Leveraging Lighting in the Urban Landscape

Together with the City of Cleveland and Mayor Justin Bibb, Destination Cleveland, Greater Cleveland Partnership, and Cuyahoga County, we are proud to support Mayor Bibb's plan to reimagine Downtown Cleveland into an 18-hour, 15-minute neighborhood that weaves districts and surrounding neighborhoods into a seamless urban fabric. The goal is to attract modern economic activity and provide a world-class experience for all who work, live, and play Downtown. In the Reimagining Downtown blog series, we will provide regular updates on our progress in implementing the plan and dive deeper into specific projects that move us toward our goals. 

Goal: Enhance Downtown Lighting 

A key goal in Reimagining Downtown Cleveland is to leverage lighting in the urban landscape to enhance Downtown’s environment. Lighting promotes safety and creates a welcoming and unique city for employees, residents, and visitors alike. One of the key initiatives we committed to in Reimagining Downtown is: 

Install experiential lighting to illuminate Downtown Cleveland, creating an increased perception of safety, connecting key corridors, and encouraging foot traffic and economic activity throughout the core. Begin lighting implementation on Public Square and extend to Euclid Avenue and Mall B. 

Status: In Progress 

Picture Public Square glowing with an enhanced bold look through designed dynamic lighting. Downtown Cleveland got a taste of that last month when Destination Cleveland produced a public demonstration of projections on Old Stone Church and The Standard building. These types of illuminations will ultimately be scaled and replicated throughout Public Square in the first half of 2024. The long-term vision includes lighting enhancements to other areas of Downtown and main streets in other neighborhoods throughout the city. 

The lighting infrastructure provides more than just aesthetic benefits to Downtown Cleveland. A 2016 study of street lighting in New York City concluded that communities that were assigned more lighting experienced a 36% reduction in nighttime outdoor crimes. The study researched “situational aspects of the environment in which judgment, decisions and behaviors are made”* and found that the environment has a significant impact on human behavior. Environmental interventions like lighting enhancements can potentially deter costly and dangerous behaviors without the need for resource-intensive responses. Lighting also increases the effectiveness of police and complementary technology like surveillance cameras, as both can survey larger areas and better detect criminal activity. 

Preventative environmental changes to the design of public spaces such as Illuminate CLE can enhance the perception of safety, while also improving connectivity, walkability, and visitation. Illuminate CLE is an example of how we turn the Reimagining Downtown Cleveland plan into action. This important collaborative effort will complement other place enhancement strategies to attract modern economic activity and provide a world-class experience for all. 

Click here to read the full Reimagining Downtown Plan. 

*Chalfin, Aaron, Hansen, Benjamin, Lerner, Jason, and Parker, Lucie. “Reducing Crime through Environmental Design: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment of Street Lighting in New York City.” Journal of Quantitative Criminology, vol 38, (2016): 1. July 2023.