The Aerozone Current Conditions Assessment includes a deep analysis of data across multiple topics to provide a clear picture of the status of the Aerozone, lays the groundwork for future planning efforts, and identifies assets, issues, and opportunities for the district.
Aerozone Current Conditions Assessment
The Aerozone Current Conditions Assessment provides a point-in-time snapshot of the Aerozone area and helps identify issues that should to be addressed, where overlapping efforts can be coordinated, clusters of assets that can be built upon, and opportunities for engagement, collaboration, and growth.
Background
The Aerozone is an employment center for technology, research, development, and logistics jobs clustered within the communities surrounding the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and NASA Glenn Research Center. These jobs and the accompanying economic development activity support the engineering science NASA Glenn Research Center performs.
The mission of the Aerozone Alliance is to create a world-class innovation hub to attract more smart jobs and greater capital investment to the region. These efforts capitalize on the unique strength of this district to create regional economic growth by working collaboratively with communities and employers alike. This includes both public and private stakeholders to attract small and medium-sized companies, large multi-national corporations, and entices developing technologies to commercialize near the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and NASA Glenn Research Center facilities.
The Aerozone Current Conditions Assessment is the first step towards a greater vision for developing an Aerozone Master Plan. The Current Conditions Assessment provides a point-in-time snapshot of the Aerozone to identify issues that need to be addressed, areas of overlapping efforts that can improve infrastructure coordination, clusters of assets that can be built upon, and opportunities for engagement, collaboration, and growth. This assessment also allowed for extensive conversations with partners, community leaders, and major employers to share on-the-ground knowledge and their unique perspectives about the Aerozone.
Project Framework
The Aerozone Current Conditions Assessment focuses on the physical infrastructure of the built environment and roadways, how land is currently being used, if environmental or zoning constraints are an issue for development, and existing employment and industry trends. The assessment also analyzes the demographic characteristics of the population in outlying communities that support the Aerozone, how this potential labor pool compares to the types of jobs and industries available within the Aerozone, and where current employees live and how long it takes to commute to their place of employment every day. The Aerozone Current Conditions Assessment focuses on four topic areas:
- Transportation & Infrastructure: includes data on existing and proposed roads, transit, sidewalks, trails, bikeways, railways, and signage. This data allows users to understand high-volume crash data, over or under capacity roads, areas where transit is missing or bus shelters are needed, areas where trail connections could be built, and where future transportation improvements are proposed and how they can be advanced.
- Zoning & Land Use: includes data on existing and proposed zoning, land use, parks, buildings, community facilities, and environmental constraints. This data allows users to understand how communities are currently using their land, what zoning is currently set up to allow developers to build, where buildings are reaching the end of their useful life, and where environmental constraints such as waterways, wetlands, and steep slopes will hinder development.
- Economic Development: includes data on the number of jobs by sector, income within the area, construction activity, vacant sites, brownfields, and tourism. This data allows users to understand current economic sectors and how many new jobs are being created, where construction activity is occurring, where there are vacant sites for new development, and what sites may require remediation for eventual active use for the Aerozone.
- Workforce: includes data on the number and composition of people and households, the labor force, racial and ethnic composition, educational attainment, and transportation time to job location (for both transit riders and drive time by automobile). This data allows users to understand the number of people living within the Greater Aerozone Area, the potential labor pool, the education of that labor pool, and any mismatch between jobs and workforce.
Assets, Issues and Opportunities
Based on the data analysis, County Planning outlined assets, issues, and opportunities using input from Aerozone Alliance partners, businesses, and other interested parties. Input and ideas were summarized, mapped, and combined to develop an outline that can guide next steps in the Master Plan process.
Additional Resources
The Aerozone Analyst application is an interactive map viewer that provides insights into the Aerozone district. The application was developed by County Planning in collaboration with the Aerozone Alliance and Team NEO.
The application provides a map with dozens of layers to choose from and a small set of tools for exploring the map and underlying data.
For more information about the district, visit the Aerozone Alliance’s site.
Contact Us
We welcome and encourage your questions, comments, and feedback about the Aerozone Current Conditions Assessment. Please contact our project team with your thoughts:
- Rachel Novak, AICP, Senior Planner
rnovak@cuyahogacounty.us
Top image: Cleveland Hopkins International Airport Safety Training Exercise by Cuyahoga County