Tower City walkway could be relocated for Bedrock's Cuyahoga Riverfront plan
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The 1,000-foot walkway from Tower City to Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse may be moved and rebuilt — just one of the dramatic infrastructural changes envisioned in Bedrock's Riverfront Master Development Plan.
Why it matters: Bedrock, the real estate arm of Dan Gilbert's Rock Ventures, wants to completely transform the Cuyahoga riverfront downtown over the coming decades.
Driving the news: Project managers outlined the broad strokes of the long-range plan to the City Planning Commission on Friday.
- If built as designed, the project would include a new "multimodal riverfront boulevard," a 3,000-foot riverwalk and enhanced pedestrian access from Tower City, all with the goal of turning the underused land into a "premier neighborhood" and local destination.
State of play: As presented, the plan includes three phases, each segmented into micro-construction "sequences."
- Phase 1 encompasses the development around Collision Bend.
- Sequence 1A — already underway — is the Cleveland Clinic Global Peak Performance Center, which the Cavs intend to use as their team practice facility beginning with the 2026-27 season.
The latest: Bedrock received $10 million from the state's capital budget to support construction costs.
What they're saying: Bedrock's Nora Romanoff told the planning commission that nearly 500 linear feet of bulkheading has been completed to support the new Cleveland Clinic structure and fortify the shipping channel.
- In an email to Axios, she confirmed that Bedrock's intent is to rebuild the walkway in a later phase.
- "The rebuild will maintain the original purpose of the walkway — creating access and efficiency for pedestrians moving between Tower City and the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse — while improving its functionality and design, aligning with the overall vision for the riverfront development," she wrote.
What's next: Friday's presentation was informational. Bedrock plans to return throughout the year to seek formal approval on elements of the evolving plan.
Flashback: This isn't the first time Dan Gilbert has sold a transformational project built in phases.
Catch up quick: Voters approved a statewide constitutional amendment allowing casino gambling in 2009, and Gilbert opened Cleveland's Horseshoe Casino (which later became Jack Casino) in 2012 in the former Higbee's building.
- For years, Gilbert insisted that location would be the casino's temporary home until a glitzy riverfront "Phase II" was constructed.
- In 2013, Gilbert dismissed skepticism that Phase II would actually be built as "nonsense," and he said his Rock Gaming LLC had moved into the engineering and architectural design phase.
- A Rock Gaming executive told a Downtown Cleveland Alliance panel that once constructed, the riverfront would be "a sort of Times Square bustling with 8 million visitors a year."
Reality check: Phase II was never built, and Gilbert sold his casino interests in 2020.
- On the 10th anniversary of the Horseshoe's opening, Jack chairman Matt Cullen told News Channel 5 that "lots of rocks in the road" prevented Phase II from coming to fruition.
- "We didn't know that the racinos were coming at the time," he said. "We didn't know that our gaming partner Caesars was going to go bankrupt."
Between the lines: Cullen conceded in 2016 that the Cleveland gaming market couldn't support additional capacity.
The bottom line: The extent of public financing and other market factors could determine now, as in the past, how much of Bedrock's riverfront master plan is fully realized.