Friday roundup: Browns still haggling over stadium permit, Fire stadium could include TIF-funded parking garage

We’ve somehow ended up again at the last Friday in August, and if history is any guide, none of you are actually reading this, as you’re all headed out of town for the long weekend (as am I). So I could write about anything, really — maybe, okay, that’s too depressing. No, not that, either. How about we stay away from the current U.S. administration and … eeeagh! Fine, sports stadium news it is!

• Cleveland Browns officials and representatives of the Ohio Department of Transportation are “in discussions” on the height of the Browns’ proposed stadium that ODOT ruled could interfere with flights into nearby Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, but “it remains unclear whether those talks could lead to a compromise,” reports Cleveland.com. The only wiggle room appears to be either digging the stadium lower into the ground (unlikely, since it’s already set to be 80 feet below ground level) or move it farther from the airport (maybe, though if you go too far you run into I-71). If they can’t negotiate an accommodation by Tuesday, the team’s owners can still file an appeal of ODOT’s ruling in state court.
• Chicago Fire owner Joe Mansueto quietly removed a bunch of plans for a new park and transit and bike path improvements to accompany his proposed new soccer stadium, and advocates for parks, transit, and bike paths are steamed! The new plan also includes a parking garage that could potentially be funded by property taxes from the site (i.e., a TIF), which one steamed Chicagoan told Streetsblog Chicago may not be “even permissible under existing regulations.” Expect lots of shouting at the next Zoom meeting on the project’s transit plan, scheduled for September 9.
• Wannabe Orlando MLB expansion team owner Jim Schnorf says he’s “confident we will be awarded a Major League franchise in the next decade,” citing the fact that Orlando is bigger than other prospective expansion markets (true) and that it has made more progress on stadium funding (not really so much true). Orlando is also very close to Tampa Bay, which already has the Rays (for now, at least), and MLB expansion looks to be on hold for now while the Rays and Athletics stadium situations get resolved so those team owners have lots of cities available to use as move threats, but “confidence” is nice!
• Boston city councilor Julia Mejia and the Boston NAACP have proposed a scaled-back rebuild of White Stadium just for school sports that would cut the city’s costs to an estimated $64.6 million from the $100 million-$172 million it would cost for the city’s share of a stadium for the NWSL’s Boston Legacy F.C. That would leave Legacy without a stadium, which was originally the whole point of this exercise, but would also create possibly $100 million in savings that Mejia and the NAACP say should be put toward “unmet student needs” in public schools. Mejia tried to introduce this as a bill on Wednesday but the council ruled it out of order since it already voted for the NWSL stadium version; Mejia says she’ll find other ways to raise it.
• Houston Astros owner Jim Crane is suing Harris County to keep being allowed to not pay property tax even though Harris County officials say they have no intention of trying to charge the Astros property tax. So long as nobody who owns a sports team has to pay property tax, that’s the important thing, no matter what those crazy judges in New Jersey think.