Canal Basin District Plan Approved with Unanimous Vote by CPC

Repost from Downtown Cleveland:

Cleveland City Planning Commission Approves the Canal Basin District Plan

View of the Towpath along Scranton Road facing Downtown

On Friday last week, the Cleveland City Planning Commission, by unanimous vote, adopted the Canal Basin District Plan. The plan, which is sponsored by Downtown Cleveland Alliance, the City of Cleveland and Ohio Canal Corridor, was presented by Greg Calpino of the nationally prominent landscape architecture firm JJR. The overview of the project and the plan was given by Tom Yablonsky, Executive Vice President of Downtown Cleveland Alliance.

The centerpiece of the Canal Basin District Plan is the proposed Canal Basin Park, which will include the current Settlers Landing Park and expand it to a new 24 acre signature park for the city. In addition to the park, the plan coordinates necessary linkages to nearby neighborhoods and from the last phase of the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail.

“This plan is significant because it builds on our city’s legacy of the Emerald Necklace,” said Tom Yablonsky, Vice President of Downtown Cleveland Alliance. “In that spirit, the Canal Basin District Plan proposes a dynamic and comprehensive framework of trail investments that build upon the proposed Canal Basin Park. Together, the park and its trail linkages will become the northern terminus of both the Towpath Trail and the 110 mile Ohio & Erie Canalway. The plan provides the vision for access to world-class parks for Downtown and Cleveland’s most central neighborhoods, access that Cleveland’s surrounding neighborhoods and suburbs have enjoyed for decades.”

The Canal Basin District Park Plan identified and evaluated all possible trail linkages that could connect Canal Basin Park to adjacent Downtown amenities and nearby city neighborhoods. Based on public input and subsequent planning and engineering analysis, three strategic trail loops have been proposed:

• Lakefront Loop: which links Canal Basin Park to Nautica, Wendy Park and Edgewater Park. The loop also incorporates the proposed West Shoreway Improvements.
• Downtown Loop: which links the park to downtown neighborhoods through key links to the Flats East Bank, The Historic Warehouse District, Northcoast Harbor, Public Square and the Convention Center/Medical Mart
• Canal District Loop: which links the park to key river front projects including the newly proposed Cleveland Rowing Foundation location, Hart Crane Park and the proposed ParkWorks Lake Link Trail.
  
  For a map of the proposed loops, click here (PDF - 1.76 MB)

For more information on the next steps towards implementing the Canal Basin District Plan and the larger Towpath Trail project contact Tom Yablonsky at tyablonsky@dcacleveland.net or 216-736-7799. To view the presentation to the City Planning Commission, click here (PDF - 6.19 MB). For a map of the overall Canal Basin District Plan, click here (PDF - 4.42 MB)

This entry was written by Josh, posted on May 10, 2010 at 2:48 pm