It’s been just under 22 years since the Cincinnati Bengals opened its $455 million Paul Brown Stadium, which was paid for entirely by Hamilton County via a sales-tax hike, plus about $154 million in upgrades and operating costs under the team’s infamous lease clause requiring that the county keep the stadium “state of the art.” So, naturally, now that the stadium is almost too old to be claimed as a dependent on your taxes, it’s time to start thinking about tearing it down and replacing it, and good news, everybody! An architect hired by the Bengals owners and the county says it doesn’t need to be replaced, so long as the two parties spend almost half a billion on upgrading it:
Paul Brown Stadium will need $493 million in upgrades and maintenance over the next 20 years, said Demetra Thornton, principal for architectural firm Gensler…
“The original design was meant to be expanded,” Thornton said. “We learned from Riverfront. I don’t want this building to be imploded. I want it to stand the test of time.”
Lotta questions: What does “need” even mean here, given that past instances of the word’s usage have typically been interpreted more as “What does your local team owner want in order to make even more money?” Why did the county and the team hire an architect to come up with a price tag, given that an engineering firm might make more sense, or really, a sports economist who could say whether spending $493 million on “repairs, maintenance, upgrades to lighting and elevators, technology and other improvements” would actually generate any positive return to either Bengals owner Mike Brown or taxpayers? And most of all, who will be expected to pay for all these gold-plated elevators, Brown or the public? (To that last one, the Cincinnati Enquirer helpfully explains: “Who would pay, and how much, will be determined later during negotiations between the county and Bengals.”)
To say more, we would need to see the actual study, but of course neither the Enquirer nor other news outlets that reported on the report bothered to include a link to the report. Instead, here’s a tweet with a summary page that helpfully divides the costs into such things as “structure” and “architecture,” which are totally different things:
This is how much it will cost to maintain Paul Brown Stadium over 20 yrs. This is well more than $300M rumor of maintenance costs I heard this week. @WCPO pic.twitter.com/xOcQZbBIyD
— Paula Christian (@PaulaChristian_) April 26, 2022
This is a breaking news story; check back for further updates as they become available, if they become available, maybe you shouldn’t be holding your breath or anything.
In light of my comment about Nashville, it is interesting that (i) Cincinnati is making stadium noises now and (ii) what I noted about seeing lots of mentions of how we are not building new stadiums for 2026 on soccer Twitter. The article does not mention the World Cup, but I know that Cincinnati is one of the cities under consideration for 2026 games.
I was in Cincinnati for the US – Mexico qualifier in the fall and think it would be a great site, though the game would need to be in Paul Brown Stadium not TQL (FC Cinn’s field) and they would need to lay down grass. But again, like any stadium build after 1994 it was designed to hold a FIFA sized field
Y’know what, good for Cincinnati. The last few years have shown us that one way or another, if these teams want a new stadium, no matter how unnecessary, they’ll get it, probably to the tune of a billion dollars at least. This is a steal compared to that (I’m only partially joking.)
Zero is still a number, right?
When it rains it pours
If I were the engineering firm responsible for designing and building a stadium 22 years ago that now “needed” $159m in ‘structural’ work I would be hiring lawyers to plan my firm’s defense as fast as I could.
I like the point about why one would ask architectural firms about this stuff. Apparently sports franchise owners and their political puppets have not heard the one about “never asking a surgeon if you need an operation”.
Here’s a novel idea: Hire a financial professional instead. Ask him or her to look into the economics of the stadium, including costs and benefits associated with improving the facility, replacing the facility, or simply letting it deteriorate to the point where the tenant advises in writing that they are leaving.
You may find that there is no payback to the public in investing a single dime in this facility. And that if the team leaves (to Austin, or San Diego, or St. Louis, or Oakland, or….) you no longer have to plan to spend a half billion dollars subsidizing a single entertainment business every twenty years.
Cincinnati could then start planning on how to invest the $25m in capital money they aren’t committing to the Bengals every year to make the city better for the people who actually live and work there, unlike most of the Bengals themselves, of course.