As Detroit delivers a waterfront gem filled with citizen-based ideas, Cleveland eyes its own next chapter

CLEVELAND, Ohio – While Cleveland is about to embark on a serious look of what its downtown lakefront could become, Detroit asked that question for its latest new park— and answered it by asking its people.

Before blueprints were drawn for the $80 million Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park that opened Oct. 25, the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy turned to residents — sending them to other cities, hosting workshops and inviting schoolchildren to dream up the park’s creatures.

The result is a waterfront designed to feel like it truly belongs to Detroiters, something Cleveland hopes to capture as it starts its own journey for 50 acres around and including the current football stadium site.

The Conservancy dispatched about two dozen residents to Chicago, Philadelphia and New York to gather ideas for transforming a 22-acre former industrial site along the Detroit River.

Their mission was simple: imagine what would make the space feel like home. University of Michigan grad student Luz Meza told the Detroit Free Press amid the fact-finding that the riverfront needed “something that gives a space for a lot of different kinds of people.”

Another participant, Robert Hoey, framed it as a question: “What kinds of things would you like to see in this 22-acre site that would say to yourself, your family, folks in your community, that this park is for you; this park is for all of us?”

That kind of feedback guided everything that followed.

The Conservancy assembled a 22-member advisory team. And that team, according to BridgeDetroit, to shape the design, drawing on lessons from those city tours and hundreds of community meetings.

Youth workshops helped design the William Davidson Sport House, and even Detroit schoolchildren were invited to sculpt animals from clay. Two of their creations — a fox and a bird — now stand permanently in the park’s Delta Dental Play Garden, among the towering, whimsical animal structures built by Danish designers Monstrum.

When the park opened last month during Detroit Harvestfest, it felt alive. Children climbed a 26-foot otter and 15-foot beaver, bouncing basketballs echoed inside the glass-roofed pavilion, and couples wandered through the Huron-Clinton Metroparks Water Garden, where running water muffles city noise.

The DTE Foundation Summit unfolds nearby as an open green expanse for concerts, sledding and community gatherings, framed by more than 900 new trees and sweeping views of the Detroit and Windsor skylines.

While Detroit celebrates its new jewel on the riverfront, Cleveland is nearing the drawing board.

City leaders and planners are in the early stages of what they hope will become of its the waterfront downtown – as the core of what has already been built up or is in progress along the shoreline and the banks of the Cuyahoga River.

Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, speaking recently to City Council, pointed directly to Detroit as he reaffirmed his commitment to reimagining Cleveland’s waterfront — both on the lake and along the Cuyahoga River.

“If we want to get talent from our peer cities across the country — whether it be Chicago, Seattle, New York, D.C., Atlanta, Detroit — and grow our population, grow our tax base so we can invest more,” Bibb said, “we have to make strategic investments and strategic bets. And I believe this waterfront investment, from the shore to the core to the shore, will be that critical investment that allows us to turn the page, including all the other great things we’ve done.”

One Detroit study from a few years back found that 90% of the 3 million waterfront visits a year wouldn’t have taken place without the significant riverfront improvements. More recent research placed two decades of private and public investment at $1.9 billion. Of that, $470 million was spent on construction labor, creating 21,800 construction jobs. And $7 million taxes is generated annually from the riverfront.

Cleveland and its not-for-profit North Coast Waterfront Development Corp. expect to name a development team around the end of this year to help plan for the area where the stadium now sits. For the first time in nearly a century, those plans won’t have to be built around a hulking stadium: the Browns have agreed to demolish it after their lease ends, as early as 2028.

Scott Skinner, executive director of the development corporation, said some features of the lakefront could open even before the stadium comes down. With decades of stalled dreams behind them, city leaders say this is Cleveland’s moment to create a destination that balances recreation, housing, and public space.

In Detroit, that transformation has been led by the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, formed in 2003 by the Kresge Foundation (of Kmart fame), General Motors, and the city itself.

“For years and years and years, people in Detroit would look across the river to Windsor, Ontario, and see a beautiful riverfront with parks, pathways, public art and all kinds of events,” said Marc Pasco, spokesperson for the Conservancy. “We wanted a park of our own, and it had never happened.”

GM donated the first half-mile of the Riverwalk in 2004, and the Conservancy’s first park — Rivard Plaza, known for its carousel — opened in 2007. That same year, the organization purchased the former Detroit Free Press printing plant site.

Nearly two decades later, that property has become Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park, named for the late Buffalo Bills owner and Detroit native whose foundation contributed $56 million to make it happen.

Elsewhere: Ideas flowing in other cities

Detroit’s story is now part of a growing trend: cities across the Midwest and beyond reclaiming their industrial waterfronts for public use and private investment. From Cincinnati to Milwaukee, they’re creating a new urban identity centered around access, activity, and civic pride.

Among other examples:

Cincinnati – Cincinnati has turned 195 acres between and around the pro football and baseball stadiums along the Ohio River into a mix of apartments, offices, parks, and attractions known as the Banks. The city-county partnership began in 2008. The first park, the Smale Riverfront Park, opened in 2015. More than $2 billion has been invested to convert parking lots and warehouses into a lively riverfront district with museums, music venues, and restaurants.

Pittsburgh – Point State Park, which opened in 1974 on former industrial land, remains Pittsburgh’s signature waterfront park, anchored by its fountain at the confluence of three rivers. But that’s just one waterfront development in the city, with more to come. For example, across the water along the Ohio River, the privately led $750 million Esplanade project will add housing, a hotel, 8 acres of public space and a 160-foot Ferris wheel. Site work is slated to begin this month, with major construction starting in 2027.

Milwaukee – Milwaukee launched its Riverwalk plan in 1993 to provide public access along the Milwaukee River. The network now stretches six miles with another six miles planned along the city’s three rivers. This includes a new three-quarter-mile segment in the city’s Harbor District, funded in part by a $14.7 million state grant.

Chicago – Chicago’s 120-acre Northerly Island Park, once home to Meigs Field airport, opened in 2015 after Mayor Richard M. Daley ordered portions of the runway bulldozed overnight in March 2003, closing the airport. Today, the site near Soldier Field includes a beach, trails, and an outdoor amphitheater for 30,000. In Cleveland, Mayor Justin Bibb is working to get permission from federal officials to close Burke Lakefront Airport, opening development opportunities.

Toronto – Since 2001, a tri-government partnership of Toronto, Ontario and Canada has led the redevelopment of a 2,000-acre stretch along Lake Ontario, creating over 100 acres of parks, 16 miles of new waterfront access, and $13 billion ($9.5 billion U.S.) in private investment.

Cleveland already has its own waterfront assets: Cleveland Metroparks reservations line the lake – east and west – and downtown’s Voinovich Park offers public space north of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Great Lakes Science Center.

Work is underway on a multi-purpose path linking East 55th Street and East Ninth Street north of the Shoreway, and on the Metroparks’ new Sailing Center at East 55th Street Marina. And prep work is being done for the 20-acre Irishtown Bend park on the west bank of the Cuyahoga River.

The next chapter is around the stadium site downtown, which likely will include both public and private investments.

“When you start looking at the evolution of the Detroit riverfront, it truly was a collaboration of public and private partners from the beginning,” said Pasco of the Riverfront Conservancy. “If we wouldn’t have shared this vision, we wouldn’t have had the success we’ve had. When people work together, the possibilities are endless. The Detroit riverfront is proof of that.”