Last week an interviewer asked me what kind of public funding sources team owners tend to look for these days in addition to the obvious ones, and I answered something like “it’s limited only by your imagination.” But one of the big trends is asking not for money to build the stadium but for money to build a whole bunch of stuff around it, and this weekend the Cleveland Browns stepped into that game with both feet:
The city of Cleveland and the Browns propose building a broad elevated park that would soar over railroad lines and the Shoreway and expand public access between downtown and the lakefront.
The project envisions a long, gradually sloping green ribbon – about 350 feet wide — that would connect Mall C downtown to North Coast Harbor and land adjacent to FirstEnergy Stadium.
On the one hand: Sure, a waterfront park might be nicer for Cleveland than a bunch of railroad tracks. (Though it’s worth noting that if people want to go to the lakefront, they can do so by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame just on the other side of the Browns stadium.) But even if it might make the stadium a more alluring destination, and presumably increase Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam’s ability to make money, is a 350-foot-wide ramp — sorry, a “plinth,” apparently, because that sounds so much sexier — really what Cleveland needs most for … sorry, how much would this cost exactly?
The project could carry a cost of $229 million, according to the city’s TRAC application.
Once the design is complete, Cleveland would seek $200 million in construction money from the state, the application said.
Other money could be available through federal sources, such as through infrastructure funding now being considered in Congress.
And now the motivation for this project, and why the city of Cleveland has hitched its wagons to a plan first proposed by the Haslams, becomes clear: “Infrastructure spending” is hot right now as the U.S. looks to emerge from the pandemic economic slump, and if the feds or state government are willing to throw money a city’s way, who would be foolish enough to turn it down? And as sports teams have the resources to whip up some “shovel-ready” blueprints at the drop of a hat … yeah, “stupid infrastructure,” here we come. Maybe I should go back and change my interview answer.
Northeast Ohioan here. For all the revitalization of downtown Cleveland that has occurred, there is plenty that can be done along the lakefront. Two of the biggest obstacles are the railroad tracks and a freeway that run near the shoreline.
Whether its the Haslams’ plans, or who it’s funded by, making it easier to get to that area on foot would be a big improvement.
Isn’t there already an elevated walkway along W 3rd (that goes under the Shoreway but over the tracks) to the west end of stadium site?
The proposed elevated walkway appears to just link Mall C site and the east end of the stadium, roughly 350yds away from W 3rd street.
Its not just about the stadium (although the Browns are the ones driving this latest proposal), sure West 3rd and East 9th are fine for getting to the stadium for the 10 events a year, its about making the Lakefront usable the other 355 days. I am no fan of Jimmy Haslam but Cleveland has horrible leadership with no vision so and a population that has been so thoroughly disappointed its given up so it takes an outsider to come in and with some fresh ideas and the energy to make them happen. For years they talked about opening casinos (I don’t like casinos but its just an example). The city and state talked and talked and talked. Dan Gilbert was like “heck with it I’m doing it” and got it done
Ah, Gilbert. Aside from the (alleged but then isn’t everything these days) predatory lending and other stuff… his ‘leadership’ in development tends to come with staggering public costs…
https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2017/12/04/dan-gilbert-now-wants-618m-in-state-taxpayer-money-for-his-detroit-projects
https://deadspin.com/report-just-some-more-evidence-that-dan-gilbert-is-tru-1796666461
https://defector.com/dan-gilbert-demands-both-your-money-and-your-undying-love/
I’m a bit late responding but Detroit had been in a death spiral for decades. Who was going to build there without government assistance. This isn’t NYC, the Rust Belt has no one coming in any other way.
Pittsburgh is building one from downtown that will improve pedestrian access to the arena, but it’s been referred to as “The Cap Project.” I’m glad they haven’t referred to it as a plinth.
http://www.pgh-sea.com/index.php?path=i5-ucp
We didn’t need all the things they’re putting in, but the simple purpose it’ll serve to improve pedestrian access from downtown to the arena and all the new development that is coming on the former Civic Arena sight will make this a project worth the $32 million cost.
Would it be worth it for the Browns to lose all that adjacent parking to have a park and what looks to just a wider pedestrian bridge over from downtown? I’m betting it wouldn’t be.
Great point about teams going to label projects as “infrastructure projects” now that there’ll be money available to make it. This was something the owners mentioned they wanted in 2019 too so they’ll probably be pushing hard to see something built.
This sounds a lot like Chicago’s Millennium Park, which was built over the rail road tracks, and cost 3X the initial estimate. Worth it, but remember to triple the estimate.
