CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The fan) – The war of words and debate over the Browns stadium situation has been dialed up a notch as politicians and the Haslams swap letters and statements.
Here’s a few thoughts on this debate, which we should absolutely have considering the public investment involved in both proposals.
The last time the city and county got involved in Browns stadium planning you got a cheaply built, sterile, orange ash tray on the lake that is now falling apart and will cost over a billion to fix.
Allowing those same people who oversaw that project to dictate the future of the Browns in Cleveland would be a tragic mistake.
The politicians are doing what they always do here – kick the can down the road and saber rattle under the guise of protecting public money. That's exactly what a stadium renovation would be – kicking the can down the road by choosing the path of least resistance.
Within the next 20 years the Browns are going to need a new stadium. That is not an opinion, that is a fact. They know it. I know it. And you know it.
The Guardians and Cavaliers may need new buildings by then too.
The time to build new for the Browns is now, before the costs to do so balloon to $8-10 billion and the Browns become exhausted with dealing with Cuyahoga County and decide to just build elsewhere in northeast Ohio.
Progressive Field and Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse cost a combined $327 million to build back in the early 1990s. The most recent renovations, which include capital repairs, as part of lease extensions for the Guardians and Cavaliers will total over $644 million at the complex, assuming Progressive Field costs stay on budget in the next year.
That’s nearly twice the original construction cost just to renovate those buildings.
Cleveland Browns Stadium cost $283 million to build in the late 1990s but included significant design and construction cuts to keep the project on budget, which is why the life of that building is in jeopardy.
It will cost a staggering $1.0-1.2 billion to renovate and correct the original construction mistakes while modernizing it to compete with new NFL stadiums.
A renovation will buy 15 or so more years on the lake.
A new dome would buy 30-50 years across the street and railroad tracks from the airport.
The Haslams contend both proposals will pay for themselves under their financing proposal of a 50-50 public-private split. If you include an additional $1.0-1.4 billion on top of their $1.2 billion share of the dome for a mixed-use development, that’s $2.6 billion they are willing to invest or nearly 70% of the cost of the Brook Park complex.
Did Gateway "pay for itself" as promised? On paper, probably not, but it revitalized the south side of downtown Cleveland and is the most consequential public investment the region has made in the last 75 years, easy.
So why can’t Brook Park do the same?
Contrary to recent public statements from the politicians, not everything has to be in downtown Cleveland for the city, county or region for that matter to benefit and thrive.
If there were 150 acres of land to build a dome and development downtown, the Browns would absolutely consider it, but after eight years of site surveys and engineering studies in and out of downtown, Brook Park is what the Browns settled on as the best to build.
Will a Cleveland Browns Stadium renovation "pay for itself?" Absolutely not. The annual major event calendar is unlikely to grow significantly enough to justify the investment, but the Browns revenue streams will absolutely increase.
They’ll get their new suites and clubs. Fans will get shelter from the harsh winds, expanded concourses, new seats to sit in and some pretty sweet video boards, but the choked off accessibility will remain, if not worsen assuming the lakefront is actually developed in our lifetime.
Will Brook Park “pay for itself?” Probably not, but the dome plus adjoining hotels, restaurants, apartments, and retail will allow Cleveland to recruit events they can't now or if the stadium on the lake is redone.
It will also give Hopkins International Airport, which is about to undergo a $3 billion rebuild, assets it currently doesn't have.
Imagine what David Gilbert in conjunction with the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission and Destination Cleveland will be able to do with a state-of-the-art dome next to an airport with hotels and a lakefront development surrounding the Rock Hall and Great Lakes Science Center without a massive stadium stuck in the middle of it.
Cleveland could easily find itself in the rotation for College Football Playoffs – including the national championship game, NCAA Men’s Final Four and Big Ten football championship game. Getting the NFL Draft back since we got shortchanged due to COVID in 2021 becomes doable. A Super Bowl would be a stretch, but would the NFL dangle it to get the project past the finish line? They might.
None of that is even a consideration with a stadium renovation.
It always comes down to the numbers and $500-600 million is a lot in public funding for a renovation. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to spending $1.2 billion in Brook Park.
The public figures are scary, no doubt.
That hardest thing to do in life is to take a chance and leap. It’s much easier to play it safe.
The Haslams are asking Cuyahoga County to leap.