CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A new pier is the latest upgrade that the Cleveland Metroparks have planned for Euclid Beach.

Demolition of the existing pier will begin this fall, with construction of a new, 220-foot replacement to be finished next year.

Sean McDermott, chief planning and design officer for the park system, said the pier will be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and will extend 80 feet over the lake. It will also be designed so that it can be lengthened later.

"We understand that Euclid Beach is synonymous with the pier," McDermott said.

The project will cost about $1 million, with most of that coming from funds that the state gave the park system in 2013. The primary contractor will be Nerone and Sons.

McDermott said the project still needs to get permits from the Coast Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Ohio EPA.

Since taking over lakefront parks from the state in 2013, the park system has made steady improvements. Euclid Beach was the site of a beloved amusement park that closed in 1969. It is next to Villa Angela Beach and Wildwood, which are now considered part of the Metroparks' Euclid Creek Reservation.

The creek courses through the original reservation and empties into Lake Erie between Villa Angela Beach and Wildwood.

The three parks run for nearly 3,500 feet along the lakefront.

Since 2013, the park system has cleaned the beaches at Villa Angela and Euclid Beach, cleaned up the floor of the lake there, and closed gaps in the breakwall that had made the lake floor a hazard because of unpredictable drop-offs.

Another addition was the installation of a pedestrian bridge over Euclid Creek between Wildwood and Villa Angela last year.

Ward 8 Cleveland City Councilman Mike Polensek is pleased with the new pier but is critical of the fact that no improvements are currently planned for 800 feet of parkland west of the new pier, which will be near the site of the current one.

He also complains that access to the western strip is difficult.

McDermott said people are not forbidden to go west of the pier, "but we are not encouraging them."

That land is strewn with construction debris and is overgrown with dense brush, even though the Metroparks did cut down the plants not long after taking over the park.

"All I'm asking is that we can have access to the land west of the pier," Polensek said Wednesday. "The lakefront is precious to this community."