Borac's Landing in Eastlake enhanced through meadow installation
Oct. 30—Chagrin River Watershed Partners, Inc. recently partnered with Eastlake to install a native meadow at Borac's Landing.
The project was made possible with the help of Chagrin River Watershed volunteers and a grant from the Western Reserve Land Conservancy. The intention of the meadow is to provide habitat for pollinators and contribute to a healthy, vegetated corridor to help clean stormwater before it flows into the Chagrin River.
"It's one more of the improvements we want to make at the park," said Eastlake Mayor Dennis Morley. "Borac's Landing has been popular with the fishermen this early fall and last spring. We hope to make a few more improvements next year so our residents and surrounding communities can enjoy the park even more."
About 10 volunteers from Chagrin River Watershed, AmeriCorps and Eastlake took on the recent project at 437 Riverside Drive.
"There's an area on the property that was all turf grass with a lot of gravel, so they wanted to enhance that area and put in meadow that would provide pollinator habitat, wildlife habitat and more vegetation, which provides a whole host of benefits for the Chagrin River," said Chagrin River Watershed Deputy Director Kim Brewster Shefelton.
Shefelton believes more and more people are learning the benefits of a pollinator habitat.
"We depend on pollinators for the food we eat and they help contribute to a biodiverse ecosystem, and people are getting more aware of that," she said.
The quarter-acre meadow will be fully grown in roughly three years, Shefelton said. Volunteers brought in top soil and proceeded to spread a native seed mix with a focus on regionally native sunflowers.
Eastlake acquired Borac's Landing in 2021 and has since had a goal to make it a passive park.
"I've been working with (Willoughby Mayor Robert Fiala) and other groups to get a walking trail at least from Borac's Landing up to the Willoughby Park, and Chagrin River Park, which is the biggest park used in all of Lake County, to the Metroparks," Morley previously told The News-Herald.
By being a Chagrin River Watershed member, the nonprofit has done a lot of work to help Eastlake manage areas along the river, as well as improve their parks in recent years including Borac's Landing.
In 2020 and prior, the land was a piece of privately owned property and was the site of a commercial marina owned by the Borac family.
"There were about 20 boats on the property," Brewster Shefelton said. "It looked very different than it looks right now."
In 2020, Chagrin River Watershed worked with Eastlake to help them get a grant from the Clean Ohio Fund, which allowed them to purchase the land and turn it into a park, as well as permanently protect the land. In addition, the Western Reserve Land Conservancy, another nonprofit, local conservation organization, was highly involved.
"It's about 10 acres along the Chagrin River, so it's been converted from a commercial marina into a public owned park," Shefelton said. "There was a dilapidated house that was demolished, the area was cleaned up, they've planted trees to restore vegetation, removed those 20 or so abandoned boats, installed a playground and made improvements to the pavilion. They're doing a lot to make it open to the public."
