As expected the last time I wrote an “I expected” lede, the Ohio state house has approved $600 million in tax subsidies for a new Cleveland Browns stadium in Brook Park that would cost a total of $2.4 billion and also require another $600 million in city and county money. The final version of the bill tweaked the terms very slightly — Browns owner Jimmy Haslam would pre-pay $50 million of his share instead of $38.5 million — but it’s still basically the same plan that Cleveland city and Cuyahoga County officials all hate.
The main person whose disdain for the plan matters, though, is Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who could veto it if he wants, though he’s hedged so far on whether he’ll actually go that far. The state senate needs to weigh in, too, and could make more changes if it wants.
All of this sounds very reasonable on the surface — democracy in action! — until you step back and consider the big picture of what’s going on here:
- Haslam is looking for $1.2 billion in public money to allow him to replace a stadium that is only 26 years old and that already cost county and taxpayers about $300 million, including for renovations completed in 2015.
- The Ohio legislature is considering chipping in half of that $1.2 billion even though it would only move Browns fan spending from one part of the state to another, instead choosing only to haggle over which pot of state tax money to use.
- Haslam himself has said that if the Brook Park stadium deal fails, he’ll stay put in his current stadium and look to renovate it (again).
- There’s a state law preventing team owners who got public money from using move threats to extract more public money, though it still needs to be tested in court.
- The Browns suck. This really shouldn’t enter into it, but one state senator has already proposed denying state money to teams that can’t manage to have three winning seasons out of five, which the Browns last achieved in 1989.
So what we have is one of the most expensive public stadium subsidy proposals in history, to induce a team that wouldn’t leave anyway to move a few miles south, to escape a building that is younger than Elle Fanning and which was just renovated and the team owner has said could be renovated again. And yet it looks like the main roadblock will be if the governor throws a hissy fit because it would require spending the wrong $600 million. We don’t get the checks and balances we want, and maybe not even the ones we deserve, unless we have all been very, very bad indeed.
Renovating the current stadium would be putting lipstick on a pig. Its awful
The pig the NFL and Browns owners begged Cleveland for just 25 years. Da Bears could have had a dome adjacent to Mccormick Place 30 years ago. Da Bears wanted an open air stadium on Lake Michigan, enjoy the snow and wind. In 20 years the Browns will be griping about how desolate Brook Park is and how wonderful the downtown lakefront is. Billionaires are smart, or just experts at wasting someone else’s money.
I don’t know how much you know about Cleveland but:
1) when Modell announced that he was leaving the plain dealer wrote about how a new stadium built elsewhere would stimulate development on the lakefront. City leadership which includes Ken Silliman who posts here on every thread involving Cleveland did nothing on the lake. If you notice I ask him about it every time he posts. He refuses to answer
2) Until Modell announced his was leaving they weren’t even talking about a new stadium just renovating the 60+ year old municipal stadium. The current stadium was designed and built in a short time span and was at its best average but never good. It was essentially the same design as Baltimore and Tennessee just dropped into Cleveland. It didn’t factor in being surrounded by the lake on 3 sides, which makes sitting in cold weather extra miserable.
3) The Bears wanted a dome they could never come to an agreement and that’s why they have the monstrosity they have. Both are cases of correcting mistakes.
To your point about when modell left, look up the cleveland gateway project. The browns were originally intended to be a part of that project. Modell was broke and didn’t want to chip in any money. He wanted a fully funded stadium, but the city couldn’t afford it at the time because of the arena and ballpark they assisted in building
They would much rather stay downtown, there just isn’t any real estate to expand. They need mkre parking, which no where downtown provides. The current stadium is way more isolated than thd location in Brook Park and they are building more than just a stadium on the property. They are looking to do something similar to the hall of fame village down in canton
Downtown Cleveland is 25% parking lots.
https://parkingreform.org/resources/parking-lot-map/
An interesting side note to yesterday’s Ohio House decision: Representative Ferguson— who opposed the bond deal as a whole but was unable to offer that amendment for procedural reasons— offered an amendment to prohibit state infrastructure spending on stadium projects like the Browns’. The vote was a tie on the preliminary motion to suspend the rules, and the vote on the motion proper only lost by one vote. Though the effect was House approval of the amended State budget which includes the Browns’ $600 million of bonds, the close vote is relevant because there’s speculation that Governor DeWine may veto the Browns’ bonds provision. If so, the close vote on Representative Ferguson’s motion suggests that the legislature may be unable to override a Governor veto.
Hey Ken, Why in 16 years did the Jackson administration that you were a part of not do anything about Lakefront development including moving to close Burke Lakefront airport?
A problem with closing an airport is unless the land it’s on is insanely valuable- it’s really not worth jumping thru the hoops of lobbying Congress/FAA.
It can’t really be as simple as “this airport isn’t used much, is a nuisance” cuz federal grants can keep it open in perpetuity, the only “cost” to Clevelanders really being lost opportunity cost for some kind of real estate project.
