SOLON, Ohio – City council will consider a grant application at a special meeting that, if approved, would allow the city to begin work on the Bicentennial Park site.

The meeting is fixed at 8 am on January 6 at the town hall. The grant application would be filed with the Cuyahoga County Development Department as part of the county’s supplemental grants program in 2022.

Mayor Ed Kraus said he believed the city would receive up to $ 50,000 through the grant.

Bicentennial Park is on Bainbridge Road, near SOM Center Road, just east of the Solon Historical Society and across from the Solon Center for the Arts.

Kraus said the city’s long-term goal is to reconfigure Bainbridge Road so that the City Park can be used for combined events with the Historical Society, the Arts Center and Town Hall without a street. does not cross the park, as is currently the case.

“Right now it is very dangerous for the children of the arts center to access the Bicentennial Park,” he said. “They have to cross the street (on Bainbridge Road) if we have any events there, and we have to control traffic.

“We really want to create a park setting without the street crossing the park. The main objective is to create a contiguous and safe park.

The top priority for the use of the park, said Kraus, is to complete the programming of the Solon Center for the Arts. He noted that this was also part of the city’s proposed trail rail project, which would convert abandoned rail lines into pedestrian and cycle paths from SOM Center Road to the Bentleyville Line.

“We can have a rest station there, there can be benches, so (the park) will have multiple uses,” he said.

“Solon Bull’s house will be used for the arts center, outside the house. Our vision is to have different events on the patio behind the house.

The town owns the Bull House – considered the oldest property in town – at 34045 Bainbridge Road.

Kraus said traffic engineers are redesigning Bainbridge Road for this purpose.

He added that the city has also bought two houses on Bainbridge Road, opposite City Hall, in part to have more space to reconfigure the street.

“So those are some of the reasons we wanted the board to authorize the money for this grant so that we could start doing work on the site,” he said. “For community development, it’s a great use of the money from this grant. “

Kraus said work on the site is expected to begin sometime in 2022. Meanwhile, events will continue in the park, he said.

“Once our traffic engineers have the route (for the reconfiguration of the road), they will come to the city for approval,” he said. “It will take a good part of 2022 to flesh out this process. “

Welcome to Solon sign

Motorists entering the city on US Route 422 have likely noticed the large Welcome to Solon sign at the southeast corner of the eastbound entrance to 422 on SOM Center Road.

Installed in late November at a cost of around $ 63,000, the sign is 10 feet high and 20 feet wide. It is the first large-scale monument sign the city has ever had, according to Kraus.

Kraus said the panel had been in the works for several years but had been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. This is part of the city’s rebranding effort that was launched in 2019.

“It’s been years since I wanted to have a sign like this,” he said.

“If we want to be a welcoming city, then you have to have a welcome sign,” he continued. “When you go out there, you want to feel welcome, and this is our opportunity to welcome people.

“It’s not that we weren’t welcoming before, but that really explains it in a very straightforward way.”

In addition to identifying the city for outside motorists, the sign can also be used as a marketing tool for the city, Kraus said.

“A lot of this is driven by your willingness to help small businesses,” he said. “If people feel welcome, they can patronize these small businesses that need help.

“Anything we can do to help small businesses is really important to us as a community. “

Kraus said he wanted to thank Glavin Signs, the Solon-based company that built the sign, for their help.

He also thanked Tommy Cultrona of Bob Cultrona Landscaping in Glenwillow for the excavation and landscaping work around the sign.

Kraus said the city is planning continuous landscaping of the site, “to ensure it is well maintained,” as well as the addition of lighting.

“It will be beautiful at night with the lighting,” he said.