CLEVELAND — A sprawling youth sports complex. A 7-acre campground, with room for recreational vehicles. Miles of walking trails. A lakefront promenade with a restaurant, concessions and a fishing pier. And a vertiport, where helicopters can take off and land.
A new report shows what could replace Burke Lakefront Airport, if Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb succeeds in a quest to close the city-owned aviation hub. Preliminary site plans depict a blend of low-slung buildings and open spaces – development designed to balance broad public access with money-making uses.
The study, released Wednesday, was commissioned and paid for by the North Coast Waterfront Development Corp., the nonprofit tasked with bringing change to the Downtown lakefront after decades of planning and debate. Consultants outlined what the future of the Burke site might look like – and the potential costs and benefits of remaking 450 acres.
“It is hard to talk about closing Burke in a vacuum,” Jessica Trivisonno, Bibb’s deputy chief of staff and chief strategy officer, said during an interview. “People wanna know, OK, if it was to close, what’s gonna go there?”
Ohio’s U.S. senators want to know that, too, as civic leaders seek an act of Congress to shut Burke down.
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Senators Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted have said they’re open to considering alternative uses for Burke. But they’ve asked for a plan for what comes next – and proof that there’s broad community support for a closure.
Redevelopment could cost $600 million
The redevelopment concepts in the new study, prepared by Econsult Solutions Inc., draw on past lakefront plans; years of community feedback; and recent talks with leaders from the city, Cuyahoga County, the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, Cleveland Metroparks and Destination Cleveland, the local convention and visitors’ bureau.
Scott Skinner, the North Coast nonprofit’s executive director, said the coalition is focused on three things: Improving public access. Ensuring an economic upside. And coming up with uses that make financial sense.
“We want to build something that we can finance up front – and that we can afford to maintain over the next hundred years,” he said.
The report puts the potential cost of the redevelopment proposals at $600 million to $700 million, with estimates ranging from $480 million to nearly $844 million.
“On a per-acre basis, that is actually an incredibly low development cost,” Skinner said, adding that a significant amount of that money would come from private sources.
“You hear the number $600 million. That is not borne by the general public,” he said. “That is not coming from the city’s general revenue fund.”
One of the site plans for Burke includes an 18-hole public golf course that could be used for cross-country skiing in winter.
The other layout replaces the golf course with an expansive lawn, an observation tower, a sledding hill and a lakeside pavilion.
Both concepts call for more than 130 acres of green space, including wooded areas. The eastern end of the property would be more natural. At the western end of the site, a 7-acre fieldhouse surrounded by parking would sit where the terminal is today.
The plans also show two hotels on the Muni Lot, the city-owned sea of parking to the south, just across the Cleveland Memorial Shoreway. Those hotels – one upscale, one less expensive – would each contain 125 to 150 rooms. They’d be aimed at lakefront visitors and families traveling to Cleveland for youth sports competitions and events.
Today, the Muni Lot is a popular tailgating spot for Cleveland Browns fans attending games at nearby Huntington Bank Field. But the Browns plan to move to a new stadium in Brook Park in 2029. That gives the city an opportunity to do much more with that land while preserving some parking for Downtown office workers, Skinner said.
A youth sports complex – with the enclosed fieldhouse and outdoor athletic fields – could bring 400 to 500 families to Cleveland every weekend, according to very preliminary estimates, he said. And those families will need places to stay.
“That drives economic impact,” Skinner said, noting that youth sports, camping, golf and some of the other proposals for the Burke site aren’t common in urban areas, where there simply isn’t enough land to accommodate them.
But “if there’s one thing we’re not lacking for on Burke, it’s land,” he said.
Study shows financial upside for Cleveland
Redeveloping Burke with that mix of uses would yield $2.6 million to $2.7 million in annual tax revenues for Cleveland, the study predicts.
Right now, Burke generates about $500,000 a year in city tax revenues, according to a 2024 report prepared by the same consultants.
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“This study shows that … we can have significantly increased public access and five times more revenue directly to the city’s general revenue fund,” Trivisonno said.
The broader economic-impact math is murkier – and it depends on whether the city can find new homes for most of the tenants at Burke. The airport caters to private jets, flight schools and helicopters carrying patients and organs for the Cleveland Clinic.
City leaders believe it’s possible to close the airport while preserving a place for those helicopters to take off and land. That’s why a vertiport is part of the conceptual site plans.
“We’ve been in really active conversations with our medical partners,” Trivisonno said, adding that officials are talking to other tenants about moving to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport or the Cuyahoga County Airport in Richmond Heights.
She and Skinner also believe it’s possible to keep the Cleveland National Air Show in the city – and still host a ticketed event on part of the redeveloped Burke property, even if planes can’t take off and land there.
“This conceptual plan, I would hope to be good news for them, because it’s not a lot of high-impact development,” Trivisonno said. “And we think that there’s some real ways to maintain the air show operations within this more low-density plan.”
But the aviation industry is fighting the city’s effort to close Burke. Representatives from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the International Council of Air Shows and other organizations recently met with staffers for Husted and Moreno to plead their case.
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On Wednesday, aviation groups plan to hold an open house at Burke to highlight the tenants and make an argument for preserving the airport, or reaching some sort of compromise.
The North Coast nonprofit and the city released redevelopment concepts for Burke just a few hours before that open house. “We wanted to get this out as soon as it was ready,” Trivisonno said of the study. “So it’s just the timing of when this was available.”
Officials are preparing for Cleveland City Council hearings about the future of Burke on April 1 and April 15. The first discussion will focus on the process of shutting down an airport. At the second meeting, council members will look at redevelopment prospects.
It’s still unclear if – or when – Congress will decide on the future of Burke.
City officials alos are talking to the Federal Aviation Administration about seeking a formal agency decision on a closure request. That process can take 12 to 18 months.
“There’s a long runway before we get to the point of closure,” Trivisonno said. “And once we get there, there’s going to be additional community engagement work – and then work with partners to really implement whatever the final plan is.”
The North Coast nonprofit is soliciting public comments on the future of Burke and how to redevelop the site. Skinner said his team has been going to neighborhood meetings and community events. And more than 2,400 people have responded to an online survey.
Trivisonno said feedback is important, since the plans released Wednesday are an initial attempt to explore what’s possible and where different types of projects could fit.
“So I would say, if folks are excited about things in this plan, we want to hear that,” she said. “If folks are not excited about things in the plan, I also want them to tell Scott. … All of that will inform the final outcome of what goes on this site.”
Michelle Jarboe is the business growth and development reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow her on X @MJarboe or email her at Michelle.Jarboe@wews.com.