I can’t imagine what an environmental impact study would say about what could actually be built on Burke, and it’s not like Cleveland real estate is at such a premium that the public is demanding a massive condo complex on the lake. Could you build 10,000 or so housing units (a number probably required to support a grocery store and other retail amenities), or do you develop it into some kind of tourist area?
Or do you just pull a Daley and destroy the runway overnight? All Chicago got from that were lawsuits and a city park, although the nuisance factor was removed.
A couple of things. Even if it was just a park that would be a better use of 450 acres of land. Not only that but it restricts what can be built on other sides of it.
You can’t tell me that flight schools is the best use of this land:
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.5109261,-81.6956232,5960m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDQwOC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
I don’t think it is a good use of the land but would a city park, something that doesnt produce property tax revenue, worth investing hundreds of millions of dollars in?
Yes there’s value in public spaces, but that value doesn’t have a number attached to it, and most politicians have a shorter time in office then the decades it would take to clear the Burke site and redevelop it. You’re creating something for voters who don’t exist yet, not the ones who gave you a job to do today.
Sure you can’t put a public park on a spreadsheet. However, name me a city the has 6 MILES of publicly owned lakefront land and wastes it like Cleveland does. A park at least is an amenity that people can enjoy, as opposed to a private airport that literally is used mostly by flight schools. It should have been closed decades ago.
Would love to know the process of landing on Elle Fanning as your point of comparison :).
https://www.google.com/search?q=celebrities+born+in+1998
“Younger than Elle Fanning” might be my new favorite comp, right alongside “Blake Bortles’ Jaguars career lasted longer than the Confederacy.”
The current stadium is a dump and needs more than renovations. The building is quite literally falling apart. The reason they are “willing to renovate again” is because they will happily keep spending the city’s money to run the point home. Another issue is parking. Every year, more and more lots downtown are selling to be used for other things, so there are less and less spots for fans. The new stadium has a plan for 20k+ parking spots, on top of the easier access to public transportation that the current stadium doesn’t have
Developing parking lots into other uses is good. It makes property more valuable, generating more tax revenue, plus the money saved from rehabbing the stadium. It isn’t a good idea to keep parking lots downtown to service a stadium used, at most, 15 times a year. If this means the Browns move to the suburbs, that is a trade the city of Cleveland should make without hesitation.
Hopefully, the Browns’ $600 million state bonds request either gets removed in legislative conference or vetoed by Governor DeWine. If so, the Browns will be back discussing extending the life of the lakefront stadium. By direct observation as a 24 year season ticket holder, there’s nothing wrong with the stadium. A 2023 facility study declared it well maintained, and it received a $130 million midlife renovation in 2014. Those who want to subsidize a suburban dome, and demolish the lakefront stadium or the nearby lakefront airport, never had to manage a city budget, and their ideas of what might replace these facilities (e.g., housing for rich people or parks that would rarely get used) are often lacking in sound public purpose.
A public park would be a better use of the lakefront airport site than an airport mainly used by flight schools. Your administration didn’t do a damn thing on the lakefront. Literally anything would be better on the lakefront than how the administration YOU were a key member of managed. Did you issue ONE single RFP for lakefront development in 16 years as Chief of Staff? No.
Ken –
As your resident critic, there is so much wrong with what you say:
1) I work in municipal government. I do property tax and revenue policy. The budget I work on dwarfs Cleveland.
2) I was a 15 year season ticket holder. The stadium is dump. Every stadium ranking has it in the bottom third of NFL stadiums.
3) A public park on the site of Burke Airport would be a better use of the land for no other reason than it wouldn’t limit the height of buildings around it. Its not up to citizens to throw out ideas for development. A simple RFP for lakefront development would get you ideas. Heck Cleveland State has one of the best urban planning schools in the country. You could have them come up with ideas. Instead of doing nothing.
4) Cleveland has 6 miles of city owned lakefront land that its done nothing with. In 16 years during the Jackson administration you were the Chief of Staff of nothing in terms of Lakefront development. Previous Browns ownership proposed development on the land behind the stadium and the city did nothing. The only major development downtown was done either by the county (convention center, Public Square, Ameritrust) or Dan Gilbert.
5) If you want to talk “sound public purpose” how is an airport used primarily by flight schools and Cleveland Clinic transplant flights, when there is another private airport 15 minutes away “a sound public purpose”.
Now there are only a couple of other Clevelanders on this site so most users don’t have the first hand knowledge to question you, but I am on of the ones that does. So why don’t you answer why nothing happened on the lakefront when you were in City Hall for 16 years?
Governors office was on WLW the other day. They said the Cleveland was a go because Haslam was putting up 1.2 billion. They said it showed good intent on be half of owner. Obviously a shot at the Brown family who own the Bengals. They also said the Bengals had never contacted the Ohio Statehouse to talk about money going to Cincinnati.