CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland plans to build a long-awaited intermodal transportation center near the lakefront to link the new medical mart, convention center and Flats east bank redevelopment.

The center, north of the east edge of Mall C, would serve rail passengers, motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists. It would likely extend over railroad tracks to just south of the Shoreway and include walkways to the mall and North Coast Harbor, city Planning Director Bob Brown said Tuesday.

Along with hosting a new Amtrak station that would be a stop on the proposed high-speed rail line between Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, the center would offer access to RTA's waterfront rail line.

The project, which would also include a parking deck and bicycle connectors, could be one of the most complete multimodal centers in the United States, Brown said. That should help when officials seek money from federal and state agencies to build the facility, which could open in five to 10 years, he said.

The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority in 1997 proposed a transit center at the site for bus lines including Greyhound, taxis, the rapid system and trains. But as the Flats entertainment district declined and downtown development stalled, RTA decided to build a bus transit center, which will open this fall, near Cleveland State University and may build a second one in the Warehouse District.

Cleveland, which owns the land where the intermodal center will be built, eyed the property as a transportation link in developing the lakefront plan. Four years ago, the city was awarded $718,900 in federal funds by the Federal Transit Administration to plan an intermodal facility, Brown said. But the money sat unused because all the talk of lakefront development or a new convention center never led to any concrete plans.

Until now.

This month, the city agreed to sell its downtown convention center for Cuyahoga County's new medical mart complex. A new, L-shaped convention center beneath Malls B and C will connect with an above-ground mart at the northeast corner of St. Clair Avenue and Ontario Street.

Half of the federal earmark funds, which are administered by RTA, expired two years ago and the other half expires June 30, which prompted the RTA board on Tuesday to give the money to Cleveland. The city will provide a 20 percent match, so about $432,000 will be available to prepare a plan and preliminary design.

The new intermodal facility will likely be toward the east edge of Mall C so it doesn't block a ballroom in the new convention center to be fronted by a 25-foot-high wall of glass facing Lake Erie.

The total cost is not yet known but All Aboard Ohio, a nonprofit organization promoting rail, estimated in 2009 that a new rail and transportation center north of Mall C would cost about $50 million.