A 5-mile-long lakefront redevelopment

Burke Lakefront Airport is an obstacle. You can’t build a decent-sized park on the lakefront because of it. You can’t build lakefront high-rises because of it. And you can’t access much of the water’s edge near Downtown Cleveland because of it and other nearby barriers, Huntington Bank Field, the Shoreway and the Port of Cleveland.

But if Burke is removed from the picture, suddenly a lot of things become possible. They include things that haven’t been discussed before. Or if they have, they were doomed by a lack of space and/or a lack funds to overcome that lack of space.

Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne asked members of Congress last week for help in bypassing the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) red tape in closing Burke. To them, it’s a big piece of the mayor’s Shore-to-Core-to-Shore vision of connecting downtown with its two waterfronts — the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie.

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