Akron Mayor Shammas Malik on $380 million infrastructure boost in capital budget

AKRON, Ohio — 3News sat down one-on-one with Akron Mayor Shammas Malik Wednesday, as the city council there unanimously passed his 2025 capital budget this week.

Malik said one of the reasons he’s proud of his newly approved 2025 capital budget is that it allows the city to make $380 million of investments in Akron’s physical infrastructure without plunging the government into massive debt.

“We kept the budgeted new debt for capital projects under $12 million,” the mayor told 3News.

60% of the capital budget will be invested in water and sewer upgrades, which equates to $227,925,270.

Why so much? Malik explained that back in 2009, the City of Akron was issued a Federal Consent Decree which required the city to completely overhaul its combined sewer system, aiming to capture all wet weather flows and eliminate Akron’s number of combined sewer overflow and the discharge into the Cuyahoga River.

“It’s been a huge undertaking,” Malik said. “We spent over a billion dollars on that work. It’s been a burden to taxpayers, but it also has had benefits to the river. So do I wish we had, you know, waited and done it all when it was court-ordered? No, but, you know, we did need to do that to make sure we aren’t having significant discharges into the river. So the quality of the water and the river is really as good as it’s ever been at this point, but the downside is that it’s cost over a billion dollars.”

10% is going to transportation, as the city strives to make streets safer, getting all Akron roads to “fair” or “good” condition.

One major project is modernizing the North Main Street corridor that connects the many neighborhoods in North Akron and Cuyahoga Falls directly into downtown.

The city is also budgeting $5,750,000 for the annual street resurfacing program, which will cover approximately 34 new miles of Akron roadway and 14 miles of carryover miles from 2024.

“The condition of the roads is really very different than it was a decade ago,” City Planning Director Kyle Julien told 3News about the power of these investments. “So we’ve really changed that. The service director and the service department have really done a great job of bringing our road quality up.”

The budget also gives $2.15 million for the concrete pavement replacement program and $1.73 million for city-wide sidewalk repairs.

“So one of the things we saw was that housing was a priority across every ward,” the Mayor added.

Malik told 3News he’s excited about the $9,630,752 he’s budgeted for housing and community services programs, including constructing about 160 new affordable housing units along with the rehabilitation of 101 existing affordable units.

Every year Akron passes two budgets, the capital budget being first. The city’s operations budget — which looks at city services and operating expenses — is due to be passed before the end of March.