10/08/2026
A controversial chapter in Cleveland's Irishtown Bend project is finally coming to an end.
At the corner of Detroit Avenue and West 25th Street, demolition is underway on a small, long-vacant building that became one of the most disputed properties involved in the development of Irishtown Bend Park.
This interactive 360° panorama captures the work from above, along with the surrounding hillside, the Cuyahoga River, and another major construction project beginning across the intersection near St. Malachi Church.
The building being demolished was once home to a Royal Castle restaurant, but in more recent years it was better known for the enormous billboard that stood above it. The property was purchased in 2018 by a company controlled by Cleveland businessmen Tony and Bobby George. As plans to stabilize Irishtown Bend advanced, the building and its billboard became the subject of a prolonged legal dispute between the owners and the public agencies working to acquire the property.
The Port of Cleveland maintained that the property was needed for the stabilization of the hillside and pursued acquisition through eminent domain. The owners challenged those efforts, arguing that the proposed compensation did not adequately account for the property, its redevelopment potential, or the billboard's value.
The dispute lasted years and accumulated millions of dollars in legal expenses before a settlement was reached in 2023. Under the original agreement, the owners were to receive $1.25 million, replacement billboard locations elsewhere in Cleveland, and an opportunity to operate a future restaurant at the park.
That agreement was revised again in August 2026 after plans for the restaurant and its large outdoor patio were abandoned over development challenges and potential costs. Instead, the revised arrangement provided additional billboard locations elsewhere in the city, with no replacement billboards planned for the Irishtown Bend property.
Now, with demolition underway, the building that once stood at the center of those negotiations is finally being removed.
Beyond the building, the panorama offers a broad look at the progress made on the Irishtown Bend hillside itself. What was once a heavily overgrown and unstable slope has been substantially reshaped following a roughly $65 million stabilization project led by the Port of Cleveland.
The work was necessary for reasons extending well beyond the future park. For decades, the hillside had been slowly moving toward the Cuyahoga River, threatening underground infrastructure and raising concerns about a potential landslide into Cleveland's active shipping channel. Stabilizing the slope required extensive excavation, improvements to drainage and utilities, and construction of a massive new retaining wall along the river.
The Port completed that phase of the project in early 2026, allowing Cleveland Metroparks and its partners to move forward with the next stages.
Plans call for approximately 25 acres of public green space, overlooks, walking paths, gathering areas, and improved access to the riverfront. The project will also complete an important missing section of the regional trail network, eventually connecting the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail to Wendy Park and Lake Erie.
The location has a history stretching back well before its modern redevelopment. Irishtown Bend takes its name from the Irish immigrant community that settled along the river during Cleveland's industrial growth. Generations of residents lived and worked on this hillside, close to the docks, railroads, factories, and shipping activity that helped build the city. The new park plans include recognition of that history.
There is also another significant project visible in this panorama.
Across West 25th Street, near St. Malachi Church and the western end of the Detroit-Superior Bridge, work is progressing at the site of Bridgeworks, a long-planned residential and mixed-use development.
The project has gone through several redesigns and years of financing challenges. Its latest plans call for a seven-story building with approximately 219 apartments, ground-floor commercial space, and structured parking on the former Cuyahoga County Engineer property. The development will substantially change the appearance of this prominent intersection and introduce additional housing immediately beside the bridge and the future park.
Together, these projects represent several years of planning, engineering, negotiations, legal disputes, and redevelopment work concentrated in a relatively small area of Ohio City.
There is still considerable work ahead. Construction of the final trail connections is expected to continue into 2027, while the larger Irishtown Bend Park improvements are planned in phases extending toward 2029.
For now, this 360° view documents a particularly interesting moment: the final removal of a building that became central to one of Cleveland's more complicated recent property disputes, the newly stabilized hillside that will eventually become a public park, and the beginning of another major development across the street.