Remember: This is not just infrastructure. It is SOARING infrastructure. Huge difference.
Why waste money on roads and bridges when you can build soaring ramps?
https://www.kcts9.org/show/mossbacks-northwest/episode/seattles-ramps-to-nowhere-tkli1v
Sorry but this criticism is way off base. Spend anytime in Cleveland and you’ll see the lack of Lakefront development is borderline criminal. Outside of the stadium and 2 museums there isn’t anything down there. And yes access is horrible. Sure you can get to the stadium on game day walking down East 9th and West 3rd on game day but if you want to have development that is used 365 days a year you need better access (I dare you to walk down east 9th on a windy day in January). If the stadium was there or not they would need to do something like this to encourage development down there.
A lack of development is, by definition, never criminal. Lakefront areas along the great lakes tend to be cold and windy (Buffalo, Toronto, Cleveland etc).
Why would 1/4 billion dollar ramps or walkways change this?
I completely disagree that it is the city or state’s job to “build infrastructure to encourage development”. If the development was necessary and, more importantly, commercially viable, it would already have happened/be underway.
Is it that you don’t like the development that IS on the waterfront (several port facilities, the Burke airport, coast guard station, several restaurants and multiple marinas, water treatment facility, Wendy & Edgewater parks/beach, RRHOF and the science center etc)? Or something else?
Is it the port facilities that you believe are not best/highest use? If they are abandoned or otherwise not generating revenue, then the city could seek to gain control of them. If they are still working ports then I would suggest that there are sound economic reasons for them still being there.
Wasn’t the rationale for the football stadium that it would “spur development in the district”?
20 years later, how is that working out? A giant stadium on the waterfront (I believe on port lands?) with parking lots around it. The stadium site itself would have made a much better public park than it does a stadium location (though there are port facilities on the waterfront side of it).
There are a couple of industrial sites that are certainly not photogenic along the waterfront, but since those appear to be privately owned I do not see any barrier to redevelopment. If someone is willing to pay for the property, I’m sure the owners would sell.
I live in Toronto now after many years in Cleveland. Come up here and see what has happened on the Lakefront up here. The weather is just as cold or colder here and there are vibrant Lakefront communities. Also, literally no one thought the new Browns stadium would spur development on the lakefront. The city’s garbage leadership didn’t properly plan for a Browns stadium until Modell up and left and they scrambled to build a new one and built it right where the old one was. In fact there were councilmen (Jay Westbrook being one) who had suggested the new stadium be build elsewhere to free up the Lakefront for other development and there were editorials in the Plain Dealer saying that building a stadium elsewhere would free up the land for development.
Burke Lakefront airport is a complete waste of space, especially since Hopkins has excess capacity and much of the traffic at Burke is flight schools. Not to mention there is another private airport in Richmond Heights. When I worked for National City our private planes were out of Richmond Heights even though we were right downtown. Not to mention the presence of Burke restricts the height of what you can build on the surrounding plots of land. So yes if I was king of the world for a week I would shut down Burke.
As far as the restaurants go, many keep have come and gone over the years because accessing the lakefront is a pain and there isn’t much going on around there.
I like the Rock Hall and Science Center but those are tourist destinations not places that people who live in Cleveland go on a regular basis. There are no office buildings, housing, recreational trails, etc. There are no 365 day amenities down there.
Edgewater is nice but its not in the downtown area. Every municipal and county election the candidates running talk about developing the Lakefront but no one has done a damn thing. So yes I consider the lack of action to be criminal neglect.
The argument that viable development would happen without government investment in infrastructure doesn’t fly when government’s everywhere build roads and access to new development. I don’t know if you’re from Cleveland but look at any of the subdivisions put up on former farm land. Do you think those developers put up the roads leading into them themselves?
FWIW, I thought it was a (second) mistake to build the new browns stadium where the old muni was.
The lakefront airport has pretty much always been underused (you may remember them closing it for 3-4 days annually for a CART race years ago… which was my last visit there).
What is it you want to see on the waterfront of a (mostly former) industrial city Aqib?
This may not be the ‘working port’ city it once was, but it still has active ports. It also has a staggering number of surface parking lots in what is supposed to be the downtown core.
I don’t understand what demolishing working ports and other infrastructure (someone else mentioned the lakefronts “biggest problems” being the freeway and railroad running along side the port lands) would do for economic development. Aren’t ports or the RRHOF/Science center development? Will the coast guard station (iirc between the airport and the stadium) be bulldozed as well?
To your question about developers paying for infrastructure… in simple terms, yes.
