In 2001, Cleveland opened a triangular, white-hued music venue on Tower City’s dusty parking lots, a stone’s throw from the Cuyahoga River. Later known as the Time Warner Cable Amphitheater, more than two dozen bands came through a year, from the Foo Fighters to Little Richard. It hosted the notorious 2007 Van’s Warped Tour that survived a downpour.
No venue of similar size or capacity, in that 5,000-seat range, has been built since.
At least until now.
On Tuesday morning, Bedrock, Live Nation and a handful of politicians broke ground on the soon-to-be named amphitheater, set to rise a block or so where Tower City’s once stood. At 6,200 seats, Bedrock’s venue will be the largest outdoor venue in Cleveland once it opens in about two years. (Blossom holds 21,000; Jacobs Pavilion, 5,000.)
The amphitheater is Bedrock’s second structure to rise in its Riverfront neighborhood, the J-shaped plan to re-do the land south of Tower City with hotels, apartments, condos and, come next August, a training facility for the Cavs.
But Bedrock has yet to detail plans to dig shovels in the ground for apartment building foundations, or news of Tower City Center’s next phase. (Or of a grocery store to replace Heinen’s.) All signifiers of what the Riverfront will mean to those who live there rather than visitors who simply stop by.
Still, leaders gracing the dais, or gripping one of Bedrock’s gold-hued shovels on Tuesday opted instead to fixate on the joy of the dirt before them.
“Every six months we have a new groundbreaking, so we’re moving at good speed,” Mayor Justin Bibb said at the podium, cranes constructing the Cavs Peak Performance Center working behind him.
A new amphitheater means, he added, “making sure we can finally achieve this vision of being — of Cleveland being the two-waterfront city the world will be proud of.”
After years of pandemic-era staggering, Cleveland’s gaining momentum in the concert venue realm. In March, The Odeon in the Flats East Bank will reopen after a lengthy hiatus. Come 2029, the new Huntington Bank Field will butt heads with Rocket Arena. Cleveland Pro Soccer’s venue nearby could be host to concerts.
But is the demand there? The 2024 Cleveland Music Census concluded the city could get away with constructing 1,000-seat venues despite many of the city’s current venues — about three-quarters of them — operating at a loss. Venues five or six times that not so much.
The fanfare was there on Tuesday despite any gaps in the market, or any nods to Jacobs Pavilion, the Flats West Bank mainstay likely to play competitor. Live Nation chief Michael Belken said the venue they were groundbreaking would amount to $60 million in economic impact over the decades. His declaration was short: “Great cities need great venues,” he said.
Bedrock CEO Jared Fleisher also stuck to the joy of seeing the dirt in front of the stage, of the nearby flatscreens showing a packed amphitheater by the water.
“When it is all said and done and folks are in the venue, [I see a] beautiful afternoon, looking at the river, looking at our extraordinary skyline, and listening to the dulcet tones of Metallica,” Fleisher said with a wink. “I can’t imagine anything more beautiful and peaceful than that.”
At least in two years.
Despite the cranes securing glass or saws buzzing at the Cavs’ Performance Center, a completed Riverfront neighborhood remains a faraway reality. Seagulls hover over parking lots or the Eagle Avenue Bridge. Tower City sits unconnected from the graffiti and rusted train tracks below it.
“It’s desolate, right?” Dan Whalen, Bedrock’s managing director, told Scene after the press conference. “I like to say it reminds me of 1989 Berlin.”
Whalen holds onto the steady pace — every six months a new groundbreaking, he said, echoing Bibb. Eagle Avenue Bridge is to fall, as is the nearby B&O Building. Canal Road’s old steam tunnels will be unearthed. A new West Third bridge will be finished.
But Berlin changed, he said, as did Copenhagen. Cleveland’s riverfront, Whalen said, will, too.
“I see this coming together as a vibrant, amazing community where we can fit somewhere between 500 and 800 homes of various types over multiple phases,” Whalen said, looking north.
“It’s all a maze, a nest of very challenging stuff we have to work through,” he said. “But we will untangle it, put the plan together. We want to be right about it.”
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