Lakefront Station is an idea with a history. Daniel Burnham’s 1903 Group plan featured a Union Station rail terminal located on the current Competition site.  Burnham’s vision, a grand beaux-arts structure was to serve as the formal entry into the heart of Cleveland and was to be built above the Lakefront rail yards. Although the station provided a magnificent end to the formal mall, it did not provide a connection to the lakefront.  Despite the fact that much of the original plan was unbuilt.  As a result the mall today is a rather empty space and lacks the “activated” space that Burnham envisioned.
The Multi-modal Transportation Center provides an opportunity to bring completion to Burnham’s vision, to bridge the gap between urban core and lakefront, and redefine the very construct of a train station.  This structure serves as a point of connectivity in a larger matrix of transfers and destinations:  a complex array of uses and connections woven together into its own DESTINATION. The station is but one piece of a larger complex containing several levels of retail, a hotel, an office building, bus terminal, and parking for 1500 cars.     
A Roof Top Park carries the green space of the mall up and over the station complex and returns to existing grade between the stadium and Science Center continuing on axis to the water’s edge.  A pedestrian/bicycle “boulevard” meanders across the park, bringing people into the complex and providing direct access to the commuter bicycle facility. Retail anchors, restaurants, and the Visitor Center pierce the surface and provide access to the complex below. Warm weather months offer seasonal markets, outdoor sports activities; wintertime brings ice skating on the frozen reflecting pool, and sledding on the 2 acre hill that drops 50’ in elevation to the Science Center.
The infrastructure on the site was condensed.  Portions of the Memorial Shoreway and Marginal Drive have been shifted and placed underground. Some ramps to and from Memorial Shoreway have been removed. The result is a larger landing for the drift of soil that will become the roof top park. Retail levels open to 9th street as well as Brown’s Stadium, providing an interior connection from the mall to the waterfront attractions.
The formal and fine-grained textures of the beaux arts City Hall and Courthouse contrast with the large, geometric, and random textures of the Brown’s Stadium, Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame, and Great Lakes Science Center.  These existing textures provide the dialogue of forms within the park; the formal grid of the mall fractures and is infiltrated with geometric shapes as you move toward the waterfront.
Cleveland has acknowledged the changing relationship of the city to its waterfront:  modern waterfronts are public spaces for recreation and experiencing nature. Bridgescape will bring the Cleveland City Center back to its waterfront by weaving together an urban fabric that binds.