A new riverfront park by WXY, EDGE, and Colliers Engineering is taking shape in Toledo, Ohio. The Glass City Riverwalk is a multi-year urban design project, commissioned by Toledo Metroparks, a city agency. It hugs the east and west banks of the Maumee River, and connects with downtown Toledo.
The resilient shoreline was reclaimed from industrial use. It both provides public space between Fort Industry Square at Swan Creek, to the west, and Cherry Street, to the east; and protects the city from rising sea levels.
“Metroparks Toledo set out to give the river back to the community, to create a continuous edge where people can walk, paddle, sit, and watch the water from the place the city was built around,” WXY founding principal Claire Weisz said in a statement.
“Our goal was to create a waterfront that belongs to everyone, where the Maumee reads as the heart of downtown rather than its boundary,” Weisz continued.
The riverwalk boasts a generous promenade, play areas centered around a “reimagined” existing lighthouse, an outdoor amphitheater, a bio-retention garden, and more.
“The Bend,” an elevated walkway, closes a gap in Toledo’s pedestrian and cycling network by creating a new link across the Maumee to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Bridge.
The east bank of the Maumee on the Glass City Riverwalk was rebuilt and renaturalized. It now has overlooks, seating terraces, planted groves, a kayak launch area, and a sculpture by artist Blessing Hancock, called Starburst.
David Vega-Barachowitz, WXY’s urban design director, said it was a challenge “stitching two riverbanks and the downtown core back together into a sequence of connected and vibrant green spaces.”
“Our design balanced this commitment to public access and play with an actively resilient waterfront that manages stormwater, rebuilds habitat, and activates the shoreline, so the landscape works as hard ecologically as it does for the people using it,” Vega-Barachowitz said in a statement.
The Glass City Riverwalk is a 10-year effort by Metroparks Toledo. Upon completion the riverwalk will reclaim brownfields for a continuous greenway that stretches from the Veterans’ Glass City Skyway to the Anthony Wayne Bridge.
The first swath of Glass City Riverwalk opened in 2023, in East Toledo. The remaining half of the project is now in design.
Construction on the next phase should begin next year.