E 28th Street Planning Study

NOACA’s Transportation for Livable Communities Initiative (TLCI) provides assistance to communities and public agencies for integrated transportation and land use planning and projects that strengthen community livability. TLCI advances the goals of NOACA’s Regional Strategic Plan by:

• Developing transportation projects that provide more travel options
• Promoting reinvestment in underutilized or vacant/abandoned properties
• Supporting economic development
• Ensuring that the benefits of growth and change are available to all members of a community
• Enhancing regional cohesion
• Providing people with safe and reliable transportation choices

The E 28th Street corridor is located in South Lorain. South Lorain grew out of the steel industry itself — in 1894, agents for Tom Johnson's steel company found a prime site along the Black River, positioned between Ohio's coalfields, the Great Lakes' iron deposits, and major markets in Chicago and New York. The mill acquired surrounding land south of the river to house its workers, and to fill those jobs it drew waves of immigrants: Germans, Irish, Italians, and Spanish before WWI, then 1,300 Mexican workers in 1923, and Puerto Ricans after 1947. E. 28th Street became the nerve center of this world — mills on the north side, round-the-clock bars on the south serving all three shifts — part of a complex that once employed around 12,000 people, earning Lorain the nickname "The International City." The mill passed through Johnson Steel, U.S. Steel's National Tube division, and eventually Republic Steel before production slowed in the early 2000s and halted entirely during the pandemic, eliminating over 1,500 jobs. Today, the 435-acre abandoned complex still looms over 28th Street, while the community awaits word on whether new investment will bring the mills back to life.

The E 28th Street Planning Study is being conducted by Lorain's Metropolitan Planning Organization, NOACA (Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordination Agency). The study evaluates the existing infrastructure, accident rates, nearby neighborhoods, and places of interest to determine what land use and transportation infrastructure changes are needed to revitalize the corridor from Broadway to Grove Ave.

In 2025, NOACA created an Existing Conditions report, focusing on understanding the area and the issues plaguing the residents that live there. Next steps are to provide solutions to those stated issues using community feedback and engineering.