Cleveland cultural heritage organization Canalway turns 40 this year, honoring a long history of “connecting people to place” along Cleveland’s rails, trails, and landscapes.
Today, the nonprofit is a key player in the transformation of Canal Basin Park, a 22-acre greenspace downtown, at northern terminus of the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail on the East Bank of the Flats, with its own significance to the city’s past.
On Friday, Jan. 3, the Cleveland City Planning Commission approved a new design for the riverfront park. Renderings revealed a curving boardwalk, Cuyahoga River-themed playground, and tributes to a well-traveled waterway that throughout its history helped link Ohio to the national economy.
Canal Basin Park gathering space lawnThe approved plan will create an “interpretive park,” which will mark the endpoint of the Ohio & Erie Canal, which traverses the Cuyahoga Valley en route to Lake Erie. The man-made watercourse also marked the beginning of a nationwide transportation system connecting ports on the Great Lakes with prosperous eastern cities.
Project collaborators, including Canalway, Downtown Cleveland Alliance, the City of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, and Cleveland Metroparks, envision the reimagined park as a gathering place and connective hub.
Future phases include a stormwater filtration system highlighting the Cuyahoga River’s role in the creation of the 1972 Clean Water Act. Additionally, Merwin Avenue could become a pedestrian promenade linking Superior Avenue hill and Settlers Landing Plaza with the Center Street Bridge and Detroit Avenue.
“We said, what is this place, as both a destination and a throughway?” recalls Canalway executive director Mera Cardenas. “The history of rail and canal transportation in Cleveland is now reflected in the park design. This is a riverfront location that needs a stronger connection to the river.”
A long time coming
The downtown park, situated on the east bank of The Flats, may include a plaza commemorating the newly extended Towpath Trailhead.
Although construction on the first phase isn’t slated until 2026, community events and the addition of murals on bridge pilings are planned for this spring.
Rebuilding and expansion of the existing park will be a years-long process—discussions about a riverfront greenspace have been on the books since the 1970s, not long after the infamous Cuyahoga River fire.
In 2013, Canalway, the City of Cleveland, and other stakeholders released a park transformation roadmap and followed up two years later with a basic framework of the ambitious plan. The early 2020s saw 30,000 square feet of asphalt converted into greenspace and trails—the 2022 opening of the Towpath became a precursor to the park’s forthcoming largescale transition, according to the Canalway website.
Rendering of Canal Basin ParkThe initial concept for the current plan was developed by Merritt Chase, a Pittsburgh-based landscape architecture and urban design firm, in a year-long collaboration with architecture, engineering, and planning firm OHM Advisors and ThirdSpace Action Lab. Planners received community feedback in June 2024, with more than 200 residents attending a preview event at Veterans Memorial Bridge.
“The community was given three visions of the park plan,” Cardenas says. “We also had an online survey and dedicated walking tours. Much of our planning came out of this public engagement.”
Funding and parking questions
Cardenas says residents have inquired about the project's cost, with planners estimating that a complete refurbishment of the 22-acre site could range from $30 million to $40 million. Funding is expected to derive from federal and state sources—about $850,000 in state funds are earmarked through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. While these dollars are crucial, they will be divided with the Irishtown Bend Park project, a $45 million initiative that faces a funding gap itself.
“[Funding] will be a combination of private foundations and state, city, federal, and individual sources,” explains Cardenas. “We’re just wrapping the planning phase, and we will see the effects of that next year while working on environmental studies and fundraising.”
Ward 17 Cleveland City Council member Charles Slife says he regularly uses Canal Basin Park, primarily for cycling and jogging along the Towpath. Ideally, the completed project will serve as both destination and connector for Greater Clevelanders and beyond, he says.
Rendering of Canal Basin Park“Between Canal Basin Park and Irishtown Bend, we have all these central city amenities coming online,” Slife says. “Cleveland is fortunate to be a ‘double water’ city with the lakefront and riverfront. It’s exciting to see all these things coming together.”
Though enthusiastic about the coming changes, Slife says he remains concerned about access, noting that Edgewater Park and Wendy Park are popular due to an abundance of parking.
“Parking has not been the number-one concern during the planning conversations,” says Slife. “What I don’t want to happen is the park being heavily used just by the more immediate neighborhoods. This should be everyone’s park.”
Canalway’s Cardenas points to parking options nearby, among them a lot across from the Center Street Swing Bridge in the Flats. For now, planners will continue to develop a space that encourages a sense of community as well as an understanding of our local heritage, Cardenas says.
“We’ve worked hard as a community to fight for clean water in our river, and this [park] is a connection to a generation’s worth of work,” she says. “It’s also a community gathering space that can connect people to the history of the site.”