Letter from Councilman Polensek
As you can see, the $198 Million Euclid Creek Tunnel Project has begun in earnest in the Ward 11 community. There are several sites in the neighborhood where construction is already underway; those being on the north side of Lakeshore Boulevard at the Easterly Waste Water Treatment Plant at East 140th, Triangle Park at East 174th Street and Lakeshore Boulevard and soon to be the northwest corner of Nottingham Road and St. Clair Avenue. One future construction site will be at the northern end of East 156 Street in Beulah Park.
At each of these sites a vertical shaft will be drilled to a depth of approximately 200’ for ventilation and equipment access for the underground tunnel which will link the storm sewers in the neighborhood from St Clair Avenue underground to the staging site in the Village of Bratenahl, south of I-90. You can see this massive site as you are driving the East Shoreway, east bound just past Eddy Road and before the Lakeshore Boulevard exit. This is the main construction site where the tunnel boring machine will be assembled and eventually begin to carve out the immense 18,000 foot long / 24 foot diameter underground tunnel, which is intended to capture and hold 50 million gallons of heavily polluted and combined storm and waste water, referred to as Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO’s), which will be treated and then released at the Easterly Waste Water Treatment Plant.
As we have all heard from the Project Manager, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD), this tunnel is intended to substantially clean up storm water that is entering Euclid Creek as well as at Wildwood, Villa Angela and Euclid Beach Lakefront State Parks. This project has been a long time coming and is very important to the overall health and development of our community. Stay tuned for future construction updates.
Another much anticipated project is 80% complete; that being the new Collinwood Recreation Center on Lakeshore Boulevard. The grand opening date has not been set as of this writing but I can assure you that once we have a date – we will make sure that everyone is notified of that special day! You won’t be disappointed by this state-of-the-art, LEED certified, facility right here in Ward 11.
Furthermore, I want to congratulate Northeast Shores Development Corporation (NSDC) on being the recipient of a $500,000 grant from the Community Partnership for the Arts Commission (CPAC). This grant will help to provide micro-loans and implement a marketing campaign to attract resident artists to our ward to assist them in purchasing or rehabbing homes and commercial buildings which will strengthen the entire concept of the Waterloo Road Arts and Entertainment District. We look forward to our arts community growing in size and importance.
I encourage all of our residents to become a stakeholder in our ward and become involved in both our local Development Corporations. Please continue to turn in properties with high grass and weeds to (216) 664-2300, housing violations to (216) 664-2007 and chuckholes / road repairs to (216) 664-2510.
Have a safe summer. Please pay special attention to what is going-on on your street and in your neighborhood. Informed citizens make for a better and safer community!