The former Coventry School building in Cleveland Heights is headed for the wrecking ball this fall, clearing the way for Heights Libraries to expand the popular PEACE Park into more public green space. The 1970s-era structure, which closed as a public school in 2006, sits on the six-acre Coventry campus that has anchored the neighborhood for more than a century.
Heights Libraries has not yet gone out to bid for the demolition work, but a Request for Qualifications is expected to be approved by the library system's board of trustees shortly, according to Macin Sheeder, who spoke with Cleveland.com. The library plans to demolish the building in late fall, a step that will enable Phase II of the property's transformation into more public green space. The site's last nonprofit tenant vacated the building when its lease expired at the end of last year.
What Comes Next for the Six-Acre Campus
The demolition will clear space for an expanded PEACE Park, though final designs and plans are still being finalized, per the same report. During construction, the park's lawn and pavilion, along with its play areas, are expected to remain open, while the future of the mini-forest area during demolition remains an open question — Sheeder said a final decision on whether to close that section is still pending. The next phase of the park is expected to be completed in 2027.
Community input has driven much of the planning so far. A survey drew responses from about 675 people, and restrooms emerged as the clear favorite, selected by 62 percent of respondents and racking up 419 votes overall. Other popular picks included a water fountain, a Dugway Brook overlook, and a meadow pathway, each topping 300 votes, alongside picnic tables, which also cleared 300 votes. A community garden option received 298 votes, a lawn with shade trees drew 285 votes, a playground expansion got 204 votes, and both an outdoor classroom structure and exercise equipment landed around 175 votes apiece.
The Fund for the Future of Heights Libraries continues to take community input as the plans take shape, and project consultants are set to present an initial proposal along with a summary of that feedback at a committee meeting scheduled for 6:30 p.m. next Monday at the Main Library. That meeting follows a round of community stakeholder meetings in July that drew more than 50 attendees across four sessions.
A Site With Deep Roots in Cleveland Heights
The building slated for demolition isn't the original Coventry Elementary School. That Tudor/Colonial-style school stood from 1919 until the mid-1970s, when it was torn down and replaced with the modern structure now set to come down, according to Cleveland Historical. Nonprofits began moving into the Coventry campus around 2010, occupying space in the building for roughly a decade and a half before the last tenant's lease expired.
Heights Libraries acquired the six-acre property from the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District for just $1 in March 2018, after the school board announced plans to sell because the aging building needed more than $1 million in repairs, as reported by Patch. The district had cited urgent needs, including a roof replacement, as reasons to transfer the property while preserving the green space.
The land carries restrictions that predate the library system itself. Real estate developer Grant W. Deming deeded the six-acre property to the Cleveland Heights Board of Education in 1917, with explicit language reserving it for public and educational use, according to the Fund for the Future of Heights Libraries. That 1917 deed restriction still governs how the site can be redeveloped today, shaping the boundaries of what Phase II can ultimately include.
The library system's own history is tangled up with the site as well. The Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library was originally established in 1921 in the basement of Coventry Elementary School, three years before administrative functions moved to Lee Road, according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. The adjacent Coventry Branch library still sits next to the former school building today.
Building on a Freshly Reopened Park
Trustees considered alternatives to demolition as building maintenance and repair expenses climbed, and the decision to move forward follows the reopening of Phase I of the redesigned PEACE Park in 2025 after a three-year planning and construction process. That roughly $3.2 million project rebuilt the park's playground and introduced a 20-foot-tall red cardinal play structure, a zipline, a half-court basketball court, and the covered Friendship Pavilion stage, according to the Heights Observer. The Fund for the Future of Heights Libraries has raised about half the cost of that new playground.
The renovated park quickly became a community fixture. More than 4,000 people attended public events there between June and December of last year, including Shakespeare performances, concerts, outdoor movie nights, and the Heights EcoFest, the Heights Observer reported. That turnout builds on origins dating back to 1993, when the original playground was built through a volunteer barnraising effort after the Coventry PTA raised nearly $300,000 through T-shirt, bake, and lemonade sales, following a design process in which elementary school students drew their own dream playgrounds in 1991, per Cleveland Historical.
The park's entrance is also marked by the Coventry Arch, a 14-foot-wide welded aluminum sculpture designed by Kenyon College professor Barry Gunderson and installed in 2001 by the nonprofit Heights Arts as its first public art commission. The City of Cleveland Heights has also backed the park's transformation financially, allocating $300,000 in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to Heights Libraries in late 2023 for renovations, while directing more than $1 million in additional ARPA funding to infrastructure and business assistance in the broader Coventry Village commercial district.
Heights Libraries' current leadership is steering the project through this next phase. Gale Koritansky became executive director in February, succeeding longtime director Nancy Levin, after previously leading the Stow-Munroe Falls Public Library — a transition Hoodline reported in December. Residents have already had one opportunity to weigh in through the survey process, and Hoodline previously covered the call for community input on the park's future back in January.
