The Cleveland Metroparks have been awarded the 2021 National Gold Medal “Best in the Nation” Award for Excellence in Parks and Recreation Management by the American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration who administer the award each year.
A park system can only win the Gold Medal once every five years, and the Cleveland Metroparks won it five years ago, based on population. The Cleveland Metroparks compete in the Class 1 category, representing the largest park systems in the county based on population. It is the second award under the leadership of CEO Brian Zimmerman, and the fifth Gold Medal that the park system has achieved.
The award of “Best in the Nation” comes after recent achievements including a record-breaking 19.7 million recreational visitors in 2020, the addition of over 700 acres and nearly 30 miles of trails, the completion of the Re-Connecting Cleveland TIGER trails project that links more than 66,000 Cleveland residents to the region’s huge trail network, a new connector trail to Edgewater Park, and a new recreational bridge to Wendy Park, allowing access to Lake Erie to miles of trails to the south.