If a developer buys unserviced and unimproved land (which I’m guessing in the examples you reference they did NOT do…), the purchase price is a fraction of ‘improved’ land prices. Where I live, the difference in price between improved land (serviced, roads, sidewalks, curbs etc) and raw land (generally land within a municipality but without any roads, services or other improvements in place) can be 10-40x (depending on zoning and requirements).
For example, raw land sold for $2500 an acre. A similar parcel zoned for light commercial with shallow & deep services installed and sidewalks/curbs/gutters in place sold for just under $80k. Both were bought from the municipality which only sought to recover it’s costs (installing u/g services ran around $12k, the rest was for the curb, sidewalk/gutters, which runs around $2500 per lineal yard. It adds up).
A development I had some involvement with in another community a few years ago included similar raw land improvement costs (which we, as unimproved land purchasers, were on the hook for) as well as an off site levy to cover the cost of hard surfacing “our side” of the improved road that serviced the parcel. Once we were done paying for the servicing and improvements, the cost for our (cheap when you just look at the purchase price) raw land was slightly more than we would have paid if we bought already serviced land. We also had to post completion and security bonds (really just fees) with the municipality in order for them to allow us to tie in to their systems (partially refundable when the servicing is complete if you meet their standards and do not compromise or damage any existing infrastructure during construction).
So, if the developers you were referring to purchased land from the city at raw/unimproved land prices, they would have been on the hook for the improvement costs. They would not have been forced to pay for the full cost of a highway/freeway that went right by their property, but they would almost certainly have had to pay for (or a significant portion of) any off ramps, on ramps or other structures that lead into the development itself.
If you are saying they ‘absolutely did not’ pay for any of that, then that is something they negotiated with the city and that the city should not have given in on.
In the examples I was referring to developers did pay for the roads within the development but the municipality paid for the roads leading in. So yeah the municipality had to pay to help private development but then they get property taxes from all the new homes as oppose to the land just sitting there paying almost nothing.
There were plans to move the port out the downtown area and free up the land for development. What I want to see down there is a mix of residential, commercial (office/retail) and recreation. Heck if you put grass on the runways at Burke and made it one big park it would be better than what’s there now. The Science Center and Rock Hall are nice but people visit those as a one off and then go elsewhere. You can’t generate vibrancy where people just drive in, park, go to one spot, and then leave. The problem with the freeway and railroads is that they restrict access to the Lakefront, and while thats not a problem if you are just going down there for Browns games but if you want to be able to build housing, office, etc you need to make that area more accessible.
Yes Cleveland was an industrial city but industry is mostly dead so it has to pivot to something else and the attitude that government shouldn’t do anything doesn’t fly because they have had a do nothing government for the last 20 years and companies have left and the population has dwindled. If you aren’t NY/LA/Silicon Valley you have give incentives because otherwise you get passed over.
I visited 2 years after moving to Toronto and was like “why do you still have vacant store fronts on your main downtown streets and surface lots and nothing new on the lake” Sitting around and waiting for developers and businesses to discover the city isn’t going to work. That’s why this and the the casino had to be driven by the sports team owners. The government itself wasn’t going to be able to do jack
I see there is a bar, at the end of Ninth.
But nobody can navigate the labyrinth
To arrive at the bar to drink Absinthe
Because there is no plinth.
Even “Tenth” would be a better slant rhyme than “Ninth” there.
True, but the bar actually does sit at the end of Ninth.
“I see there is a bar, a block from Tenth.”
Normally I’d agree, but since I live in the Cleveland area and follow developments like this, I know that the lakefront connection has been a long-standing issue in Cleveland and that the Browns are simply the latest group to get involved. I’ve lost count how many lakefront proposals and master plans have been presented by the city, civic groups, and development companies just in the last 20 years. A land bridge like the Browns have proposed has been proposed by other civic groups for decades and the city itself proposed something similar just a few weeks before the Browns released this master plan. Only since the Haslams have come into the picture (2013) have the Browns taken any real interest in getting more use out of the stadium and seeing the area around it developed and better connected to downtown. Of course they can see their own benefits in doing so, but again, they are not unique in wanting something like this nor is the overall connection something only the Browns want.
Yeah, people can access it via E. 9th and W. 3rd, but having done that many times myself (I regularly park near the stadium on non-gamedays to avoid traffic and get free parking and then walk) it’s not pedestrian friendly in the least since both E. 9th and W. 3rd have multiple entrance and exit ramps to the Shoreway.
Only Clevelanders can really understand how it takes the sports teams to get anything done. Whether you like the casino or not, it only got done because Dan Gilbert pushed for it.