Photo Credit: Tim Fitzwater
Just two miles south of downtown Akron, Ohio, on the Ohio & Erie Towpath Trail is a 100-acre glacial lake. In the 1920s, it was known as Akron’s “million-dollar playground” and attracted thousands of visitors to the amusement park along its banks to swim, picnic, and boat. But after being used as an industrial-waste site by the rubber industry, Summit Lake fell into disuse and developed a reputation as a place to avoid. The adjacent neighborhood has also suffered from decades of isolation and disinvestment.
But that’s changing, thanks to Akron Civic Commons, a local collaboration of government, non-profits, community members, and business leaders convened by Ohio and Erie Canalway Coalition and supported by Reimagining the Civic Commons, a national initiative that seeks to counter economic and social fragmentation in cities by revitalizing and connecting public places.
Through collaborative design and programming of existing public assets, the ambition of Akron Civic Commons is to connect three economically and socially diverse neighborhoods—downtown, Park East, and Summit Lake—along the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail. For Summit Lake, that means returning it to a gathering place for all that connects an isolated community back to the lake and to the city.