dollar makeover of the North Coast, it could easily be the chess piece needed for the North Coast Waterfront Development Corporation, its steering committee, to help raise the remaining $180 million or so.

To build, as plans earlier this year gloat, a connecting bridge leading to new parks, playgrounds, apartments, fishing spots, fire pits and—the upshot—ways to actually step foot all the way to Lake Erie.

As Bibb and others in City Hall illuminated at a panel on Mall C this summer, James Corner Field Operation’s redesign will likely include a new RTA stop, close to or underneath the North Coast land bridge.

Which means, as plans debuted then hinted at, demolishing the East 9th station and Amtrak station, which would require a consolidation of some kind.

The city said it expects demolition of the Shoreway to begin in 2027, with construction of the bikeable boulevard and that new multimodal RTA transit stop shortly thereafter.

It has not yet specified how it plans to secure the remainder of the money needed, or exactly what will happen if (or when) Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam decide to relocate the stadium to Brook Park.

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