EUCLID, Ohio -- The deteriorating noise walls on Interstate 90 in Euclid will be replaced this summer in a $3 million project the Ohio Department of Transportation admits is badly needed.

"We got many, many complaints about how ugly they are looking," said Jocelynn Clemings, spokeswoman for the ODOT district that includes Euclid.

Work last summer to patch and paint the 17-year-old concrete walls between East 200th and East 260th streets and install "Euclid" icons didn't help, she said.

Euclid Mayor Bill Cervenik agreed.

"I really started getting calls after that because people thought they weren't going to be replaced," he said.

And the walls looked even worse because they are just west of recently installed concrete noise walls in Wickliffe, extending over the Euclid border, that look like burnished red brick, he said.

The 15- to 20-foot high aging walls, stretching for 2.5 miles on the north side of the highway, were among the first of group of sound barriers built in Northeast Ohio in 1993. At that time ODOT built 9.3 miles of walls on Interstates 90, 71, 271 and 480.

ODOT said last year it didn't know when funding would be available to replace the walls.

Cervenik said he sent the agency a letter last November that included photos of portions of the wall where chunks of concrete had fallen out. He said he also contacted legislators and Gov. Ted Strickland's office.

ODOT amended this year's budget to include the wall project. The contract is to be awarded in June. Federal funds will cover 90 percent of the cost and state funding the remainder.

The existing concrete walls, which have a hollow center, will be replaced with solid concrete panels with a red-brick treatment similar to those in Lake County, ODOT said. The agency will install a concrete sleeve over the existing steel columns between the panels.