When Akron’s Innerbelt project was first announced, it seemed reasonable that a plan to remake the decommissioned portion of the highway would focus on that mile-long stretch of road.
But over months of community conversations, and with federal funding that could boost a redevelopment plan still in flux, the proposal that will emerge this fall is likely to focus far more on the people than the pavement.
A decentralized approach treats the Innerbelt as a wound that must be healed, said Suzie Graham Moore, Akron’s economic development director. Instead of diving into the middle of the scar, it makes sense for the city to start on the sides and move toward the center.
“The Innerbelt harm is not just the space the roadway takes,” she said. “It reaches out to the east and west.”
Work on the Innerbelt itself will still be important, said Alykhan Mohamed, the project manager with the design firm Sasaki. But he said it made sense for the firm to pivot to a more comprehensive proposal following community meetings that brought the area’s desires for affordable housing and improved economic opportunity to the surface.
Looking broadly is a better opportunity, Mohamed said, and follows community interest in improvements that aren’t constrained by the Innerbelt’s footprint.
“It will still be a big, inspiring vision; it’ll just be a different type of big, inspiring vision,” he said. “We don’t want to wait until this portion [that is still in use] is decommissioned to invest in the neighborhood. We want to invest in the neighborhood now.”
Better connections, open space among Innerbelt-area improvements
Sasaki has a list of 55 projects that it’s still working to prioritize as part of the plan it presents to the city, Mohamed said. They fall into several categories:
- Investing in neighborhoods
- Making improvements nearby that could leverage other development
- Strengthening east-west connections
- Improving access to land underneath the Innerbelt’s overpasses
- Connecting and improving open spaces in the area
The various categories include proposals that could be completed in the next five years — such as improving sidewalks and constructing new residential units within the area — and others that could take more than a decade to accomplish, from decommissioning more of the Innerbelt to developing land underneath the overpasses.
The potential impact of some of these efforts could be seen when community members walked from the Lock 3 Park, where a Thursday evening update about the Innerbelt plan was held, to a bridge overlooking the roadway. Participants continued past the bridge to an empty, city-owned parking lot that could be redeveloped into housing.
A map showed the walk would take about 10 minutes, but it took much longer, and included broken sidewalks and wide streets that weren’t particularly friendly for pedestrians.
“There are things that can be done and we can see incremental improvements to the overall master plan,” said Dana Noel, a member of Progress Through Preservation who went on the walking tour. “I think starting with residential makes a lot of sense. People want to live downtown.”
Mohamed and City Planner Dylan Garritano pointed out parking lots that could be turned into housing or businesses and pedestrian improvements that might make the area feel more connected to downtown. Now, Garritano said, the project is focusing less on the highway and more on the people.
Community land trust among options for incentivizing new home construction in area
Sasaki will continue to meet with residents as it finalizes its proposal. The focus, Mohamed said, will be on smaller projects that add up to something larger, including policies the city can put in place to prompt improvements.
Those include making city-owned land available for development, changes to the tax code that incentivize development and creating a community land trust that lets people buy homes, but not the land underneath them, to make their purchase more affordable. Mayor Shammas Malik said the latter is his favorite option.
Malik said while the $10 million federal grant the city announced earlier this year is still in limbo due to federal funding cuts by the Trump administration, the scope of the work Sasaki is proposing would amount to far more than that.
Now, the city is considering what can be done in the short, medium and long term and in what order to do it to have the most impact. Malik said he wants to focus on high-impact, low-cost projects at the beginning so people can start to see progress.
“I’m really excited about how this is turning out,” he said.
Ensuring that whatever happens on the land is beneficial to those who were most affected by the Innerbelt’s construction remains a priority for Kyle Julien, Akron’s planning director. Julien said Thursday as the plan comes to fruition, he understands the need to “harness the value for the neighborhood where the damage was done.”
The city is going to position land so that it can become more valuable with development, he said, but in service of the families and communities who were displaced during construction.
Black community should be prioritized in Akron redevelopment efforts
That’s important to Caleb Mays, a Middlebury resident whose grandmother used to tell him stories of frequenting the neighborhood’s Black-owned businesses. The government’s actions stripped generations of wealth from the community, so Mays believes the Black community should be prioritized in redevelopment efforts.
Mays said he likes that Sasaki has been receptive to ideas about the project. He hopes they’ll continue to seek community input.
“I see the potential of how much this could change the Black community if done right,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to create institutions that help the Black community in a positive way.”
The creation of a Black Cultural Center in the area is among the proposals; Mohamed said it’s a project that’s already in the works.
Verlinda Bennett said she’s been happy to see how much passion exists around the project, since the effects of the Innerbelt’s construction were devastating to the community. Now, she wants to make sure it’s Akron that benefits from the efforts — not out-of-state developers buying up land.
Her husband, Richard, said the one idea that’s missing is compensating displaced families.
Those who were uprooted received limited if any compensation, Julien said — making it all the more important to ensure tangible benefits are directed toward those communities.
“The proof is in the pudding,” Richard Bennett said. “The pudding’s not done yet.”