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The Cleveland Plain Dealer
www.cleveland.com
Foundations’ gifts to help pave way for trail project
By STEVEN LITT
January 10, 2001
The rebirth of the Cuyahoga Valley received a boost yesterday
with the announcement that two Cleveland foundations have
donated $50,000 to design a new hike and bike trail through
the industrial zone south of downtown.
The two $25,000 grants, from the Cleveland and Gund foundations,
were announced at a meeting of the Cuyahoga County Planning
Commission. Together, they bring to $175,000 the total raised
so far to design and engineer roughly 4 miles of trail from
Harvard Rd. in Cuyahoga Heights to downtown Cleveland.
The trail is to be the northernmost section of a growing,
110-mile pathway that will largely follow the route of the
old Ohio & Erie Canal from Cleveland south to New Philadelphia.
So far, about 64 miles of trail are in place in sections
from Cuyahoga Heights south to Akron and beyond.
"We want to thank you publicly today," County
Commissioner Timothy McCormack told representatives of the
foundations.
Jon Jensen, a program officer with the Gund Foundation,
said: "Parks and open spaces are among the most enduring
elements of great cities." He predicted that with the
extension of the trail north into downtown Cleveland, "there’s
going to be even more public demand for parks and open space
and access to the [Cuyahoga] river."
The money donated by the foundations will be added to a
pot that includes $100,000 from the federal government and
$25,000 in in-kind services from the county Planning Commission.
Tim Donovan, director of Ohio Canal Corridor, the nonprofit
organization spearheading the trail project, said trail
advocates were seeking another $75,000 from sources including
Cleveland Metroparks and the city of Cleveland. City officials
declined to comment on whether Mayor Michael R. White would
support the trail.
The money will be used to hire design consultants to plot
the specific route of the trail. A design could be finished
in one year, and the 4-mile section of trail could be finished
within five years.
No agency has stepped forward to build and manage the trail.
Vern Hartenburg, director of Cleveland Metroparks, said
the entire trail could cost up to $30 million to build.
Costly sections of the right-of-way include a proposed elevated
section that will skirt the western edge of the 1,200-acre
LTV Steel Co. plant.
Last month, county commissioners appropriated $375,000
in their 2001 budget to redesign the landscape around the
trail. That project, which is separate from the design of
the trail itself, will include an environmental analysis,
a model zoning code and a survey of historic industrial
sites.
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