Mayor's Corner:Reflecting On The Many Accomplishments Of 2024
Happy New Year! As we welcome in 2025, I hope that everyone enjoyed the holiday season and enters the new year refreshed and hopeful. I always look forward to this time as an opportunity to reflect on the past year’s accomplishments.
For Lakewood, the past 12 months have been full of positive momentum. We continued to provide high quality services to our residents, maintain excellent fiscal stewardship of tax dollars, keep our city safe and attractive, and made strategic investments in key quality of life assets and major infrastructure initiatives. Below are some highlights for our community from 2024.
Finalizing Downtown Development Agreement: In December, the final version of the development agreement for the former Lakewood Hospital site was approved, allowing construction to break ground in the first half of 2025. The project will introduce the largest number of new housing units in over four decades to our city, while adding 25,000 square feet of retail, building a 536-space parking garage, restoring the historic Curtis Block building, and creating a new 17,000 square foot public plaza and community space where Lakewood can gather.
Safety Initiatives: The City continued to holistically invest in safety initiatives and policies. After a multi-year study, the speed limit on Lake Avenue was reduced by 5 MPH to 30, which should help with safety across the board, including cars, bikes, and pedestrians. The City purchased new state of the art radios for our fire and police departments with American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars. The new devices boast advanced features facilitating seamless communication within their respective departments and with surrounding public safety agencies and bring our safety forces up to best-in-class radio equipment. The City also celebrated the graduation of itsfirst Citizens’ Police Academy class in years. Over 20 residents completed the program, which builds bridges andfosters understanding, trust, and cooperation through immersive experiences.
Winterhurst Ice Arena: The City successfully implemented several planned repairs and upgrades to the beloved recreation asset, especially with regard to key infrastructure to the facility. With the help of Mike Skindell and Nickie Antonio, we were also able to secure $750,000 in state capital dollars to fund work at Winterhurst. The City also teed up future work and has applied for another $500,000 grant from the State of Ohio to complete future projects.
Refuse and Recycling Center: The City completed its upgrade and expansion project at the Berea Road facility to add 6,400 square feet of space and provide a more efficient and comfortable indoor site for resident drop-off of materials(everything from recyclables and hazardous materials to large trash items and yard waste). We also purchased a new shredder and a new cardboard baler with the help of a $26,897 grant from the Ohio EPA. After the grand re-opening, we have seen a dramatic jump in use, with a 50% increase in recycling material drop off.
Heritage Home Program: The City brought re-established a partnership with the Cleveland Restoration Society to provide access to the Heritage Home Program, which allows owners of Lakewood homes built over 50 years ago or more to obtainfree professional guidance on their projects as well as accesslow-cost, below-market-rate financing with interest as low as 2%. In the first half of the year alone, over 750 homeowners made contact with the program staff and applied for $1.1M in loans.
Skate Park Upgrades: The City began construction on a $550,000 renovation and upgrade project that will upgrade the existing footprint of the skate park and an expand it to incorporate three additional sections for: 1) a hip and turnaround zone; 2) a rail and flatwork zone; and 3) a flow bowl. A grand reopening should happen in the spring, just in time for better skateboarding weather and the 20th anniversary of the skate park.
Fiscal Stewardship – State Auditor Awards, Moody’s bond rating: The City once again received the highest level of fiscal awards from the Auditor of the State of Ohio for a fifth consecutive year. The Aa2 rating generally means that the City of Lakewood’s bonds are “judged to be of high quality and are subject to very low credit risk.” That puts Lakewood in the “high-grade” tier of Moody’s rating system which allows the City to pay lower interest when we must borrow funds for high priority capital projects.
Interceptor Project / ARPA dollars: Lakewood continued toadvance the major multiyear project to replace our main sewerinterceptor that spans the length of the city and runs as deep at 90 feet below ground. The project remains on pace for completion in 2025. The City also made the move to dedicate remaining ARPA funds to additional water/sewer projects to minimize the burden on ratepayers.
Summer Storm Recovery: Every year has its unexpected challenges, and 2024’s biggest one was the major storm in August. That storm saw multiple tornadoes touch down in neighboring cities and forced Lakewood along with so many others to react quickly and work hard to help those in need. It was a difficult time for all of Lakewood and our region, but I remain extremely proud of the efforts of so many at the City – from police and fire to public works and human services – to keep people safe and deal with the fallout from the storm.
On behalf of all of us at City Hall, we look forward to working together to keep the momentum going and make 2025 another positive and productive year for Lakewood.