Cleveland Metroparks have already lost at least one federal grant, and officials are worried about the status of another, according to CEO Brian Zimmerman’s presentation at the March 20 Board of Park Commissioners meeting.
And if that’s not enough of a challenge, revenue is down this year because golfers are staying home. But that’s probably a temporary setback.
Read more about the meeting — including discussion of land acquisitions and a new public records policy — in notes from Cleveland Documenters Annie Maglicic and Nicholas Ventura.
Uncertainty about federal funding
The board agreed to apply for a grant from a federal agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), for the Cleveland Harbor Eastern Embayment Resilience Strategy (CHEERS).
CHEERS is a plan to create 80 acres of parkland and wildlife habitat along the lakefront near the St. Clair-Superior and Glenville neighborhoods with dredge material (soil and sediment scraped from the bottom of a body of water). Features include The Isle, The Cove and The Bay — hence the word embayment, “a bay or baylike formation.” See more images of the plans at the link above.
The CHEERS project is a partnership between Black Environmental Leaders, the City of Cleveland, Cleveland Metroparks, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Ohio Department of Transportation and the Port of Cleveland. Read more about the project at The Land.
If awarded, the NOAA grant will cover $9.5 million of the estimated $12 million project. But that’s a big if.
“We’re cautiously optimistic” that the grant program won’t be cut by the Trump administration, said Chief Executive Officer Brian Zimmerman. But he also said that Metroparks seems to have lost an “IMLS” grant — an apparent reference to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, an independent government agency recently deemed “unnecessary” in a Trump executive order.
In 2024, ILMS awarded Metroparks $237,120 for the Euclid Beach STEM Adventure Program Expansion. Metroparks signed a contract for the funds, “but there’s no agency to administer it,” Zimmerman said.
He went on to say that he’s “very concerned” about the $19.5 million federal grant, also awarded last year, for two trail projects, the Slavic Village Downtown Connector North and the Morgana Run Extension.
“We will be working with our folks in [Washington] D.C. next week to try to preserve that transportation corridor down there,” he said. “So stay tuned. Right now, it’s still active.”
No monkeys and other business
Metroparks spent $5.4 million on construction projects in February. More than half of that amount, $3 million, was on the Primate Forest at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. This project expands the zoo’s RainForest into a 140,000-square-foot facility with three animal habitats: Tropical Forest, Orangutan Forest and Gorilla Forest. Parts of the facility are slated to open next year, and the rest by 2032. The total price tag is $60 million.
Other February capital spending included:
• $500,000 for the ongoing rehabilitation of Hinckley Dam in the Hinckley Reservation. The dam was completed in 1927. The rehab will wrap up in summer 2026.
• $300,000 for ongoing repairs of the Heritage boat docks.
• $250,000 for the planned Patrick S. Parker Community Sailing Center, to be built at the East 55th Street Marina.
Un-fore!-tunate circumstances at Metroparks golf courses
Golfing at Metroparks courses in January and February was down more than Tesla’s stock price.
Chief Financial Officer Wade Steen told the board that in the first two months of 2024, golfers played a combined 7,918 rounds. In the same period this year, they played … 292. That’s a decrease of 96.3%
“It’s the weather,” Steen said. There have been a lot more days with precipitation this winter compared to last, he explained.
According to data compiled by Weather Underground, the monthly averages for rain and snow in the first two months of 2024 and 2025 weren’t dramatically different, but wind speed was up a bit and the temperate was down a lot — about 7 degrees in January and almost 10 degrees in February.
March 2025 so far is a little colder and windier than March 2024, but dryer. So golfers, tell your spouse and your boss you’ll see them later, your park system needs you.
Read the meeting notes from Cleveland Documenters Annie Maglicic and Nicolas Ventura.
