Euclid Waterfront Improvements Plan - Phase II

In 2009, the Euclid Waterfront Improvements Plan established a $30 million unprecedented vision to increase public access to Northeast Ohio's greatest natural asset—Lake Erie. Phase I (a fishing pier) was completed in 2013. Under Lukacsy-Love's leadership, the majority-minority inner-ring suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, "is close to realizing a brilliant lakefront project that could serve as a precedent for ... the entire Great Lakes region,” wrote Steven Litt in The Plain Dealer. Phase II includes construction of a 3/4-mile trail and a new lakefront park—designed in collaboration with SmithGroup Waterfront Practice Director and Landscape Architect Jason Stangland—which began in fall 2018 and will be completed by summer 2020. The park features a paddlecraft beach, community-planted wetlands, and seasonal restaurants and equipment rentals. The trail runs across private property, which led to a unique and visionary agreement: 100 homeowners voluntarily signed easements so the public can walk or bike on the lakefront. Instead of monetary compensation, property owners will receive world-class infrastructure that stabilizes the bluff that their houses sit on above Lake Erie. The public, in turn, will finally get access to a prime swathe of their city’s waterfront