PHOTO COURTESY OF NIKKI HUDSON AND SAVE CUDELL PARK

Cudell Commons Park and the surrounding neighborhood take the name of Frank E. Cudell, a German-American architect whose locally significant designs include the Tiedemann House or “Franklin Castle” and the Perry-Payne building on West Superior Avenue.

by Collin Cunningham

   (Plain Press July 2024) A nearly two-year construction proposal saga culminated in agreement at the end of May when the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) announced a pause on plans to build a new school adjacent to the Marion C. Seltzer Elementary ahead of an anticipated November levy vote. CMSD’s previous plans would have absorbed a portion of Cudell Commons Park and walled off the Tamir Rice Butterfly Memorial during school hours.

   The contentious debate surrounding the future of the Marion C. Seltzer Elementary School and the adjacent Cudell Commons Park on Cleveland’s west side has relaxed to a stymied standstill. 

   City and CMSD officials announced plans on May 30 to put a stay on construction efforts for a new school, somewhat alleviating neighbors’ worries about the potential loss of the park as the district prepares to put a tax levy on the November ballot.

   At stake for Cudell neighbors is the preservation of the 11-acre public park, which has been unofficially stewarded at the hands of those who live nearby while under CMSD maintenance after its board approved a land transfer agreement in 2021. The district of over 36,000 students, meanwhile, has been considering placing an 8.6-mill operating levy on the Nov. 5, 2024, ballot.

   Prior to the May 30 joint announcement that included CMSD CEO Dr. Warren Morgan, as well as Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and Ward 15 Councilmember Jenny Spencer, neighbor-members of Friends of Cudell Commons Park (FCCP) were preparing to climb trees and tether themselves to trunks to protect the greenspace. Now, park proponents expect to conduct most of their action in meeting and board rooms, but they remain unsure of what will happen in the future when so much has already come to pass with the city and school district.

   “Not only do they neglect us, but we are the ones who protect this park,” Jamie Brazier, whose house gazes directly lengthwise along the park’s western side, explained during a walk around the site. During her 22-year Cudell tenure, Brazier said she and other neighbors have stewarded the park by calling the police for suspicious activity and gathering loose trash. “We pay them with our tax dollars to take care of things, they don’t, we pick up all the pieces.”

   “We will continue to engage with our families, educators, community members, and other stakeholders to thoughtfully consider our next steps,” Dr. Morgan is quoted in the joint statement. “Our goal remains the same: to provide our scholars with the learning environment they deserve.”

Next steps and past promises

   Years of community and political pressure rescinded in 2023 in a lawsuit initiated by former Cleveland Mayor Dennis Kucinich that led to two temporary restraining orders that halted construction. As CMSD ponders building options for the PreK-8 facility, potential FCCP protests and tree-climbings are now in limbo.

   “It brought us from a point of fighting them in literally two or three days,” Juan C. Collado Diaz, collaborator with FCCP and the Save Cudell Park initiative via Sensible Movement Coalition, explained in the wake of Dr. Morgan’s May 30 decision. “We’ve been battling this for almost… what? Two years now? We’ve been fighting for them not to build a school for a while. And now we’re on the same page.” 

   The eight core FCCP members who filed a lawsuit in November of 2022 are now awaiting CMSD meeting agendas before assembling a list of steps they wish to take following the Nov. 5, 2024 election, after which FCCP members expect CMSD to debut re-envisioned building proposals.

   At that point, activists and district officials will have to untangle a legacy of issues stretching back to a district community open house and school development proposal from 2014. Tracking the action since then requires patience and an understanding of interlocking issues that date to the dawn of the 20th century, but Councilmember Spencer offers a truncated version: 

   “In March 2021, Cleveland City Council voted in favor of a land swap – Ordinance 75-2021 – to allow CMSD to build a new school north of the current Marion C. Seltzer School. The land swap also reflected… that there would not be a ‘swing site’ for Seltzer but rather that a new school would be built north of the existing Seltzer.” Such a site would have required the school district to prepare an unused facility to house classes for the roughly 400 kindergartners through eighth graders who attend the Seltzer school.

   Plans in 2021 would have briefly shifted students to the former Watterson- Lake elementary school building at the intersection of West 74th Street and Detroit Avenue after the CMSD transferred that land to the City of Cleveland. However, as Elizabeth Emery reported for The Land in June, the city decided to pursue a proposal request process with an out-of-town developer in August of 2022 that will instead result in 136 mixed-income rental units.

   “However, the land swap happened during the pandemic; that vote by Council was taken via Zoom,” Spencer continued. “The longer I worked on this matter, the more clearly I came to believe that the public had not been informed about the land swap.”

Public pressure

   Aiding Diaz and the plaintiffs in the fight to preserve the park is a strong coalition of fellow FCCP members that includes neighbors of note, those with historic ties to the Cudell neighborhood and other stakeholders who intend to make their wants heard to the city.

   “We want (CMSD) to give the park back… to the city so it can remain a park forever,” Samaria Rice said when charting the movement’s upcoming steps after she delivered public comment at Cleveland City Council’s June 3 meeting.

