CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – For the last five years the Browns have been acquiring land adjacent to their training facility in Berea for a massive complex expansion.
As 92.3 The Fan has been reporting for over a year, the new complex will feature a 7,000 seat community stadium/field, a hotel, apartments/dorms, a University Hospitals sports medicine facility, parking garage and community field house.
We now know what the complex will look like.
On Tuesday the Browns unveiled renderings of what the team is calling “District 46 at CrossCountry Mortgage Campus” to be built on the 16 acres of land the team has acquired in recent years.
“The City of Berea and Mayor Kleem have been incredible partners to us at the Browns and the Haslam Sports Group, and we’re thrilled to work with them on this expansion project that will benefit so many members of our neighborhood,” Haslam Sports Group chief operating officer David Jenkins said. “We’re thrilled to be working with local developer DiGeronimo and additional partners University Hospitals and Berea City Schools on District 46 at CrossCountry Mortgage Campus and know this development will be transformative for this community.”
Ohio-based DiGeronimo Companies has been hired to handle the development, which will cost north of $200 million to build.
With land acquisition and demolition of homes completed earlier this year, the Browns look to break ground next spring and are targeting a 2027 completion date.
“On behalf of the city of Berea, we’re excited to deepen our existing working relationship with the Haslam and Johnson families as well as the Cleveland Browns as we begin to create District 46,” city of Berea Mayor Cyril Kleem said. “For our residents and our community, these new spaces will continue to enhance all our city has to offer and will bring new opportunities for growth that we’re extremely excited about.”
Earlier this year Kleem applied for a $15 million state grant for the field house and community field that was denied, but the Browns wanted to make sure both facilities remained at the core of this project.
In addition to partnering with University Hospitals for the sports medicine center, an upscale hotel that will be developed in partnership with Crawford Hoying and operated by Shaner Hotel Group along with apartments and 30,000 square feet of retail space will be built.
“We’re proud to work with the Cleveland Browns and the City of Berea on this incredible project which will be transformational for the area,” DiGeronimo Companies chief executive officer Vic DiGeronimo Jr. said. “With so many great partners involved in District 46 from the Northeast Ohio region, we’re thrilled to help bring this vision to life and see the positive impact it will have for years to come.”
In addition to the CrossCountry Mortgage Campus expansion, the Browns are also pursuing the construction of a $2.4 billion dome and $1 billion development to be built on 176 acres of land bordering Snow and Engle Roads in Brook Park, Ohio with a target opening date of 2029.
Despite overtures and pressure from Cuyahoga County and city of Cleveland political leaders to remain downtown at the current stadium or build a future dome at what is now Burke Lakefront Airport, the Haslam Sports Group, who paid $20 million for a purchase option agreement earlier this year, intends to close on the Brook Park property acquisition by the end of the year.