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Most people would look at Public Square in downtown Cleveland and see a once-grand civic space with the shabby air of a neglected heirloom.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson sees an opportunity to redefine public space in the city with a single, bold stroke. He wants to close Superior Avenue and Ontario Street where they cross the 10-acre space to make it a big central park in the heart of the city.

I want to see one big square, Jackson said in a lengthy recent interview.

But thats not all. The mayor sees a unified Public Square as the centerpiece of an effort to connect all of downtowns disparate districts with continuous green paths and streetscapes friendly to pedestrians and bicyclists.

For example, hes impressed by the restaurant row and caf tables along E. 4th Street downtown, and could see similar developments spreading along E. 6th Street and E. 9th St.

Beyond that, hed like to see greenways, bike paths and revitalized parks spreading throughout the city.

Its not just lofty talk. Steps taken toward the realization of a new green vision include a “Complete Streets ordinance, approved by the City Council in September. It requires that 20 percent of money spent on road projects, up to $1 million, should go to bike-only lanes, crosswalks, energy-efficient lighting and porous pavement.

The city has also used its capital budget since 2007 to fund more than $30 million in projects around the city, ranging from $630,000 for new streetscapes in the Gordon Square Arts District to $650,000 to assemble land for the future Canal Basin Park in the Flats.

Jacksons views on public space are part of a cultural shift filtering into Cleveland after decades in which the city engineered its streets to maximize the flow of cars.

The city also lavished attention on big, magic bullet projects, such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Gateway sports complex, while spending far less energy on how to connect the attractions with parks and streetscapes.

But last year, spurred by plans for the convention center, medical mart and casino, Jackson appointed a new Group Plan Commission to explore ways in which the downtown Mall, Public Square and other spaces could be enhanced.

The commission – which included leaders of the citys largest banks, sports teams and real estate companies – reflected a growing realization that the citys tired and gray public realm needs serious attention.

We really are beginning to think of ourselves as a travel destination, and thats begun to change our thinking about how we view public space, said Joe Marinucci, president and CEO of the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, a business consortium.

Key staffers in City Hall are very much on board.

“Portland is gospel to me,” said Ken Silliman, Jackson’s chief of staff, speaking of the Oregon city considered a paragon of pedestrian-friendly planning and urban design.

Park and bike advocates are pleased by the mayors focus, but say that Cleveland is playing catchup.

On complete streets, we didnt lead the pack on that, said Brad Chase, program manager for Green City Blue Lake, a think tank on environmentally conscious development at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Chase also said that while bike advocates are pleased that the Ohio Department of Transportation is adding a $6 million bike lane to the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, theyre disappointed that the city recommended trimming bike lanes from parts of a makeover of the West Shoreway to cut costs on the $104 million project.

Elsewhere, progress on bike paths is slow. In 2007, the city established the goal of creating 180 miles of bike paths, but so far, only 30 miles have been built. The effort to finish the northermost section of the 110-mile Towpath Trail, now nearly complete south of the city, has languished for a decade.

Nevertheless, Chase gives the mayor credit for trying to change the character of an aging and shrinking industrial city.

The mayor has taken strong leadership on these issues, and theyre not easy to change. Theyre rooted in our culture and environment over hundreds of years, Chase said.

By advocating that the streets in Public Square should close, for example, Jackson is wading into a 200-year-old debate over whether the park should be one big space, or carved into quadrants.

Originally laid out in 1796 with cross streets by the citys founder, Moses Cleaveland, Public Square is a Midwestern version of a traditional New England town square.

From 1857 to 1867, park advocates succeeded in having the cross streets closed in the square and a fence put up around the perimeter. In 1865, Abraham Lincolns hearse paused in the tranquility of a then-unified square.

The celebrated Fence War ended when the streets were reopened at the insistence of businesses tired of driving wagons around the outside.

Enlarge John Kuntz, The Plain Dealer On the southeast quadrant Oct. 28. Public Square today gallery (5 photos)

Today, the square is flanked by the citys tallest skyscrapers. And it will soon function as the front porch to a $400 million casino being installed by Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert in the lower floors of the Higbee Building, part of the Terminal Tower complex.

The square was re-landscaped most recently in the 1980s, and is looking tired today. City workers have kept the square neatly mowed and free of trash, but in each of its quadrants, brick pavers ripple from the effect of winter frost.

Retaining walls made of reddish granite blocks are settling or broken. Cracks are filled with moss, indicating that its been a long time since theyve had attention. Wooden benches are missing slats. Dry fountains and basins are full of dislodged stone blocks.

The square fills once or twice a year for events such as Cleveland Orchestra concerts, but on Friday morning, it was populated by people waiting for buses and a handful of bedraggled Occupy Cleveland protesters.

The idea of closing the square to traffic has emerged periodically, but it hasnt gained traction.

Yet, Jackson said, the concept, the ideal, of unifying the square, has always been in my mind. And hes pushing it now.

To explore the possibility, the city is working with the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, which has hired a traffic consultant to study whether its possible to close one or both of the cross streets in the square. The alliance is using roughly $115,000 in private money, much of it from foundations, to pay for the study.

