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The Cleveland Plain Dealer
www.cleveland.com
Community’s greening centers on RTA
Rapid station will open the door to 'Eco Village’
at Lorain, W. 61st St.
By
JAMES F. SWEENEY
Monday,
November 06, 2000
The
Regional Transit Authority’s W. 65th St. rapid station is a misnomer - and a
scary place to catch a train.
The
station is actually on W. 61st St. - a stark wooden platform at the bottom of a
ravine between Lorain and Madison avenues on Cleveland’s West Side, isolated,
unattended and invisible from the street. In 1996, a man was found shot to
death on the platform. As recently as three weeks ago, neighbors said, a woman
was mugged there.
Though
it will remain on W. 61st St., everything else about the station will change.
The RTA plans to replace it with a $4 million street-level facility on the
Lorain side. It will be larger, more visible and safer than the existing one.
Demolition
of four buildings between Lorain and the ravine begins this month. RTA will
build a plaza between the station and the street and is negotiating for a new
post office on its property. The existing station will close next spring and
the new stop will open in April 2002.
Neighbors
welcomed the new station, but are worried that it will be harder to find a
parking spot. When the station reopens, it will be at the heart of a proposed
"EcoVillage."
The
neighborhood within a quarter-mile radius of the station has been chosen by the
Detroit Shoreway Community Development Corp. and EcoCity Cleveland, a nonprofit
environmental planning group, as the pilot for an experiment in building a new
type of neighborhood.
As
envisioned, EcoVillage would be a gradual transformation of the vital but
threadbare neighborhood.
Used-car
lots and boarded-up storefronts along Lorain would be replaced by three-story
buildings with retail on the ground floor and apartments above. Vacant lots
would be filled with new homes or converted to green space, community gardens
or small parks.
Current
residents would be joined by newcomers attracted to a variety of housing in a
range of prices, boosting the population to a point where it can support new
stores, services and businesses.
Up
to that point, it sounds like the standard neighborhood revitalization program,
but EcoVillage has a green tint to it.
New
buildings would be "green built," with carpets and insulation made
from recycled materials, and high-efficiency furnaces, said David Beach,
executive director of EcoCity Cleveland. Existing homes and businesses would be
renovated to save energy, and neighborhood recycling and composting programs
would reduce waste. Cars would be de-emphasized in favor of pedestrians, public
transit and bicycles.
"I
think it’s a wonderful thing. It’s going to rejuvenate this neighborhood, which
needs it," said Sister Anne Kilbane of St. Colman Catholic Church on W.
65th St.
Small
signs of progress were evident on a recent walking tour of the neighborhood.
Withered
tomato vines and heads of cabbage remain in raised beds in a new community
garden on Ithaca Court, a garden that will be expanded next spring. On adjacent
plots on W. 54th St., Detroit Shoreway plans to build two houses to
cutting-edge, environmentally friendly standards.
At
W. 58th St. and Madison, Dennis O’Donnell and sons Hugh and Eamon were widening
a garage on a house they had just sold.
Though
they acted independently of Detroit Shoreway, they bought the decrepit house at
a sheriff’s sale earlier this year and renovated it with a high-efficiency
furnace, carpeting made from recycled material and other green features before
selling it to a lawyer relocating from Tremont.
Across
W. 58th are four boarded-up houses that will come down soon to make room for 20
townhouses.
The
neighborhood is a long way from becoming EcoVillage, but it’s getting there,
said Manda M. Gillespie of EcoCity.
"I
imagine in 10 years we’ll still be working on this, but it will be very
different," she said.
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