Description. Development began in the neighborhood in the 1850s along Detroit Street (Avenue), a major route connecting Cleveland with regions to the west and serving as the neighborhood?s main commercial district. Beginning in the late 1890s, industries began locating along the rail lines on the bluffs overlooking Lake Erie and then began to develop further to the south, along the rail lines running through the Walworth Run Valley. Detroit-Shoreway was built as a middle-income neighborhood, with a mix of single- and two-family homes and small multi-family structures, with more architecturally distinguished homes constructed along Franklin Avenue. There is still a strong presence of Italian and Romanian-American ethnic communities. In recent years, new waves of immigration have brought growing numbers of Hispanic and Asian residents.
Assets. Among the neighborhood’s most significant assets are:
- its proximity to Lake Erie and Edgewater Park
- the West 65 th/Detroit retail district anchored by the Gordon Square Arcade and a growing cultural, performing arts and entertainment environment
- a regionally renowned antiques and collectibles district on Lorain Avenue between West 45 th Street and Clark Avenue
- the Eco-Village, an environmentally sensitive new housing development built in conjunction with adjacent rapid transit and recreational amenities at West 65 th and Lorain
- new housing projects such as Ashbury Tower and Battery Park on former industrial sites
Challenges. Among the challenges faced by the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood today are:
- creating stronger connections to the Lake Erie shoreline
- the cost to clean-up contaminated industrial sites for reuse
- attracting more retail uses to serve the shopping needs of residents
- improving the appearance along the main commercial corridors of Detroit and Lorain
- poor housing conditions in the neighborhood south of Lorain Avenue
Vision. Detroit-Shoreway has the potential to be a highly desirable lakefront community with a vibrant cultural scene and easy access to Downtown Cleveland. Among the development opportunities and initiatives proposed are the following:
- transform the West Shoreway from an expressway to a boulevard and create additional and strengthened connections from the existing street grid to the lakefront
- create a strong north-south connection along West 65 th Street from Clark Avenue (at the proposed West Side Reliever High School and Zone Recreation Center) north to the lakefront, with improved landscaping and bike lanes
- develop housing along the bluff overlooking Lake Erie on those industrial sites that are vacant and obsolete for future industrial use
- identify and construct an off-street trail route east of West 65 th Street for the Cleveland Lakefront Bikeway
- undertake streetscape improvements on Detroit Avenue between West 58 th and West 73 rd to support the cultural and entertainment district that is emerging, and encourage complementary uses to locate there
- undertake streetscape improvements along Lorain Avenue from West 52 nd to West 82 nd
- explore additional transit-oriented development opportunities, using sustainable design practices, around the West 65 th rapid transit station
- target housing program activity in the vicinity of Eco-Village
Printable version: can be downloaded here.
Maps (current as of May 2007): Assets, Development Opportunities, Land Use (existing and proposed), and Retail Strategies are available here. (PDF)
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