Metroparks Secures $11M Federal Grant for Irishtown Bend Park

Irishtown Bend Park, which will be the largest riverside greenspace in Cuyahoga County, just got another notch closer to completion.

This week, the Metroparks, the overseers of the park’s design, received $10.8 million in federal grants for construction purposes—for the build of Irishtown’s amphitheater, its plazas, picnic areas and boardwalk, the latter a missing piece to connect the region-wide Lake Link Trail.

The funding win is another score for the parks system. Earlier this year, the Metroparks oversaw the groundbreaking for the North Marginal Trail, the first cycletrack connection between Downtown and the East Side. And just last week, the Metroparks helped the Cleveland Soccer Group purchase the site for what could be Cleveland’s first dedicated soccer stadium.

“We maintain a commitment of progress for the community and this substantial federal investment brings a shared vision held by many project partners to reality,” CEO Brian Zimmerman said in a press release. “The advocacy of Senator Sherrod Brown and Congresswoman Shontel Brown to secure support for this project and will have a lasting impact on the community for generations to come.”

Ohio City Inc. confirmed Thursday that the project still has roughly $15 million to lock down, money that could be secured with similar federal grants or smaller donations.

“We’re chipping away at the remainder,” Ohio City, Inc. spokesperson Katy Baumbach told Scene. “We’re getting there.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL38bCx7C2E

As touted earlier this spring, the park is partly designed to be an homage to its past as a haven for Irish immigrants, with artifacts used to make up an outdoor museum of sorts. There will be old doorways, former coal dock hoisting rigs and doorways converted into bird blinds.

Overall, as a newly posted video tour shows off, the entire park would be a game changer. Sailboat-studded playgrounds would sit next to swings and grill gardens. Wetland gardens (with mini piers) could neighbor wide lawn terraces for ideal golden hour viewing. And a cafe would mark an entry plaza off West 25th and Detroit, long dominated by a vacant eyesore.

If hillside stabilization stays on track this fall and winter, groundbreaking for the actual park build could start in 2025.

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