A Barons bus rolls past the old Cuyahoga County Courthouse in Downtown Cleveland. Barons and Greyhound bus operations will move in the Summer 2025 from downtown to an unused parking lot at the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s Brookpark Rapid transit station in the the southwest suburb of Brook Park (KJP). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Barons-Greyhound to leave downtown in Summer 2025
ARTICLE UPDATED NOV. 20, 2022
With the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s (GCRTA) board of trustees unanimously approving a lease with Barons Bus Inc. today, the intercity bus carrier and its partner Greyhound have started on a timetable to relocate out of the historic Downtown Cleveland Greyhound station, 1465 Chester Ave.
Greater Cleveland’s new station for its 30 daily long-distance intercity buses will be at the east end of a parking lot at GCRTA’s Brookpark rapid transit station, 17510 Brookpark Road, in the southwest suburb of Brook Park. The 4-acre site couldn’t be more isolated from traveler amenities.
To the south of the future station location is Ford’s Cleveland Engine Plant No. 1. An elevated Interstate 480 is immediately north of the site. An even more elevated Interstate 71 is immediately east of it. The only nearby amenity is the chill-lit Phoenix Hookah Lounge, open from 8 p.m. to 2:30 a.m.
There used to be a gas station with a tiny convenience store in front of the station site, but it was torn down five years ago. Those surrounding features make the site feel like it’s “out in the boonies,” said frequent traveler Mark Schwinn.
The resident of Cleveland’s Little Italy on the other side of town commutes to his job in Chicago often. Because of the frequency of his trips, Schwinn often takes a Barons bus to save money. He also flies when in a rush, but prefers taking the train to get a good night’s sleep and arrive early for a day’s work in the Windy City. He doesn’t own a car. And he doesn’t like the new bus station location.
The Barons bus station, and by sub-lease Greyhound’s too, will be located at the opposite end of the Brookpark Rapid transit station’s parking lot in Brook Park, a southwest suburb of Cleveland. Critics said it’s not a very attractive location for travelers are there few if any food, beverage or lodging alternatives within walking distance (myplace.cuyahogacounty.gov).
“There’s nothing attractive about a parking lot,” Schwinn said. “Nothing walkable nearby for food or drink and I lose the opportunity to combine errands. I often would return library books or mail a letter before heading to the (Greyhound) terminal.”
On the other hand, while the travel time from home on the Red Line train to the new Barons station will be slightly longer for him, he said in some ways it will actually be easier. Schwinn sometimes takes the GCRTA No. 9 bus to downtown and walks a few blocks to Greyhound. This new station means less walking, but he loses the opportunity to stop along the way to pick up a coffee and a calzone for the trip.
Barons will pay $1,000 per month on a 10-year lease with two five-year extension options starting Jan. 1, 2025. But the design, approvals and construction of Barons’ roughly 2,000-square-foot station waiting room and a concrete bus pad may take until next summer. About 40 parking spaces for passengers will be provided, preliminary site plans show.
Barons will have to deliver final plans for its station and any utilities to GCRTA within 15 days of the start of the lease. The leased parcel touches Brookpark Road so utilities can reach the proposed bus station location without going through unleased properties. But no firm date has been set for the opening of Barons’ station.
“Site and building plans are in development,” said GCRTA Public Information Officer Robert Fleig. “No budget estimate has been provided.”
A conceptual site plan for the new Barons-Greyhound station at the Brookpark Rapid stop. It shows a 2,000-square-foot waiting room, concrete bus pad and about 40 parking spaces for travelers. Brookpark Road is at the bottom of the site plan (GCRTA).
Barons and Greyhound buses and customers will use an unleased portion of GCRTA’s parking lot to gain access to the leased property. Ironically, Barons’ headquarters and bus garage are located on Brookpark Road too, but are about two miles east near West 130th Street.
Barons will likely sublease the property to Greyhound Lines Inc. for its use, but will still require GCRTA’s consent. That sublease will not result in additional charges from GCRTA, according to the lease. However any other subleases will — a $850 one-time fee for any other subleases.
