pubsqA.jpg

A computer rendering shows an aerial perspective of the latest proposal for improvements on Public Square designed by James Corner Field Operations of New York. (James Corner Field Operations)

(James Corner Field Operations)

Cleveland's drab and gray Public Square could become the city's new green heart within several years if a sweeping proposal for a makeover wins public support, along with the roughly $40 million it may take to build.

Nationally renowned landscape architect James Corner, who co-designed the wildly successful High Line park atop a disused rail line in New York, has refined a series of proposals he first made for Public Square in December 2009.

The latest version, shared with civic leaders in meetings Tuesday and released to The Plain Dealer on Wednesday, calls for closing the two-block section of Ontario Street that runs north-south through the 10-acre square.

Optimally, the design would leave Superior Avenue open only to buses, but more traffic studies are needed to see if that's possible, said Ann Zoller, director of LAND Studio, the private, nonprofit organization spearheading the design process.

Corner's aim is to unify the square and add lots of trees and grass, plus attractions that keep people pumping through the space throughout the day and all four seasons.

A digital rendering suggests the inviting pastoral atmosphere James Corner Field Operations wants to create with the "Picnic Hill" suggested for Public Square's northwest corner.

Attractions would include a food pavilion, a "Picnic Hill," a sloping concert area, a "Speakers Terrace" for performances, a central plaza where children could splash in a specially designed fountain and, possibly, a skating rink.

"We want it to be about people," Corner said Tuesday, speaking by phone from his office in New York. "We want to make sure it's active, that there's a pride of place and a sense of excitement to be in the city."

Zoller said that early reactions among the 50 or so civic and government leaders who saw the latest plans Tuesday have been positive.

Mayor Frank Jackson has been a vocal supporter of the project.

On Wednesday, Maureen Harper, Jackson's chief of communications, said the mayor told her that while the new design overall "moves us in the direction we want to go for Public Square, there's still work to be done, including securing the funding."

Corner's proposal, now about one-third finished, will be refined over the next few months in public meetings in late May and in private discussions with civic and business leaders, Zoller said. From that point, another nine months of design work could lead to groundbreaking next spring and completion in 2015.

The Public Square initiative is happening in tandem with an effort to upgrade the adjacent downtown Mall, conceived in 1903 by Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham as a centerpiece for neoclassical civic buildings including the 1916 City Hall and the 1925 Cleveland Public Library.

Zoller said that features envisioned for Public Square could end up on the Mall or vice versa, as planning evolves over the next few months. Funding for both projects will also be related, she said.

The northern sections of the Mall, north of St. Clair Avenue, are being rebuilt as the green roof of the city's new convention center, which replaces the older underground convention facility built in the same location in phases between the 1920s and the 1980s.

The Mall reconstruction is part of the $465 million effort to build the new convention center and the adjacent Global Center for Health Innovation, formerly known as the medical mart, on the west side of the Mall. The new convention center will also be attached to the city's Public Hall, on the east side of the Mall.

The convention center project, financed by a quarter-cent sales-tax increase in Cuyahoga County, is due for completion in June.

On the surface of the Mall, beyond the lawns, trees and public pathways covered by the basic budget, landscaping could be enhanced to include sports courts, a play area for children, public restrooms, a water feature and other elements.

Additional projects could include closing the one-block section of East Third Street south of Rockwell Avenue to better connect the Mall to Superior Avenue. Robust new streetscapes could be added to Rockwell as far west as the Warehouse District and east to East Ninth Street.

Zoller said that a very rough early estimate showed that the improvements to Public Square proposed by Corner may cost $40 million; no figures are yet available for the additional features under consideration for the Mall and adjacent streets.

Detailed cost estimates for both the Mall and Public Square will be available in about 60 days, Zoller said.

Anthony Coyne, chairman of the city's new Group Plan Commission, formed in 2010 by Jackson, said that funding for Public Square and the Mall improvements would include naming rights, corporate and foundation gifts, individual philanthropy and government money.

