A key ingredient to the University Circle Arts and Retail District will be transit – and artists. In the wake of Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority discovering transit-oriented development as a priority, New York-based urban design firm Project for Public Spaces appeared in April '07 with the major players from the Circle to burnish Euclid and Mayfield as a transit village. PPS conducted a workshop and a walking tour of the area around the current and future home of the E. 120th Street Red Line Rapid Station.

Ambling from Abington Arms toward Little Italy on a sunny morning that promised renewal, we pass the giant asphalt Lot 45 on Mayfield Road. Later, as our group magic markered maps, University Circle, Inc. planning director Bob Reeves pointed out that UCI, which owns and leases the parking lot to University Hospital, wants to partner with RTA and a developer on a TOD—a mixed-use development within walking distance of a train station. Reeves and representatives from RTA and ODOT spoke openly about moving the E. 120th St. station closer to campus and building a node of activity. The stop might include a simple, glass-covered stair case/ramp leading to the platform with entrances from the red brick road (E. 117th St.) behind the Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA) factory as well as across the tracks at Mayfield and E. 119th – the road leading into Sidari’s Italian Foods.

Click on image to enlarge

Dodging mud puddles and drips of mystery water as we walked under the Mayfield Road rail bridge, discussion turned to a better soil and water management plan as an immediate priority. Consensus was achieved—the dank underpass needs a sustainable solution. Groundwater recharge zones or rain gardens along the embankment of the tracks (which CIA owns) would help, CIA Director Dave Deming said. A class project could include a cool lighting design solution under the bridge. Deming also suggested a beacon of light from the top of the station’s canopy to signal its location, and photos taken from the vantage point of the platform looking out over the Circle with place markers on the images to direct visitors.

CIA and Case students will bring more street life to the area around the station if public spaces are carved out with just enough suggestion of uses but with openness to change how the students want to use it. I suggested reusing the old rail spur/bridge that once connected to the factory as an entrance ramp to the RTA platform, and blocking off a section of E. 117th where it meets Mayfield as a pedestrian-only promenade (Reeves approved, noting that left-turns were too dangerous to keep the intersection as is, and that UCI was planning a new road from Mayfield on the other side of a TOD at Lot 45, bisecting the Triangle development and CIA. CIA also plans to build a new classroom next to the factory (on Euclid Ave.) and new dorms, possibly at the current Food Co-Op, incorporating the grocery store in the ground floor.

Making an immediate left turn as we emerge from the underpass and walk up the gentle slope of E. 119, we notice the stumps of many trees and bare land marked for development. On the right, maybe 100 feet of land at the corner of Mayfield and E. 119 is owned by Tim Perotti, a developer who wants to put in a four to eight story mixed-use building with ground-floor retail and condos above. A long shallow lot behind leads a few hundred or so feet up to Sidari’s and is owned by the Carneys, who want to build condos, especially if the Rapid is right at their doorstop.

Across the road—which is not a dedicated street but has easements all the way through to E. 120th (by the current station’s entrance in East Cleveland)—RTA owns the embankment and UCI a long, narrow parking lot which it leases to UH. The whole area is zoned for light industry (Sidari’s isn’t moving). On the E. 120th side of Sidari’s is a parcel that had underground tanks, but that Hemisphere Group completed remediation.

Other good ideas included:

• Build partnerships with organizations to build up public spaces, and create excitement among the residents and students living and using the area.
• A plan between the city, RTA and UCI to maintain the spaces around the station and the neighborhood
• Use local materials, solar panels for power, storm-water bioswales on the embankment, CIA class projects for public art, lighting and signage and reuse the urban archeology of the abandoned rail spur to create a train station that identifies that you’ve arrived at an arts district.
• Create a 'green' embankment, perhaps using native plants and stormwater runoff recharge zones as part of a CIA class project (CIA owns the embankment along E. 117th Street) 
• Enhance bike access to the transit village by placing bike lanes on Mayfield Road (planners note that enough road width might available on the Little Italy side) and building a bike parking and information station next to the Rapid entrance.
• Enhance the pedestrian experience by calming car traffic around Mayfield and Euclid (consider using curb extensions, brick-paved crosswalks, and pedestrian scale lighting i.e. 12 ft. lamps that point toward the sidewalk)

Image gallery of potential development sites for University Circle transit-arts village 

Resources
New Jersey Department of Transportation's Transit Village Initiative

Updates
"How cool will it be when students can fly into Hopkins (airport), take the Red Line to campus and get off in the middle of the vibrant Uptown district with housing, shops, restaurants and MOCA all right there?" asks Lillian Kuri, Director of Special Projects at the Cleveland Foundation, in the spring '07 issue of Case Magazine.