Main Street Diamond

In August 2018, I decided to check out the Cleveland Metroparks permitted drone site at Mill Stream Run. I had a really difficult time finding it. I mean really difficult. There are no signs, and it’s not marked in any way. The are is not marked on the online map of Mill Stream Run, and not described in detail in any material that I could find. This flight area is a recent introduction by the Metroparks so everything is obviously still pretty new. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Metroparks’ website lists it as “Main Street Diamond located in Mill Stream Run Reservation”. After driving the length of the park and several surrounding roads, I finally located what I believed to be the correct site. I was able to confirm by phone with park staff today, that I was in the right place. For anyone who is trying to find it, here’s the location.

On the south side of Main Street, in Middleburg Heights, between Eastland Rd. and Oxford Dr. The parking lot is right beside the railroad tracks, and across the street from an rather large electrical substation. The “Main Street Diamond” appears to be an old ballfield which has since been returned to a semi-natural state. Older satellite and street view photos of the area show a groomed baseball diamond surrounded by mowed grass, with a fence behind home plate, and two small bleachers. But the bleachers and fence are now gone, along with the (useful) Metroparks sign. The once-groomed dirt diamond is nearly impossible to see from the road. All of the grass and weeds are knee high.

If you are planning to fly here, you should note a couple of things:

• This site is within Hopkins Airport Class B airspace, which means you need FAA authorization in order to fly here.  See this link for helpful info.  Use LAANC for automated approval.
• There are high-voltage power lines, as well as an electrical substation nearby.  Don’t fly near this stuff, and watch for goofy controller signal behavior resulting from radio interference.

Here’s a link to the site in Google Maps.

Here’s Google Street View from 2016. Note the ballfield is no longer groomed, but importantly you should have a look around at large number of high-voltage power lines in the area.

For a list of all Cleveland Metroparks’ drone permitted sites, see this page.