The 11-member body, which includes Plain Dealer President, Publisher and CEO Terrance C.Z. Egger, is seeking formal, nonprofit status, Coyne said.

In addition to raising construction money, Coyne said, the commission will seek endowment funds to ensure long-term maintenance and ongoing programming of public events on the Mall and Public Square.

The drive to improve Public Square and the Mall is part of what has become a loosely organized civic movement to improve landscapes, streetscapes and other public spaces in and around downtown.

The city's public realm received scant attention in the 1990s and the early 2000s, the period during which the city and Cuyahoga County joined forces with corporations and other private partners to build the Gateway sports complex, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and other attractions.

More recently, Jackson and others have said it makes little sense to attract tourists and conventioneers to the city's new casino, the convention center and the Rock Hall if the spaces between the attractions are gray and lifeless.

Around the world, cities are building new parks, cultural attractions and public amenities to attract tourists and residents; urban landscape design is undergoing a global renaissance.

In 2009, the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, the nonprofit group that manages maintenance and safety patrols financed by a special tax district, invited Corner, a star in the field, to envision a fresh look for Public Square.

The alliance hoped to boost downtown business, attract new residents and perhaps even encourage construction of a building on a surface parking lot on the west side of the square, where an ugly gap has persisted for decades.

The catch was that Corner was told he couldn't close either Ontario Street or Superior Avenue. The streets have sliced the big space into four quadrants since 1796, when surveyors under Moses Cleaveland, the city's namesake, first envisioned the New England-style square.

Since then, civic and business interests have tussled over whether to close the square to traffic. The strife culminated in the celebrated "Fence Wars" of 1857-67.

Merchants, who didn't want to detour horse-drawn carts and wagons around the square, won that fight.

In the more recent debate, traffic studies by the San Francisco-based firm of Nelson Nygaard showed last year that it would be possible to close Ontario Street without causing mayhem.

Zoller said the firm will conduct additional studies to ensure that cross-town auto traffic can be dispersed to surrounding streets, which would enable Superior to be used only for buses and, possibly, be closed on weekends.

Corner said that the new traffic study provided the impetus for a fresh look at the square. He also said that his original proposals from 2009 probably sparked the fresh traffic analysis.

"We were told in the beginning not to touch the streets," he said. "You could say that as a result of the prior design work, it suddenly became possible to perhaps think about closing the street [Ontario] and consider the merits of that opportunity."

In 2009, Corner's three concepts included wrapping Public Square on all four sides with a giant lattice to reinforce its geometry and create a sense of enclosure. A second proposal called for erecting an artificial hill over the intersection of Superior Avenue and Ontario Street to unify the square's quadrants.

And the third concept -- which flouted the idea of avoiding street closings -- called for closing Ontario Street to create two east-west rectangles bisected by Superior Avenue.

The latest version includes the closing of Ontario but also softly echoes the idea of the artificial hill in the center of the square, which included an X-shaped arrangement of pathways intersecting over the center of the space.

The new plan would also create X-shaped pathways that intersect in the center of the square, except that everything will be designed at grade, and the central plaza will double as a bus right-of-way.

Other elements of the plan include clearing away retaining walls and a driveway that crowd around the 1894 Soldiers and Sailors Monument, which honors the county's Civil War veterans, to make it more visible.

The "Picnic Hill" in the northwest quadrant of the square would be edged with an innovative, undulating seating wall. A corresponding "Concert Hill" on the northeast corner of the square is designed to accommodate up to 2,500 for musical performances.

On the southern flank of the square, a "Speakers Terrace" would feature steps that could double as an amphitheater and as a viewing stand for people-watching. Spray fountains in a central plaza would attract children and introduce the sound and sight of water.

Corner envisions the square being filled on weekends with farmers markets and other events.

"I think the design on the table today is very realistic," he said. "It's allowing a rethinking of transit and traffic and streets, which wasn't on the table before."

Even if the square is built according to his designs, Corner said that what happens after that in terms of events and maintenance will determine its success.

"This is actually critical to the success of any public space," he said. "You can only do so much with physical design."