“The tenant’s use of the premises is expect to benefit the public by providing a consolidated transit option and a seamless transit transfer opportunity between (the) tenant’s intercity and interstate bus service and (the) landlord’s transit service,” GCRTA said in its lease with Barons. Fleig said GCRTA and Barons will coordinate on the installation of directional signage to be added to the existing Brookpark station to guide transit users to the new Barons station.
“Tenant will continuously operate its business therein with diligence, fully staffed and stocked,” noted GCRTA’s lease with Barons. “Tenant will, at its sole cost and expense, maintain and keep the premises in good repair within the leased premises and the areas designated for use on the exterior of the site and will maintain said premises in a clean, safe, secure and attractive condition.”
Failure to do so could result in GCRTA making those repairs and charging Barons for them, the lease shows. Barons must keep the station open during the same hours of operation as GCRTA’s transit operations at the site. Either party can end the lease before the 10 years is up but must provide at least one year of advance notice.
View of the new Barons-Greyhound bus statin site from Interstate 71 above I-480. The station site is the parking at left with the crane trucks. The rapid transit station is at far right and Cleveland Hopkins International Airport is in the distance at right (Google).
GCRTA’s Red Line has the most service at the Brookpark station with trains running every 15 minutes, 22 hours a day. The first westbound train is scheduled at Brookpark station at 3:36 a.m. and the last eastbound is at 1:25 a.m. The exception in the lease is when there is a gap of three hours or more in Barons’ scheduled bus services at Cleveland.
Another exception is “When there are schedule through inter-state or inter-city bus services which use the premises as a pick-up or drop-off point or on a schedule mutually agreeable to tenant and landlord,” the lease notes.
Other GCRTA services to the Brookpark station include the No. 54 bus to Garfield Commons in Garfield Heights, the No. 78 to Lakewood’s Gold Coast and the No. 86. The latter runs to Tri-C West in Parma in one direction and the West Park Rapid station in the other.
The bus station’s move to Brookpark was partially welcomed by the head of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University in Chicago. Chaddick has researched and documented the decline of intercity bus services for more than a decade and sees the Cleveland move as part of an ongoing nationwide pattern.
“Baron Bus’s willingness to invest in a new station facility eases the pain of losing the downtown station,” said Joe Schwieterman, director of the Chaddick Institute. “Although the new station won’t be as convenient as the old one, it is in a familiar location to many Clevelanders and has solid transit access. Credit Barons for marshaling the recourses to build a new intercity bus facility. That is relatively rare in today’s cost-cutting environment.”
Until Summer 2025, Barons and Greyhound will continue to use the 1948-built landmark station on Chester Avenue in Downtown Cleveland. After that it will be redeveloped by the Playhouse Square Foundation as a live performance and dining venue (KJP).
“This follows a pattern around the country: municipal governments assist bus lines in finding new station locations but are reluctant to invest to preserve dedicated facilities in the heart of town,” he added. “I’m relieved that bus lines will have a specially designed facility to meet their needs, but I obviously prefer to keep services downtown and have space to allow queues to form inside.”
Schwieterman said Cleveland has spent decades building and improving rail transit and express bus networks that bring people to the city center. He considered it unfortunate that regional agencies don’t see Greater Cleveland’s intercity bus services as complementary to making downtown a vibrant transportation hub.
GCRTA previously offered its largely unused Stephanie Tubbs Jones Transit Center downtown with its 2,000-square-foot waiting room as a new station for Barons and Greyhound. But the land is owned by Cleveland State University and its administrators nixed the idea.
Greyhound’s 1948-built, 36,580-square-foot Streamline Moderne-designed station and its 2.2 acres on Chester Avenue were bought by the Playhouse Square Foundation earlier this year. The property was acquired to expand the theater district northward from its longtime base on Euclid Avenue.
Playhouse Square officials said the station will be redeveloped as a dining and performing arts venue. It will likely use memorabilia from Greyhound’s past to reflect how the station and the bus company shaped Cleveland’s population and development in the 20th century, especially during the peak of intercity bus travel in the 1960s. That’s when more than 200 buses arrived and departed each day at the Greyhound station.
END