   Rice’s concerns surround her own traumatic memories at the park, literally etched into the ground when she built the Tamir Rice Butterfly Memorial in 2022, eight years after burying her son who was fatally shot by a Cleveland police officer in 2014. While Rice has since moved out of Cudell, her goal remains in lockstep with the area activists: holding up construction on a rebuild of the aging school building until the district presents more favorable plans. 

   Rice has developed her own emotionally charged bully pulpit and strong public speaking voice, tools possession an invigorating electricity of character accrued through years of public speaking and status as a community activist after Tamir’s death. 

   That force was on full display as she addressed city council members at the June 3 session: “Keep in mind that the election is coming up, and I don’t want to show you all the power that I have. I’m making sure the president, city, council and ward leaders know that I am very stressed out and I don’t want to have to be in the streets fighting you all.”

   The pressure wasn’t entirely social, however; as laid out in a detailed timeline on SCP’s website, the district would have initiated construction efforts in 2023 were it not for a temporary restraining order that kept building at bay through October. Around that time, The Land reported that Judge Nancy Russo granted the TRO to preserve a two-century-old bald cypress tree in the park after hearing testimony that it would oppose plans to revitalize Cleveland’s tree canopy.

Post-ballot promises

   After being approved by CMSD’s board of education at a June 11 work session , the 8.6-mill, 10-year “resolution of necessity,” as pitched to the board at a May 21 meeting, would tax everyone living in the district’s footprint $301 per every $100,000 of owned property annually. 

   It would replace a previous 15-mill levy that just over 61% of voters within the district approved at a cost of $175 for $100,000 in property in 2020. 

   Also, up for a vote at the June 25 CMSD board meeting are $295 million in general obligation bonds – investments that municipalities can leverage and pay back via property taxes and other public funding – to complete improvements at other PreK-8 school sites within the district. The 2.65-mill bond would tax district residents $93 for every $100,000 of property value. A recent CMSD press release suggested the district would use the levy and bonds to improve learning across the district with foci on mental health, safety and post-graduation studies. 

   Remodeling and reconstruction work is expected to be completed before 2024 ends at the Joseph M. Gallagher school at the intersection of West 65th Street and Franklin Avenue. CMSD expects crews to finish its new Clark PreK-8 building near the corner of West 53rd Street and Clark Avenue in 2025, and to open in 2026. District administration elected to employ temporary swing sites near each new school to hold students and classes until work is complete.

   The Cleveland Metropolitan School District initially intended for the Clark and Gallagher schools to wrap construction in close conjunction with the new Seltzer building as part of the eighth and final phase of a segmented rebuilding project that started in 2019 using money from past bond approvals and the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC). 

   The district contends that the existing Marion Seltzer school, still standing and serving students at the park’s southeast corner after 1972, is in need of a “safe, modern, and accessible educational environment.” The district’s latest May 2023 construction proposal (the latest before the joint announcement) suggested demolishing the current three-story, 47,000-square-foot structure in favor of a two-story building that would instead occupy 67,000 square feet. 

   “The current design is a two-story building, which means it has a larger footprint and takes up more space than the current three-story building” Councilmember Spencer explained following the joint announcement on the construction pause. “While I am concerned and recognize that the price tag for a full-blown redesign of Seltzer will be very costly, we’ll need to explore every avenue for a redesign.”

   The revised design will likely include dedicated space for creative classes and physical education as well as a greater emphasis on technology, ADA accessibility and better lighting. It will be impossible to determine further details on possible design proposals until CMSD produces documents and debuts them at listening sessions.

The memorial matter

   Those listening sessions will likely include some mention of Tamir Rice’s memorial, which Samaria Rice is planning on enshrining into the National Register of Historic Places this year.

   “This is an opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to positive change and to honor the memory of a young life lost too soon,” Mayor Bibb wrote in a separate statement bearing his name alone.

   How each side leverages and utilizes that opportunity will become apparent in the coming weeks and months as CMSD, FCCP, City of Cleveland administration and general onlookers keep watch on the park while considering students’ needs. 

   For their part, Diaz and FCCP are taking the most recent news on the project as a win and are evaluating how to create a new system of self-advocacy that invites school leadership and students into the picture alongside activists like Rice. 

“  This will set a precedent,” Diaz affirmed. “Instead of trying to back away, we will keep (the city and the district) held and that’s how it goes… to leave the park alone and create a new school.”

Readers can stay abreast of Cleveland’s Cudell Commons Park updates and communication by monitoring city council’s calendar for agenda items relating to the park and following Ward 15 Councilmember Jenny Spencer on Facebook. Advocates will continue posting to the Friends of Cudell Commons Park pages on various social medias and maintaining a Google calendar of upcoming events related to the park.

Editor’s Note: This article by Collin Cunningham of The Land, first appeared in the online publication The Land.:The Land is a local news startup that reports on Cleveland’s neighborhoods. Through in-depth solutions journalism, The Land hopes to foster accountability, inform the community, and inspire people to act. The Land is available online at www.thelandcle.org or via social media at: @LandofCLE (Twitter) and @TheLandofCLE (Instagram and Facebook).