When the plans for a revised North Coast lakefront were released late 2023, a then stadium-including vision for the Lake Erie edge looked recreationally promising: large amounts of open park space, splash pads, basketball courts and hotels hugging Huntington Bank Field.
But Clevelanders were quick to point out what would be a harsh reality for that envisioned lakefront during the winter months. How lake-effect wind and snow would keep most, if not all, of the foot traffic away.
On Monday, the North Coast Waterfront Development Corp. released yet another update — the 18th in Cleveland history — that actually addresses the winter scare question head on, along with what to do with that total 50 acres of space when the Browns’ lakefront stadium officially goes bye-bye.
And in its place? A six-by-five urban grid, broken up into four quadrants or districts. Those checking off every single box in the Clevelander wishlist, from new hotels, park space, bike lanes, nature zones, ground-floor retail, and so on.
In reality, just another part of Downtown.
“Our approach is that this should not be a brand new neighborhood in Cleveland,” Scott Skinner, the head of the NCWDC, told Scene in a phone call. “This should be a part of Downtown Cleveland.”
“Extending the grid from Downtown towards the lake,” he added, “to us made the most sense.”
The Haslams decided in October 2024 to build Huntington Bank Field 2.0 in Brook Park, nixing the Bibb administration’s seminal idea for the North Coast. Skinner and team had to regroup. Late last year, they hired DiGeronimo Companies as a master developer in preparation for revised plans that the developer would eventually carry out. Designs were finally released on Monday.
Or, as Skinner prefers to call them: a flexible framework. Besides public realm plans for a pollinator garden, table tennis, an urban beach and an outdoor amphitheater, the NCWDC and DiGeronimo must figure out, based on the whims of the housing market, what Downtown’s extension can actually build years from now versus what the plan wants it to today.
“Here’s the thing: without a stadium there, we’re looking at a 20-year development plan,” Skinner told Scene. “That’s the reality. I can’t tell you what the apartment market is going to look like in 20 years.”
The hesitation lies in the newest plan’s lengthy rollout. Six phases, from finishing the $450 million land bridge to building its final apartments, will likely span the entire 2030s, plans show. Huntington Bank Field won’t be demolished until 2032. And North Coast’s inner grid, and its Browns-homage Field plaza, carry that TBD date of “2032 onward.”
A handful of U.S. cities have revamped their lakefronts with glassy neighborhoods and chic park space in the past decade. Seattle, Washington, D.C., Boston, San Diego and San Francisco have all spent hundreds of millions of dollars on waterside promenades, new restaurant space or hotels, assuming the investment draws people near its water and keeps them there.
Even in the harshest winters.
Which is a total headache of a task for a developer to do in Cleveland.
But Skinner says North Coast’s new design is weather-aware. The harshest of blustery January cold roars in from the northwest — which is why Skinner and team have decided to put all the open park space on the eastern edge of the plan. The same space where North Coast Yard, its precursor, has been since 2025.
A Diagonal promenade will connect that park space, the Waterfront Park, with The Field, the grassy plaza smack dab in the middle of the new grid. A covered market will have, plans show, “flexible covered space” for “gatherings throughout the year.”
In other words, a very Cleveland-aware grid.
“We can actually use building materials to create little moments of warmth that make it a little bit more palatable and tolerable,” Skinner said. “Meaning we can elongate the time period in which it’s comfortable to be outdoors on this site.”
Exactly how many office buildings, apartments or hotels, Skinner isn’t sure. DiGeronimo may decide to shrink what’s built in the next decade, he said, or expand if there’s proven demand for more housing.
Conversations with possible hotel brands are underway, Skinner said, along with tinkering with “creative lease structures” meant to attract retail to the space. (And maybe a grocery store.)
But again, this is flexible.
“I think in 10 years we likely will still have land on this site to build on and develop,” Skinner said.
Land that will be developed from what he hopes will be Cleveland’s final lakefront plan.
Sorry, framework.
“I always joke that, like, 90% of my job is chiseling away at that healthy and earned skepticism Clevelanders have that anything will happen here,” he said.
Construction of the landbridge linking Mall C with the North Coast is still scheduled to begin in 2027, as is the downgrading of the shoreway (Ohio State Route 2 into a street-level boulevard, Skinner said. Construction of that waterfront neighborhood will follow.
