Two buildings slated for demolition with work starting as early as Monday for Irishtown Bend project

CLEVELAND — The first visible progress towards making Irishtown Bend a reality in Ohio City could happen as early as Feb. 8, when “Big 8” could start to be demolished.

The Demolition

Heavy equipment was sitting next to the building Friday morning ahead of the potential work after the weekend.

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Kevin Barry

Machinery waits outside “Big 8” to start dismantling the building on February 8.

“Local nonprofit LAND studio obtained a $1.4 million grant from the Ohio Public Works Commission’s Clean Ohio Conservation Fund, which covered the cost of land acquisition and demolition of these structures, which have sat vacant on West 25th Street for nearly a decade,” according to a press release from LAND studio.

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Kevin Barry

Ohio City Inc. tells News 5 the Breonna Taylor mural on the side of “Big 8” was temporary and was only intended to stay up until the building was demolished.

Cleveland Metroparks is handling the demolition, which will ultimately remove two buildings along Detroit Avenue near its intersection with West 25th Street.

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Kevin Barry

“Big 8” waits for demolition, which could start on February 8.

The other building is the former Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority administrative building right behind another vacant building on the corner of the Detroit Avenue and West 25th Street intersection.

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Corey Snipes

This airel photograph shows “Big 8” on the right, which could start to be demolished as early as Monday, February 8.

The Project

Irishtown Bend is a proposed hillside park stretching from West 25th Street down to the Cuyahoga River that could eventually have large community gardens and farms, a playground, entertainment space, welcome center, and multi-use trails.

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LAND studio

Renderings of Irishtown Bend show what’s possible on the side of the hill at one of the bends of the Cuyahoga River.

That recreational space will come after much-needed improvements to bulkheads that are 60-70 years old and struggle to hold the hill from collapsing into the Cuyahoga River.

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Kevin Barry

Irishtown Bend will eventually stretch from one part of this panoramic picture to the other. It’s almost the entire view from Merwin’s Warf.

Such a collapse would be devastating to the manufacturing and mining industries that use the waterway. NOACA estimated if a landslide occurred in the future, it would be a $3.5 billion dollar economic impact.

The President and CEO Port of Cleveland Will Friedman tweeted that the “stabilization phase could get underway later this year.”

The History

Irishtown Bend got its name from the Irish immigrants who arrived in the city in the mid-1800s, according to the Case Western Reserve University Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.

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Kevin Barry

A marker tells the history of Irishtown Bend near Merwin’s Warf.

Eventually, St. Malichi’s Church was established for the growing Irish population which lived along the riverside.

Much of the early Irish population left by the end of the 1800s and Eastern European immigrants moved in.

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Kevin Barry

“The neighborhood went into significant decline and by the 1950s all that remained in Irishtown Bend were a few deteriorating warehouses,” writes CWRU’s Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. “By the 1980s no commercial or residential buildings existed there.”

The Ripple Effect

There are a growing list of projects are being planned or are already underway that will tie into Irishtown Bend once it’s built.

Bridgeworks

A residential, retail, and hotel project planned for the corner of West 25th Street and Detroit Avenue is still in the planning stage for the current Cuyahoga County Department of Public Works garage and offices.

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MASS Design Group/LDA Architects

An overview of the project suggests that the streetcar level of the bridge could one day be accessible for pedestrians.

Planners say that project could eventually use the existing streetcar entrance for pedestrians to access the lower level of the Detroit-Superior bridge. That area might eventually connect to Irishtown Bend down the road.

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Corey Snipes

The former CHMA administrative building is to the left, with Bridgeworks’ potential site directly across Detroit Avenue (running L to R).

Red Line Greenway

The Red Line Greenway could be finished in the next few weeks, connecting the Michael J. Zone Recreation Center near Lorain Avenue and West 53rd Street with the southern end of Irishtown Bend, near Hoopples.

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Kevin Barry

Some of the Red Line Greenway trail starts to take shape near Scranton Peninsula.

Scranton Peninsula

Nearby Scranton, Peninsula has plenty of open land that developers are hoping can turn into new projects eventually.

“Thunderbird” was the original branding for the open space in the heart of downtown Cleveland, where Great Lakes Brewing Company has been considering an expansion.

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AoDK Architecture

The Avian office building is designed with disease protocol in mind.

Along the water, developer Fred Geis redesigned an office building in an attempt to limit the spread of disease during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

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AoDK Architecture

Renderings show what the inside of The Avian could look like once a tenant moves in.

Brew Dog’s James Watt tweeted about Geis’ space in December, suggesting that his unique brewery business might consider expanding into it.

No matter who moves in, Geis says the area between the building and the Cuyahoga River is intended to be green space that could tie into Irishtown Bend and the nearby Centennial Lake Link Trail.

Have you ever noticed something interesting in Northeast Ohio and wondered, “Hey…what’s going on there?”

Us, too. We love learning more about what shapes the world around us — the buildings, the spaces and the ways we move between them.

Next time you’re wondering about some building, project or piece of land, send me an email at [email protected] and I’ll look into it for a possible story.

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