Scheduled for completion in February, the analysis follows a separate effort two years ago, also led by the alliance, in which it asked the leading American landscape architect, James Corner, to envision three concepts for renovating the square.

Two of the proposals, which called for framing the square with a monumental lattice, or allowing traffic to flow beneath an artificial hill in the center of the square, were based on the premise of keeping the cross streets open. A third idea called for closing the two blocks of Ontario Street that run north-south through the center of the square.

Jackson said he doesnt like any of those ideas, and that closing Ontario wouldnt be enough for him.

We could make it two halves, but thats not a square, he said. A square is one piece.

This time around, the traffic consultant will look afresh at the impact of closing Ontario alone, and of closing both Ontario and Superior.

But the firm, San Francisco-based Nelson Nygaard, wont consider the needs of vehicles as its sole criterion. Instead, it will seek to balance the interests of pedestrians and bicyclists with those of cars and buses.

Its significant that the firm has built a national reputation for undoing the work of the previous generation of traffic engineers, who considered traffic flow paramount, often to the economic detriment of downtowns.

If cities are going to be competitive over time, they need to think about transit, bike amenities and a walkable downtown, said Tom Brennan, the firm principal leading the Public Square study.

View full sizeLonnie Timmons III, The Plain DealerMayor Frank Jackson’s vision for Public Square is a pedestrian-friendly urban centerpiece.

Such words align precisely with Jacksons views, who said he wants to reduce the dominance of the automobile in the design of public space in the city.

Jackson said hes motivated by the memory of visits to Washington, D.C. as a young man, while he was on Army leave from training at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

It was a beautiful city with that open space, and monuments, he said, and it was interrupted by cars. So I can imagine how that city would look if it didnt have all these cars and arteries and veins of moving traffic around. It kind of cuts it up, but the city is so beautiful as a whole. I always thought they should not allow cars in a downtown.

More recently, on trade visits to Paris and Rouen, France; Vicenza, Italy; and Lubljana, Slovenia, Jackson has been deeply impressed by the quality and variety of public spaces he saw in those cities.

They all have the sense of a greater importance around public space than Americans do, Jackson said. It was really a confirmation of what I thought would be a better environment.

Jacksons views may sound unusual in Cleveland, which has had a traditional, automobile-centered view of public space for decades. But theyre becoming the new standard nationwide in urban design and city planning.

Were finally understanding something that Paris understood in the 19th century, said Alexander Garvin, a professor of urban planning and management at Yale University. An exciting public realm makes a city competitive, it attracts customers and makes people who live there comfortable.

Garvins recent book, Public Parks: The Key to Livable Communities, details the enormous economic boost that followed the creation or revitalization of parks in New York. Examples include the new High Line, a greenway built on an abandoned elevated rail line in the citys meatpacking district; and Bryant Park, a former drug zone behind New York Public Library, which has become one of the liveliest spaces in the city.

Central Park [in New York] has paid for itself thousands of times over, Garvin said.

Enlarge Plain Dealer staff LINCOLN , 1865 — Lincoln’s coffin lies in state on Public Square. Note the young elm trees. public square photos gallery (11 photos)

Garvin, who is familiar with Cleveland, cautioned against the idea that simply closing the cross streets in Public Square would create a great park. He said the square would need extensive new landscaping, plus long-term stewardship to keep it safe and full of events.

To the degree that the 10-acre space has a management component and attractions that bring people there, you can transform it, Garvin said. The problem isnt only that its crossed by those streets, its that the distance across is 500 feet. Thats big enough so nobody will want to go across. You have to have magnets in it that bring people there.

When asked about how much work and money it would take to redo Public Square, Jackson didnt have specifics. Yet its clear the magnitude of such a project could be considerable.

The Group Plan Commission earlier this year estimated the cost of improvements to the Mall, surrounding streets and Public Square at $90 million. Most of the money would come from private sources, although Jackson has said the city would do its part, within its capacity.

For now, the Downtown Cleveland Alliance has set aside $25,000 to bring back Corner, the landscape architect, for a fresh look at the square, and is ready to raise more for a new design process.

Apart from the challenge of finding money for design and construction, much less long-term management, the mayors vision for Public Square would require collaboration from the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority.

Closing streets would mean moving some of the sleek new bus stops installed in the square in 2008 as part of the $200 million bus rapid transit line installed by RTA on Euclid Avenue. It would also change bus routes.

RTAs director, Joe Calabrese, said the agency is part of the discussion, and that it wants to make sure its riders wont be inconvenienced by any changes. He said there are 3,200 daily pickups and drop-offs in the square, and that the two most heavily used stops& average 4,000 riders a day.

If those stops are moved somewhere else, the question is where, Calabrese said. We dont want to get in front of the study result. We are in favor of whatever is good for the city.

Jackson said he understands Calabreses concerns, but that he believes theres a way to turn the square into a unified space. He’s also convinced that automobile traffic attracted by the upcoming casino in the Higbee Building need not spoil plans for the square.

And hes convinced a revitalized Public Square would help start a virtuous cycle of development downtown, in which empty parking lots west of the square, reaching into the Warehouse District, would fill with new offices, apartments and stores.

This just blows it open in terms of opportunities, he said of the idea of unifying the square. You could have anything there.

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