The Tamir Rice Butterfly Memorial at Cudell Commons has officially been added to Cleveland’s list of historic landmarks, locking in legal protections for the butterfly-shaped garden at the West Side park where 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot in 2014. The move follows years of organizing by his mother, Samaria Rice, the Tamir Rice Foundation, and neighborhood advocates who turned loss into a place of remembrance. For neighbors tracking plans for the park and the adjoining school, the vote secures extra safeguards for that stretch of land.
City Council signed off on the ordinance (Ord. No. 1084-2025) on Oct. 20, 2025, according to council records. Per the Cleveland City Council, the measure formally designates the site as a Cleveland landmark, and local coverage noted that Samaria Rice and supporters were in the council chambers for the vote. WOIO reported on the council action along with the community reaction.
Memorial's origins and design
The butterfly garden followed years of community work and a formal dedication that reshaped a painful location into a space for quiet reflection. The Cultural Landscape Foundation describes the quarter-acre memorial at Cudell Commons as a planted butterfly form, filled with native milkweed, mosaics, and sculptural details that invite both pollinators and people. The project team, including DesignJones, created the memorial as a contemplative public landscape built around local stewardship rather than spectacle.
What landmark status protects
Under the city ordinance, landmark designation triggers a formal review process for any proposed demolition or major alteration, adding procedural checks between the memorial and future development plans. The Legistar entry for Ord. No. 1084-2025 presents the designation as a way to safeguard the memorial’s cultural and civic importance for generations to come. For residents worried that nearby projects could reshape or shrink the space, the new status provides a concrete channel for oversight.
Park fight and the school
The memorial has been a focal point in a sometimes tense debate over Cudell Commons and the footprint for a new Marion C. Seltzer Elementary School, where neighbors objected to proposals that would have cut into parkland. Councilmember Jenny Spencer, who sponsored the landmark ordinance, credited the memorial with helping stakeholders land on compromises around the park redesign and school construction, according to reporting by Ideastream Public Media. Spencer has said the park is expected to receive investment as part of a broader neighborhood plan.
Samaria Rice told reporters the designation helps protect “the only memory” she has of her son and eases some of her long-standing fears that the city might alter the memorial. “I want it to stay as is because that’s the only memory that I have of my child,” Rice said, per Ideastream Public Media. The Tamir Rice Foundation and its allies continue to host memorial events that keep his story at the forefront of Cleveland’s civic life.
Visitors will find the memorial within Cudell Commons on Cleveland’s West Side, next to the Marion C. Seltzer school playground. The landmark designation fits into a larger effort to center the park redesign on community priorities and to ensure the site endures as both a space for mourning and a public marker of collective memory for years to come.
