On a recent Tuesday morning, West 29th St. in Ohio City’s Hingetown neighborhood was bustling and buzzing with people carrying coffee from Rising Star Coffee Roasters, pushing baby strollers, or going for a morning jog in the late September sunshine. In the next year, it could also be home to spin and yoga classes, a farmers market, concerts and other activities. That’s because the city of Cleveland has finalized plans to close a portion of the street between Church and Clinton Avenues.
It’s part of a larger push by the Bibb administration to create more pedestrian-friendly spaces across the city. Two years ago, the city also closed Market Avenue in Ohio City to cars, allowing people to lounge on lawn furniture and drink their lattes al fresco. At a recent Cleveland Landmarks Commission meeting, city planning director Calley Mersmann told members that creating pedestrian-friendly streets is an important priority for the city.
“This is part of Mayor Bibb’s overall push to create more places for people to be in our neighborhoods,” Mersmann said. “The purpose is to create a safe, pedestrianized plaza for people to gather.”
Marika Shioiri-Clark, who along with her husband Graham Veysey owns the firehouse building where Rising Star and Larder are located, is a big supporter of the project. “To me, our neighborhood doesn’t have that many open public spaces, especially spaces that feel safe and welcoming for kids and families in the neighborhood,” she said. “The outdoor seating areas that are already outside the firehouse and Transformer Station are so popular and well used. I see kids and families walking across the street all the time between those two spaces. To me, it seems really natural to expand those spaces together to make a neighborhood-scale plaza.”
The street closure, which would extend from the intersection of W. 29th and Church to the southern edge of the Transformer Station property, has been at least two years in the making. A pilot project was rolled out last year using a $100,000 grant from the nonprofit Project for Public Spaces; during that brief two-week span, the street was treated like an outdoor living room. People organized their own dinners, held a bike repair workshop, did chalk drawings, and hosted a concert for kids with local musician Jesse Jukebox. After the 14-day trial, the street was reopened to traffic and organizers sought feedback on how it went.
The original plan was to permanently close it this year, but that was before business pushback over lack of notice, rushed planning, and lack of a maintenance plan. “We felt initially the plan was to open it at the end of summer without any announcement, without programming, wayfinding signage, or communication,” said Anne Hartnett, who owns the Vitrolite building on Church Avenue as well as the Harness Collective. “We knew it wouldn’t be successful. They were probably just going to show up one day to close the street, and that was a concern to business owners. The city really heard that, and we had a collaborative meeting at the Vitrolite.”
After that meeting, the original timeline was pushed back to next year once Project for Public Spaces okayed the plan. At its recent meeting, landmarks approved the project, albeit with reservations, paving the way for the closure in the spring of next year.
“This is a quick build installation we hope to leverage into a long-term investment,” explained Mersmann, citing a plan including Thomas barriers at either end of the street, tree pits, some heavyweight furniture like picnic tables, other moveable furniture, and either a groundcover called SYNlawn – basically fake grass – or painted asphalt (it hasn’t been decided yet). She said the street would also be repaved before closing it to car traffic. “The current potholed street is not sufficient,” she said.
At the landmarks meeting, current councilmember Kerry McCormack weighed in with his support. “I appreciate the time spent having additional discussions,” he said. “The feedback I’ve heard from businesses is they want to make sure it’s done right, to ensure we’re thoughtful on maintenance, maintenance funds, and who’s going to ensure that maintenance happens. We need to make sure this project is done well so it’s not seen as something we tried and it didn’t work.”
Not all of the landmarks members were convinced that the plan to close the street was fully baked. “My concern is that it feels a little bit rushed, and that has to do with the funding mechanism (Project for Public Spaces),” said member Chris Loeser. “There’s a lot of opportunity here, but also a lot that still needs to be resolved in terms of making this feel like an intentional space. SYNlawn is not the right choice; it feels like more of a temporary thing. I like the idea of this being used for public art, but the barriers create roadblocks and don’t necessarily create an inviting space. You should think about removable bollards instead. Allow the space to bleed into the neighborhood rather than being bookended by heavy, not-so-inviting elements.”
Mersmann replied that the current installation can be considered temporary and just the first phase. “We’re sort of walking the line bearing out the proof of concept before making irreversible changes here,” she said.
Shioiri-Clark said allowing additional time for the rollout helps ensure buy-in from businesses. While originally there was discussion about closing the street all the way from Clinton to Detroit, that got scaled back over business concerns. “If it goes well we could theoretically talk about expanding it,” she said. “This is the area where it makes the most sense to start.”
After getting reassurance from the city that business owners would be part of the planning process, Hartnett organized a letter expressing business support for the project. “I’m an advocate for it but it has to be done well,” she said. Next steps include forming a steering committee of residents and business owners to help shape the rollout. “Now there’s plenty of time,” said Hartnett. “We’re hoping it can be a model through being a collaborative process.”
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Lee Chilcote
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