Greyhound to Move From Downtown Cleveland to New Brookpark Road Station

Greyhound is actually heading out of Downtown after all. Credit: Mark Oprea

Last November, as then-owner Twenty Lake Holdings announced plans to one day redevelop Cleveland’s downtown Greyhound station, news emerged that the bus service and RTA were in talks to relocate the station from the iconic building to a station 20 minutes west on Puritas.

Then, in April, transit advocates were appeased when RTA said it found a closer workaround for the service that Greyhound co-runs with Barons Bus: move its operations only three blocks south, to the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Transit Center off East 22nd St., keeping the operation central.

But last Friday morning, all bets were off. The new spot where travelers will one day board or arrive on Greyhounds will in the future be at a new stop to be built at RTA’s Brookpark Station near the airport.

The reason: not enough space downtown.

“Our Brookpark Station’s overflow parking lot provides the space needed by Barons Bus to build a new transit center,” a spokesperson for RTA told Scene in an email, “where customers can purchase tickets, board, disembark, and wait for their bus.”

In a statement to Scene, City Hall highlighted the nine-month-long search by Barons and Greyhound to lock down a more ideal spot than the aging Art Deco building at 1145 Chester Ave., where buses have been arriving and departing since the late 1940s.

Though the spokesperson didn’t specify where they would be, the city, they said, would be presumably working with RTA to pick certain curbsides where incoming buses would stop. If not, travelers would have to take a 25-minute trip on the Red Line to Tower City Center. (And pay $2.50 a ticket.)

“We believe that having access to intercity bus service downtown is crucial,” City Hall said in a statement, “as most of our public transit network brings people to the heart of our city.”

Regardless, the departure is one that will bring headaches, for those connecting to RTA services, for passengers that brought revenue to downtown hotels and restaurants.

And a general annoyance for travelers used to arriving in the city center. Not miles away.

“It’s like an inconvenience,” Tracy, 41, from Pittsburgh, told Scene in the Greyhound lobby, waiting for the bus back home, in April. “I’m going to be honest with you, I’ll probably start catching the [Amtrak] again.”

With discussions about the eventual relocation of Downtown’s Amtrak station—as the most recent lakefront plans line it up for demolition—or faraway hopes of a station at Tower City Center for the lofty train line to link Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, keeping an interstate bus hub in the central city would actually buck a national trend.

Cities like Chicago and Cincinnati are seeing their Greyhound lines flee to the suburban fringe, as their own Art Deco buildings wait for the wrecking ball or developer plans.

Which will, if things go as planned, will be the fate of the Greyhound building itself. In April, Playhouse Square CEO Craig Hassall announced their intentions to convert the space into a development to accentuate the growing theater district, most likely with a throwback restaurant, retail and apartments.

“We are committed to respecting the historic integrity of the building,” a spokesperson for Playhouse Square told Scene then, “and to working with the City of Cleveland and Greyhound to ensure the transition to Greyhound’s new base of operations occurs on a timetable that works for all parties.”

Barons Bus has yet to publicly confirm a groundbreaking date for its new station 12 miles southwest of Downtown. An agreement between Barons and RTA is “currently under review,” the RTA spokesperson said.

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