Seven Proposals for Buckeye

Abstract

This report is intended as a resource for the Buckeye Shaker Square Development Corporation (BSSDC), in the ongoing planning efforts in the Buckeye-Shaker area, Cleveland. This inner city-defined neighborhood unit is home to three commercial corridors that serve their surrounding residential fabric: Larchmere Boulevard, Shaker Road, and Buckeye Road. While all are, in their own ways, promising districts with distinct histories, Buckeye Road lags behind the others in identity and investment. Because of this, and as part of the ongoing planning process, the BSSDC sees the stabilization and improved vitality of the Buckeye Road Commercial Corridor as a key component in the revival of the entire neighborhood. While BSSDC primarily serves the residents and business community of the Buckeye- Shaker neighborhood, the effects of its efforts extend into surrounding neighborhoods like Woodland Hills, Mount Pleasant, and University Circle.

The study, organized in two independent sections, summarizes the student work developed during the Fall 2013 Semester in assistance to the BSSDC mission. The first section contextualizes the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood in its metropolitan context, through the following lenses: regulatory frameworks, environmental infrastructure, socio-economic structure, cultural landscape, and the urban tissue. The second section presents seven visions and strategies to reinvigorate Buckeye Road, formulated by the students and guided by the insight and experience of BSSDC.

The engagement with the BSSDC has been facilitated by LAND Studio, an a local non-profit focused on the creation of inspiring places, public space programming, and design advocacy in Cleveland. Its leadership and guidance has been instrumental to enable the course experiential learning component with the City of Cleveland as a laboratory for the study of complex urban phenomena in the Great Lakes Region.