CLEVES — A piece of Ohio transportation history is one step closer to finding new life as a community park.

        Last week, representatives of Cleves heard from University of Cincinnati engineering students on the feasibility of restoring part of the historic Cincinnati and Whitewater Canal Tunnel. Other students presented their plans for excavating a portion of the tunnel and creating a multi-use park on the site.

        The civil and environmental engineering majors spent their senior year studying the canal tunnel as part of a new, integrated capstone design project.

        “You've just given us another push,” said Nancy Gulick, a canal historian and chairwoman of the Canal Preservation Committee. “It wasn't too long ago that the site was being considered as a fly ash dump.”

        Once part of a canal that connected downtown Cincinnati to eastern Indiana, the tunnel operated between 1843 and 1865. It was abandoned when railroads provided a faster and cheaper way of getting goods to market.

        The tunnel has since filled with soil and debris and its original length of 1,782 feet shrank to 1,400 feet as the result of road-widening projects.

        The UC students studied the tunnel's stability and strength as well as conditions at the site, and reported that a restoration project is feasible.

        “Is it possible to do anything with it? The answer is, yes, it is,” said John Niehaus, an associate professor of civil engineering, who supervised the students' project.

        “This has been a dream for a long, long time,” said Cleves Mayor Joe Whitton. “We're hoping for big things.”

        Students on four teams showed the Cleves residents designs for a park built around an amphitheater at the tunnel opening. All the designs included a visitor center, picnic shelters and a playground.

        “The best way to get repeat visitors to the park is to appeal to the children,” explained Matt Lucarelli, a member of Team 4, which advocated inclusion of a sophisticated playground system as part of its plan.

        Price tags for the designs ranged from $950,000 to $2.1 million, figures which included the cost of renovating a portion of the tunnel for public access.

        The village of Cleves received a $50,000 grant through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for initial study and consultation on the tunnel project. Capital grants will be sought to finance park construction.

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