Opportunity Corridor is the Launch Pad for ODOT's 2015 Construction Season

By Alison Grant, The Plain Dealer 

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The northernmost stretch of Cleveland's upcoming Opportunity Corridor was the backdrop today for the Ohio Department of Transportation's launch of its 2015 construction season.

"It's one of the most exciting projects that I've ever been part of," ODOT Director Jerry Wray said of the 3.2-mile, $331 million corridor that will connect Interstate 490 and University Circle. "It's going to impact the lives of millions of people for decades to come."

Wray said the decision to completely fund the corridor with money from the Ohio Turnpike freed the state to set aside part of the project's construction budget -- $53 million -- for minority- and female-owned businesses. ODOT also has pledged that 20 percent of the workers building the corridor will be from nearby neighborhoods.

The corridor is getting roughly a third of the money generated by the turnpike's authorization of $1 billion in new bonds, debt that's to be repaid by 10 annual 2.7 percent-increases in tolls. The turnpike kept $70 million of the $1 billion for its own road maintenance work.

State Senator Sandra Williams, whose district includes the corridor, said the roadway will remove "a significant amount of blight" and will prompt the cleanup of toxic sites of shuttered businesses.

Williams stressed the economic spinoff for area residents, whose income, she said, averages about $10,000 a year.

"We're hoping that this development will be real development for those people in the corridor, to change their predicament," Williams told a gathering of political and community leaders outside the W.O Walker Center at East 105th and Euclid Avenue, in the heart of The Cleveland Clinic campus, one block from the northern end of the boulevard.

Today marks the first day of on-site activity on the corridor. Marie Kittredge, who is head of community and economic development planning for the project, charged in part with identifying private, public and philanthropic funding to spark neighborhood development, said of the construction launch: "There's a lot to do and this is just one small step, but an exciting one."

ODOT said its statewide construction budget for the 2015 season is $2.4 billion, being spent on a record 990 projects, up 50 from 2014.

The state's first-ever public-private partnership begins this spring in Scioto County -- a 16-mile, $429 million bypass around the city of Portsmouth that ODOT says will  complete the missing link in Ohio of the Appalachian Highway System and fuel economic development in one of the state's most impoverished counties.

ODOT's agenda this year in District 12 (Cuyahoga, Lake and Geauga counties) has an estimated $1.1 billion in construction, including:

• $1 billion in Cuyahoga County. Major projects include Inner Belt bridge work, a pavement rehabilitation on the West Shoreway and the first two sections of Opportunity Corridor. (See full list of projects in document viewer below.) But there are many others. ODOT is spending $2.4 million to repair rocky 117th Street on the border between Cleveland and Lakewood; $6.6 million to repair steel trusses on the Main Avenue Bridge in Cleveland; $5.7 million for a movable pedestrian bridge from Finger Pier to Voinovich Park on the lakefront; and $6.5 million to replace the East 79th Street bridge over Norfolk Southern and RTA tracks.
• Some $45 million for resurfacing two bridges and two noise wall projects in Lake County. The biggest ticket job is replacing the Vrooman Road bridge over the Grand River in Perry and LeRoy townships, at a cost of $26.9 million. Other work includes resurfacing Ohio 306 ($3.8 million) and widening Heisley Road ($4.9 million) in the city of Mentor
• An estimated $30 million on four resurfacing and two bridge projects and one culvert project in Geauga County. Included in that is $19 million to rehabilitate U.S. Route 422 in Bainbridge and Auburn townships.

 Besides the Portsmouth Bypass, prominent projects statewide include:

• Rebuilding and expanding Interstate 75 from four lanes to six lanes from Findlay to Perrysburg
• Replacing the pavement on Interstate 271 from Broadview Road to the Ohio Turnpike in Summit County
• Reconstructing the U.S. 23/Interstate 270 area in Franklin County with expanded lanes, an underground trench and redesigned interchange