GENEVA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ohio — It has become a bit of an unintended attraction for people passing by Geneva Township Park.
Crews have begun work to restore the beach at the park after a warmer winter in 2020 eroded 80 feet from the shoreline.
Watch that story from 2020 here:
Years of planning and grant writing kept Mayor Dwayne Bennett and his team at Geneva-on-the-Lake busy as they searched for funding to bring the beach back.
"There's just not a lot of money, grant-wise, for a shoreline," Bennett said. "People come from Pittsburgh, Youngstown. They came here because of the beach."
The project involves creating a heavy stone barrier parallel to the coast to help reduce the impact from waves while still allowing water to freely flow to the beach.
"It kind of swirls the sand around and then exits back out, so you don't completely trap that sand," Bennett explained.
The $1.3 million project is funded by state grants, including the Appalachian Community Grant Program.
For resident Rich Phinney, the project is deeply personal. He lives right across the street from the park and watched the shoreline disappear in 2020.
"It's sad it's gone in a hurry," Phinney told News 5 in 2020.
Now, he walks by it every day.
"I check with them every morning to make sure they're getting the job done," Phinney said. "It's a beautiful park to go and look at the lake, but you can't go in it very easily. This is going to be awesome that we can have a place to swim right here."
Because of the grant requirements, the project must be completed by the end of October. Mayor Bennett told News 5 he hopes to see it wrapped up by mid-September, with a long-term goal of addressing more of the shoreline where the beach disappeared as well.
"The goal is to do [it] all the way down the whole strip," Bennett said.
Clay LePard is the Ashtabula, Geauga and Portage counties reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow him on X @ClayLePard, on Facebook ClayLePardTV or email him at Clay.LePard@wews.com.
