Some Cleveland leaders are ready to move quickly to close and repurpose the site of Cleveland's downtown lakefront airport, but first, they say they need community input.
"We're really trying to just resolve some misconceptions or rumors out there about Burke (Lakefront Airport) and learn about any future use residents want to see," said Scott Skinner, the executive director of the North Coast Waterfront Development Corporation, a nonprofit helping in the effort to develop Cleveland's lakefront from the Browns stadium site to Burke.
Mayor Justin Bibb has cited the airport, which mostly serves private and corporate jets, as a major barrier to valuable downtown lakefront space as his administration works on a sweeping master plan to increase public access to the city's two waterfronts. The city is soliciting residents' opinions via an by the North Coast Waterfront Development Corporation, a nonprofit helping the effort to develop Cleveland's lakefront from the Browns stadium site to Burke.
Skinner said that survey has nearly 2,000 responses so far.
"We don't have a lot of direct community input on what folks want to see on that site if it were to be a different land use in the future," Skinner said. "So, this survey is sort of the kickoff of a larger community engagement campaign over the next three to four months."
Skinner said the organization will also engage with residents at block clubs and other community meetings.
Council Member Charles Slife, who heads the transportation committee, said there's been a decades-long gap in community engagement surrounding Burke. He said with conversations going the "furthest they've ever gone in City Hall," it's important to gauge public interest.
"We haven't done a good job of walking the community through all the ins and outs of how that's done, why Burke鈥檚 a unique site, how it functions as an airport, how the city's budget works," Slife said.
City officials, including Bibb, Slife, and Skinner, will also speak at a public forum Wednesday evening, hosted by 精东影业. Registrations are now full for the event.
"There's a lot of interest, and I think that there's people who are eager to get to the lakefront. There's people who wonder about the future of the Air Show," Slife said. "This is a very prominent part of Downtown Cleveland, and I hope can people are here to learn more about it, share their opinions, so it's not surprising to me that this is an overflowing event."
Slife, whose committee has been holding informational hearings with the administration on the potential closure, said he wants to make sure there's ample time to collect opinions and educate the public.
But Skinner said the time to act is now.
"We have this sort of unprecedented alignment right now; the city, county, Port, Metroparks, Greater Cleveland Partnership, Destination Cleveland," Skinner said. "There aren't a lot of things that all of those groups sort of unilaterally support, but transforming Burke into something else is something all of those groups support, and it is not a guarantee that that alignment will last forever."
