Welcome Home - The Site.

The Zaclon site is comprised of 36 total acres of land in Cleveland's Industrial Valley. The site started making sulfuric acid for John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil in the 1850's to support the burgeoning oil industry. Later acquired by DuPont in 1926 many new products were introduced to support many industries, but primarily galvanizing products.

DuPont sold the operations to Joe Turgeon and Jim Krimmel who ran the business as Zaclon for many successful decades. As the business matured and became more efficient, the need for the full 36 acres waned. The two partners looked for the ways and means to environmentally remediate almost a third of the property to suit different purposes. The need for dedicated river frontage has been supplanted by over-the-road trucking and our 2.76 acre site became available.

For more detailed history about the site and operations you can find it here on the Zaclon web site.

The 2.76 acre site was highlighted in a Cleveland.com article about a City of Cleveland initiative called Vision for the Valley. Within the article there was discussion about a broader plan for the Industrial Valley including a public park on a portion of the Zaclon site.

Once Zaclon remediated the site they were provided an Ohio EPA No Further Action Letter, which is a determination the site is suitable for certain use cases. Part of the "Site Enablement" fundraising phase will be for SARA to get authorization from the Ohio EPA specific use authorization as a boathouse and park. Initial reviews with the environmental experts indicates we should qualify given the remediation work done to date with primarily paperwork to be completely specifying our use case. We anticipate this cost to be in the $40k-50k range with numerous potential public funding/grant sources to help pay for such engineering/legal work.

The site itself couldn't be on a more perfect section of river for the rowing team. It is upriver near the steel mill past most of the river traffic -- improving safety and disruptions from wake. It is also on the straightest stretch of the Cuyahoga. "Straight" is relative when you're talking about the Crooked River, but from the steel mill down to Marathon Bend it's relatively straight -- providing good training water and potential for 2,000m side-by-side racing.

The Boathouse Building.

The main blue building on the site is approximately 9,000 square feet and will make a perfect permanent site for CWRU Rowing. The building itself has a very high bay in the middle and will eventually offer about 3 bays of rowing shell storage -- more than enough for the team.

Within the main building is some infrastructure like bathrooms, offices, and small second floor that will be perfect as a trophy room, board room and coaches offices.

To make the building "perfect" we'll need to install racks, clean the space, complete a occupancy review with a structural engineer and the fire department, and cut a few bay doors for rowing shell ingress/egress. However, even in it's current state, with shells in slings, the team could move in after the fire department gives the "all clear".

River Frontage.

There a tons of old industrial buildings in Cleveland that are quite affordable. There are virtually none with sufficient river frontage...

The Zaclon River Landing site has over 200 feet of river frontage! There is no bulkhead along the entire length. Without bulkhead the site is limited for industrial uses, but makes it perfect for a natural looking shoreline and for installing a dock. After cutting down the brush lining the shore, we'll have a perfect shoreline to serve the public and CWRU rowing for generations.

Our plan involves lining most of the shoreline with dock, installing a ramp for rowing shells and also providing public paddle-sport access. The location of the dock is absolutely perfect for other paddle sports, like kayaks, to access the upper reaches of the Cuyahoga. Being close to downtown Cleveland, yet upriver from the majority of the freighter and pleasure craft traffic makes the site ideal.

The shape of the shoreline at the site also makes it a perfect location for a dock. The dock will tuck along the shoreline yet still be behind the scissor bridge abutment -- out of the shipping channel. We have already been in communication with the Army Corps of Engineers to verify the dock is outside of the shipping channel -- reducing the permit requirements and virtually guaranteeing that we'll be able to install a dock.

The Maintenance Building.

Next to the main blue building is a small 800 sq ft maintenance building. This building will be perfect as an erg room, tank room or storage for kayaks or small boats. Our current site plan sees huge potential for this building as kayak storage. Based on market rates for kayaks in other parks in Cleveland, we feel giving segregated storage and river access to local kayakers has huge potential to make the economics of the site attractive.

The Locker Room Building.

Lockers! Shower, laundry and locker room facilities already exist on-site within a small 1,000 sq ft facility. Some cleaning and updates will need to be made, but the building is currently serviceable and ready to go!

Ingress & Egress.

The site has two vehicle exits: one to the south through the main Zaclon property under the I-490 bridge and the other to the north via another business' (Clean Harbors) access road to Independence Rd.