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It’s much nicer to consider a new lakefront trail project now in July rather than in January when construction is due to begin. But between now and then, the city of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County and the Cleveland Metroparks will be finalizing agreements for the construction and maintenance of the Euclid Beach Connector Trail.
The $14.5 million project will extend the existing lakefront trail that currently runs a half-mile through Euclid Beach and Wildwood parks. It is part of a vision by Cuyahoga County officials to construct a lakefront trail with erosion controls and recreational features all along the county’s 30-mile Lake Erie waterfront.
This particular project will roughly double the length of the Euclid Beach-Wildwood trail. It will extend it about a half-mile west to the 15400 block of Lake Shore Boulevard, at the east end of Shore Acres Drive, in Cleveland’s Collinwood neighborhood.
Cleveland City Council will take up the agreements with the Metroparks and county in the coming weeks. City Planning Commission voted unanimously with one abstention on July 18 to recommend that council approve the agreement.
Funding for the Euclid Beach Connector Trail is coming from Cuyahoga County, city of Cleveland, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the National Park Service, said Trevor Hunt, the county’s senior project manager for lakefront projects. at the planning commission meeting.
The work includes the construction of a 10-foot-wide trail, shoreline revetment work and new overlooks, Hunt explained. A revetment is barrier or retaining wall that absorbs the energy of incoming water and protects the land behind it from erosion.
When completed in March 2027, that 1 mile of trail will make it the second-longest stretch of uninterrupted lakefront trail on the city’s East Side. The longest trail is still under construction, however.
The $10.6 million Mandel Community Trail (formerly the North Marginal Trail), began construction in April. When complete in June 2026, it will combine with an existing trail through the East 55th Marina and Gordon Park to create a continuous, 4.3-mile trail from East 9th Street in Downtown Cleveland to Bratenahl.
That trail ends 3.5 miles west of where the new Euclid Beach Connector Trail will end. And the combined Euclid Beach Connector-Wildwood trails ends nearly 3 miles west of where the next section of public trail ends at Kenneth J. Sims Park in Euclid.
In 2020, the city of Euclid completed a $13 million trail and erosion control project along a half-mile of its shoreline east of Sims Park. That project became a model that the county officials wanted to emulate from Euclid west to Bay Village to increase public access to Lake Erie.
Public officials and some private property owners embraced the concept because it offers to provide erosion control in exchange for public access to the lakefront. Euclid city funding came from tax-increment financing from the increased property values and their resulting increase in tax revenues.
Cleveland’s funding is coming from federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars for economic recovery after the pandemic. A total of $20 million ARPA Waterfront Activation program was directed to nine projects intended to improve public enjoyment of the Lake Erie and Cuyahoga River waterfronts.
Those nine projects are:
- North Coast Masterplan-near term (Downtown) — $1 million
- North Coast Connector (Downtown) — $3 million
- Bedrock riverfront infrastructure (Downtown) — $3 million
- Downtown Experiential Lighting — $1 million
- Irishtown Bend Park (Ohio City) — $5 million
- CHEERS (Downtown, Goodrich-Kirtland Park, St. Clair-Superior, Glenville) — $1.5 million
- North Marginal Trail (St. Clair-Superior) — $2 million
- Euclid Beach Trail Connector (Collinwood) — $3 million
- Euclid Creek Greenway Connector (Collinwood) — $500,000
“Everything from Euclid Beach to downtown and our riverfront are included in these investments,” said Kate Warren, senior advisor to Mayor Justin Bibb. “They are consistent with the mayor’s waterfront values that the waterfront is a place that belongs to all us and must be a place for all of us.”
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