ERIEVIEW was an urban plan adopted by the City of Cleveland in 1960. Designed to eliminate much of the existing blight in the aging district northeast of the downtown, and to take advantage of federal urban-renewal funds, the project extended roughly from E. 6th to E. 17th Sts. and from Chester Ave. to the lakefront. The area west of 14th St. was intended for public and commercial uses, and the area to the east for residential use. Erieview was the most ambitious program undertaken to that date under the Federal Urban Redevelopment Program. Land was acquired by the city, structures were cleared, and assembled parcels of land were sold to private developers. The plan prepared by internationally known architect I. M. Pei & Associates provided for groups of low buildings accented by vertical towers. A 40-story tower at E. 12th St. and St. Clair was the hub of the plan, and a plaza with a reflecting pool stretched west to E. 9th St. At E. 12th St. and Chester, an open space or plaza called Chester Commons was created for leisure activities.
The buildings erected during the first phase included Erieview Tower (1964), the Federal Bldg. (1967), One Erieview Plaza (1965), the Bond Court office building (1971), the Public Utilities Bldg. (1971), and Park Ctr. (1973), a combination 20-story apartment building and shopping mall. The buildings were designed in the modern idioms inspired by the International Style by both local and national architects. New buildings continued to be built in the project area into the 1980s, including the Ohio Bell Bldg., One Cleveland Ctr., Eaton Ctr., and Northpoint. Erieview Tower was acquired in 1985 by developers Jacobs, Visconsi & Jacobs, who renamed it the Tower at Erieview and constructed an attached shopping mall in place of the old E. 9th plaza. The opening of the Galleria on 15 Oct. 1987 marked a major permutation of the original Erieview plan.
View image in Digital Cleveland Starts Here®
View more at Cleveland Historical.
View image at Cleveland Memory.
View image gallery at Cleveland Memory.