CLEVELAND — On the city’s East Side, workers are putting the finishing touches on a new pocket park. Benches and other furniture are still on their way.
But in the center of the green space, a restored Cleveland landmark is already an attraction, bringing back memories and prompting cyclists and passersby to linger.
The Euclid Beach Park arch has a new look in a new location — about 150 feet west of where it previously stood. On Friday evening, city officials and neighbors will celebrate with a 7 o’clock lighting ceremony, illuminating the structure and the refurbished sign.
“It really feels like more of a landmark to me now,” Mark Duluk, the city architect, said during an interview this week.
WATCH: Get a closer look at the restored arch
On Friday morning, Claudia Bostic and Mary Ellen Carney paused during their walk along Lakeshore Boulevard, through the Collinwood neighborhood.
Bostic, who grew up in nearby Euclid, remembers the old Euclid Beach amusement park, which closed in 1969. She went there with her family and school groups as a child.
“When they had to close it down, it was like ‘oh my gosh, that’s part of my history. It’s gone,’” she said.
Now a piece of that history has been rescued and reborn, with cheery blue trim, a bright yellow sign and whimsical flags at the tops of the towers. Workers moved the arch last year to prevent it from getting hit by another car.
WATCH: The Euclid Beach Park arch on the move
Now it’s nestled in a park instead of straddling a busy street that leads to high-rise apartment buildings. Shifting the arch also enabled the city to redo East 159th Street.
“I think it’s beautiful,” Bostic said of the finished structure. “And it’s more visible in the spot that they moved it to.”
Relocating the arch and restoring it on new foundations was an $800,000 endeavor. Building out the park cost $500,000, bringing the total cost to $1.3 million.
“We had to fix it,” Councilman Mike Polensek said of the arch. “It’s owned by the city. … When it was on East 159th, it got hit so many times. It was in danger of collapse. And we were of the opinion if it got hit one more time, it was gonna go bye-bye.”
Before moving the arch, workers peeled off the faux-stone facade, which concealed the original wood. Then they wrapped the arch in plywood to protect it.
WATCH: An inside look at the moving process
“The moment we picked it up, what moved me the most was that it was a very large crowd,” Duluk said. “That crowd, it fell silent. There was this, almost, awe. It was almost like it was flying. … When something like that happens, time stands still.”
After placing the arch on new footings, the crew covered it in white cement board, a more durable product that replicates the structure’s original appearance. Workers rewired the sign, which had been dark for years.
The surrounding park, on land where a McDonald’s once stood, has rolling terrain and wide paths designed for strollers, bicycles and wheelchairs. McDonald’s donated the formerly vacant lot to the city, with the condition that the land must always be open space.
Polensek described the project as part of a push to revive that stretch of Lakeshore Boulevard, which is lined with vacant retail buildings and blank signs.
Across the street, city officials are working with Cuyahoga Land Bank to demolish a former Dave’s Markets store and a long-empty Ponderosa Steakhouse. A local developer, First Interstate Properties, is studying the potential of that roughly 6-acre site.
WATCH: Cleveland teams up with developer to reimagine former grocery store site
A former drugstore building down the street recently changed hands. “We’ll see a new occupant in there very shortly,” Polensek said.
And the Cleveland Metroparks is expanding the northern portion of the Euclid Creek Reservation, integrating 28.5 acres where a mobile-home community once stood. The park district is also talking with the Cleveland Public Library about the future of the neighboring Memorial-Nottingham branch, which occupies a former high school on an 18-acre site.
Those conversations include the possibility of adding that land to the lakefront park and building a smaller library branch closer to the water.
“Things are happening,” Polensek said. “It’s taken time. And the economy hasn’t helped. But we’re at that point now. We see light at the end of the tunnel.”
With the arch, now preserved, literally lighting the way.
“This is a promise,” Duluk said, looking out over Lakeshore Boulevard at the vacant retail buildings. “And I think the administration and all the folks working to redevelop that, that’s the fulfillment of the promise this arch represents.”
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.
