A focused plan to redevelop a decommissioned mile of the Innerbelt now owned by the City of Akron has become a 30-year proposal to remake a swath of property from downtown to Sherbondy Hill.
At a Thursday community meeting at the Akron Urban League, city officials and planners unveiled a proposed framework not just for the roadway, but for the areas surrounding it. They want the series of projects that make up the master plan to help repair the harm the Innerbelt caused to a historically Black neighborhood and build prosperity in an area that hasn’t had much investment.
“The same tools that once divided can be reoriented toward healing,” Planning Director Kyle Julien said, speaking to the ways development tools that built the roadway could now be used to dismantle its effects.
The response was largely positive.
“It’s exciting,” said Stanley Taylor, who grew up in the area and last year bought a home on Rhodes Avenue. “Hopefully, it’s a vibrant community again. It will bring me back to my youth.”
Roberta Rogers, who lives in West Akron and who moved away from the neighborhood the Innerbelt destroyed when she was a teenager, said she thought planners had “really listened to the community.”
“It’s wonderful,” she said. “This could be an opportunity to bring people back home.”
Project shifts toward Sherbondy Hill as needs are examined
The city initially planned to look at ways it could develop the portion of the Innerbelt that now has weeds growing out of concrete. But it was hard, Julien said — there’s a huge slope, there are underground pipes, there’s the canal. And Akron’s downtown, he said, is still fragile — any large investment in the area around the Innerbelt might have cannibalized efforts to strengthen the city center.
When officials started asking the community what they wanted from the Innerbelt project, area residents talked about the need in Sherbondy Hill, Julien said. It’s flat — a huge plus — and caused the project to shift and become more ambitious.
“We went nuts,” Julien said.
A year from now, the city may begin the process of trying to decommission the rest of the Innerbelt, to close down the whole road. (That process is more difficult than closing the first part, Julien said, because of the funding source that built that part of the highway.)
Before that, the city may begin planting the decommissioned Innerbelt’s slopes, to try to beautify the area. It will put some land up for sale, near the Center Street bridge, where it wants to encourage developers to build homes — there’s already been some interest, Julien said. And planners will look at other short-term projects that can produce changes for the area, like turning the Mill Street Bridge into a pedestrian path, to improve access for people who aren’t using cars.
“We need to demonstrate we actually listened, we’re actually doing stuff,” said city planner Daniel DeAngelo. “It’s time to turn it back over to the people.”
The master plan, which will be completed with feedback from Thursday’s meeting, has short-term and long-term projects that will build on each other over decades. Broadly, the proposals focus on investing in the neighborhood, strengthening east-west connections, connecting open spaces that were disconnected because of the Innerbelt, redeveloping areas adjacent to the Innerbelt and building on the onetime highway.
“This is the end part of one part of the process and the beginning of another,” Akron Mayor Shammas Malik said. “What’s exciting tonight is we are ready for action.”
Malik said proposals related to the master plan would begin to appear in next year’s capital budget recommendations. But with an estimated cost of $200 million to complete the projects, the mayor said he was anxious about the total expense.
“We’ve done the work to get ready,” he said. “Now is the time to execute.”
Hopes for a new neighborhood, with a library and a grocery store
A $10 million grant the city received as part of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program is still in limbo, Julien said. Esther Thomas, the city’s council liaison and director of diversity, equity and inclusion, said completing the project would be a marathon, but that she expected continual progress to be made.
“Community input changed the course of this,” she said. “It’s a great moment for Akron and I want us to seize upon this.”
If the construction of infill housing isn’t accelerated and there isn’t a store open on Vernon Odom Boulevard in five years, “we are not doing our jobs and we need to try harder,” DeAngelo said.
Valarie Moss and Beverly Bray found the series of short-term goals promising. Moss hopes one day to see a neighborhood with its own library and grocery store. She said she hopes the city prioritizes building wealth for the families who were displaced, creating an investment for their children and grandchildren.
“I just want to be here to see the first five to 15 years,” Bray said. “I want to see how it looks.”
But Harrington Hargrove Jr., who grew up in the neighborhood and still lives nearby, said change has already taken too much time.
“Ten to 15 years, we can’t wait that long,” he said. “The Innerbelt destroyed us. … Include us at the start. We need for the city to give us opportunity.”
Making incremental changes to pave a way to the future
Thomas and Julien said even as the yearlong master planning process ended, the city wanted to prioritize transparency going forward. Thomas suggested there could be quarterly meetings updating the community on the city’s progress, while Julien said success would be measured by more than pulling up a freeway.
“We can’t stop there,” he said.
Instead, he said, the city needs to leverage its resources to create meaningful improvements to the community that was harmed.
The Innerbelt project will continue to connect to the past, he said, with investment in art and storytelling that will reinforce the area’s historic Black identity and seek to strengthen it. Money earned from selling land for development in the project’s footprint will be poured back into the area, he said.
Siqi Zhu, the principal in charge of the project for design firm Sasaki, said the plan seeks to address repair from a number of different angles — economically, by building housing, by addressing how people get around. Completing the full, 30-year plan will take “fortitude and luck,” he said, but each incremental piece helps pave the way for the future.
“A plan is like a roadmap,” said Dylan Garritano, a city planner. “It’s going to take 30 years to get to that destination. … We know little projects do add up and make a big difference.”
It will take state and federal money for many projects to move forward, but Taylor, who just bought a home nearby, said he has trust in the city and its efforts.
“These are things they could really do. I think it’s wonderful,” he said. “I’m excited. I’m going to try to stay involved as much as I can.”