New Cleveland St. Patrick's Day Parade Route Bypasses Most of Superior Avenue

The City of Cleveland and the St. Patrick’s Day Parade organizers have come to terms on how Downtown’s largest spring party will coincide with one of Downtown’s largest projects.

The parade will now bypass most of Superior Ave., which hosted the parade throughout most of the last two centuries.

Instead of a straight westward walk down Superior to Public Square, paraders will now start in Playhouse Square on East 17th; take a left at East 14th; head west down Prospect to JACK Casino; up to Public Square; then end after a short walk east in front of the Cleveland Public Library.

The parade’s “new beginning,” Margie Bodle, the executive director of the United Irish Societies, the group the runs the parade, said at a press conference in Playhouse Square on Monday.

Those “changes provide new opportunities to showcase the Irish in Cleveland,” she said, “while keeping the parade at the heart of Downtown Cleveland.”

The St. Patrick’s Day parade’s new route. Credit: United Irish Societies

Construction on the Superior Midway, a two-way cycletrack, is expected to begin later this year. It will cost the city about $25 million. Credit: Mark Oprea

The affable compromise, which involved the city’s planning department, comes nearly three and a half years after Ohio Sen. Tom Patton, then a state representative, threatened to throw a wrench in plans for the Superior Midway by banning center-lane bike lanes in cities with more than 300,000 residents.

That amendment was quashed after Patton met with the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, a major funder of the Midway. His effort dnded due to “productive conversations with stakeholders through our deliberate committee process,” he said at the time.

Patton was at the press conference on Monday, where he kept comments on the new route to a minimum.

The Superior Midway is planned to be a two-way, center-lane bikeway that stretches from East 55th Street to Public Square. Concerns brought up in feedback sessions amounted mostly to parking, truck deliveries and whether or not cyclists will actually use the new infrastructure—roughly $25 million, a 2023 estimate declared.

Construction was expected to begin this year and take roughly two years to complete, the Midway’s website says. Construction was originally planned to wrap up in 2025.

Next year’s St. Patrick’s Day parade is on March 17.