Neighborhood Demographics, Schools, Jobs, and Real Estate
Bay Village Ohio Relocation
"Huntington Beach and the Honey Hut Ice Cream Shoppe are big draws for the city of Bay Village during the summer months. Surrounded by dense greenery, the area exudes a tranquility associated with days gone by.
But Bay Village also offers quite a bit of the here and now.
With its seven miles of Lake Erie coast, Bay Village is located 13 miles west of Public Square. Today covering 4.5 square miles, it was carved from the old Dover Township, a popular post-Civil War summer retreat for wealthy Clevelanders, and incorporated as a village in 1903. Bay Village achieved city status in 1951, at which time the name was chosen by popular election. Today, it is home to approximately 16,100 residents.
Bay Village, a city of “fabulous neighborhoods,” is a great place to raise a family, according to Mayor and number-one civic cheerleader Deborah L. Sutherland. A nice mixture of housing stock, quality amenities and services, and most importantly, a town center all contribute to a “very, very strong sense of community,” says Sutherland.
The city’s housing styles, reflecting the diversity of Greater Cleveland itself, include Greek revival, colonial, Cape Cod, and ranch, as well as the modern mini-palaces which dot the lakeshore. For those with traditional tastes, historic century homes are sprinkled throughout the city. Home prices range from $120,000 up to $1,000,000.
Students attend the four schools of the Bay Village School District: Normandy Elementary (K-2), Westerly Elementary (3-4), Bay Middle School (5-8), and Bay High School. Planning is under way for a new middle school building to replace the current 80-year-old facility. In addition, the Bay Village Board of Education operates the Glenview Center for day care.
Sutherland says the city offers well developed senior support programs, such as local transportation. “We help anybody who is in need,” she adds. In addition, the city’s recreation department works closely with community groups such as the soccer club, which boasts 1,000 participants. An additional 600 play baseball. “People are not afraid to volunteer. We all benefit from their effort and we all work together,” says Sutherland.
In addition to active recreation, Bay Village features numerous passive recreational facilities. Perhaps most notable is the Huntington Reservation, which offers one of the few major beach sites in the Cleveland area. Part of the Cleveland Metroparks, the reservation also is the home of the Huntington Playhouse, an adult and children’s theater; Baycrafters, a non-profit organization which allows area artists to showcase and sell their art; the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center, which teaches nature classes and houses a collection of local wildlife; and the Baycrafters’ Renaissance Faire, a medieval festival staged every Labor Day weekend.
More central to the Bay Village way of life is Cahoon Park, named for Joseph Cahoon, the area’s first permanent white settler, and located in the heart of the city. “We have one of the highest per capita percentages of green space in Cuyahoga County,” notes Sutherland. The park features facilities for baseball, soccer, tennis, swimming, as well as walking trails, and is located across from the downtown shopping area, which has most of the amenities that residents seek in a town center: Supermarket, post office, and library, to name a few.
An interesting aside is that Cahoon Park may not be used for organized activities on Sundays, a stipulation imposed by the estate of Ida Marie Cahoon, which donated the land in 1917. Although the city in the past has tried—unsuccessfully—to overturn the restriction in court, Sutherland remains philosophical about the issue: “It really is a direct connection to our Connecticut roots,” she says."
