Freeway Cap Park Proposed in the Heart of Cleveland

Steven Litt reports for Cleveland.com on an ambitious proposal for the demolition of the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Building, a vacant county landmark built in 1931, to create space for a freeway cap project called “Reconnect Cleveland.” The Campus District Inc. is proposing the demolition and cap project in response to a request for proposals (RFP) from Cuyahoga County for the redevelopment of the historic courthouse

“The nonprofit wants to see the old courthouse demolished in order to make room for a green, aesthetically pleasing deck, or ‘cap,’ over the Innerbelt freeway trench next to the East 22nd Street Bridge, plus new development that could occur on part of the land where the courthouse now stands,” writes Litt.

“The cap would be big enough to carry a future regional bike path that would link Slavic Village to downtown, the lakefront, the Towpath Trail, and the Cuyahoga Valley,” explains Litt of the benefits touted in the Campus District’s documents presented in response to the RFP.

The Campus District is a community development corporation covering a swath of neighborhoods east of downtown Cleveland, including Cleveland State University, the Metro Campus of Cuyahoga Community College, and St. Vincent Charity Hospital.

According to Litt, the proposal already has strong support from political leadership and local organizations. The proposal has special urgency as the Ohio Department of Transportation plans the next stage of the Innerbelt Modernization Plan, which Litt describes as a “multi-decade project to revamp the Innerbelt, the eight-mile collection of freeway lanes converging on the west, south and east sides of downtown to link interstates 71, 77, and 90.”