More than 500 acres surrounding Blossom Music Center are now part of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Park, Cleveland Orchestra, and Blossom Music Center officials announced today the second and final phase of the sale of the land to the National Park Service to conserve the land and to raise funds.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park spokesperson Mary Pat Doorley says the land is one of the most wooded parcels in the Park and supports a variety of wildlife the Park wants to protect and conserve.

Doorley says there will no change in operations at Blossom Music center as a result of the land purchase. She says the National Park Service will manage the land.

News Release From The Cuyahoga Valley National Park

The final piece of a two phase effort to protect 578 acres
of the 780-acre Blossom Music Center property, situated outside both Akron
and Cleveland and entirely within the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, has
been conserved as an addition to the National Park, the Cleveland
Orchestra, The Trust for Public Land, and the National Park Service
announced today.

Funding for both installments of the purchase – a total of $9.247 million
-- came from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).
Protection of the iconic parklands has been effectively advocated for years
by Ohio’s bipartisan Congressional delegation, led by Congressman Steve
LaTourette (R-14), a senior member of the appropriations subcommittee that
oversees conservation spending; retired Senator George Voinovich and former
Representative Ralph Regula, both of whom also served on that subcommittee;
Senator Sherrod Brown; and Representative Betty Sutton (D-13), who was on
hand today at an event at Sarah’s Vineyard near the Blossom lands to make
the announcement.

“It is essential that we secure cornerstone properties like the Blossom
lands before they are gone for the recreation opportunities, clean water,
and wildlife habitat that depend on them. That work is far from done, but
this acquisition is a huge step forward,” said Congressman LaTourette, a
national leader in Congress on behalf of conservation funding. “This is
exactly how LWCF, which is funded by federal energy revenues, not tax
dollars, is supposed to be spent.”

"Generations of Northeast Ohio's have grown up enjoying the land and water
of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Blossom Music Center," Senator
Sherrod Brown said. "Preserving this property in a National Park ensures
that our children and grandchildren, too, will have the opportunity to
experience all that this natural treasure has to offer.”

The Cleveland Orchestra and its governing organization, the Musical Arts
Association (MAA), own and manage the 780-acre Blossom Music Center. In
2007 MAA began the process of selling 578 acres of its property to the
National Park Service (NPS) for conservation and to raise funds.

MAA asked the Ohio office of The Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national
conservation organization, to assist with the conservation efforts. Earlier
this year the partners completed the purchase of more than 233 acres, and
today completed the conservation of the remainder 345 acres, adding
important forest and waterway resources to Cuyahoga Valley National Park(CVNP).