CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Cleveland Browns are leaving Cleveland for a new stadium in Brook Park, according to Cleveland Mayor Justin Pape.
Pape made the bombshell announcement during a news conference Thursday afternoon at City Hall. This comes after more than a year of negotiations during which Babe and Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam failed to agree on a deal to renovate the Browns’ current home at the city-owned lakefront stadium in downtown Cleveland.
If the Browns leave Cleveland, it will be the second time in three decades that a local Cleveland team has fled city limits.
Beebe said the Haslam family’s decision to leave Cleveland is a “disappointing and very disheartening” move that would weaken downtown Cleveland and harm the region by creating a new suburban entertainment district that would compete with existing downtown amenities.
The mayor described his negotiating philosophy as prioritizing the city’s needs over the desires of the team owners.
“Yes, the Brown family and our visitors are important,” he said. “But the well-being of the people who live here will always come first. This has been our highest priority, and it is a priority that we must never compromise on.”
The Haslams, in a lengthy statement late Thursday afternoon, did not explicitly state they intended to move to Brook Park, though they spoke glowingly about a domed stadium and how it would be an economic boon to the area.
Decades of research shows that public support for new sports stadiums yields no such benefits, even though sports teams and public officials routinely claim otherwise. What new stadium projects achieve, according to the research, is transferring economic benefits from one area to another.
In their statement Thursday, the Haslams gave a vague description, but no details, of how their plans to build a $2.4 billion domed stadium at Brook Park will be financed.
“Thanks to the financing mechanisms we continue to work on, this stadium will not use existing taxpayer-funded inflows that would divert resources from other, more pressing needs. Instead, private investment of more than $2 billion, combined with public investment, will create A large economic development project that would generate the activity needed to pay public bond debt service through future revenues generated by the project and revenues generated by Browns.
Brook Park Mayor Edward Orcutt did not share any financing details when contacted by cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer.
Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne and Council President Pernell Jones Jr. publicly shut down the possibility of providing funding to the county during a news conference in August, saying county subsidies for Brook Park Stadium did not make financial sense for residents or taxpayers.
In an email statement Thursday, Ronayne said he had already made his position clear: “Browns Stadium should remain downtown.”
If the Haslams find their Brook Park plans unworkable, Beebe said he’s willing to return to the negotiating table to keep the Browns in Cleveland, but only if the city’s contribution is “responsible” for residents and taxpayers. If the Browns end up leaving Cleveland for Brook Park, Cleveland is already working on alternative plans for the lakefront that do not include the Browns, he said.
How tense were the negotiations?
So far, Haslam said they are looking at two options for the Browns’ future home, once their current lease expires at the end of the 2028 season. Their first option was a $1 billion renovation of the current stadium, and the second was a new domed stadium at Brook Park.
The Haslams have not yet purchased the 176-acre parcel under consideration there. They noted that the playground at Brook Park would be part of a much larger entertainment district that has not yet been built.
The Beebe offered $367 million in Cleveland taxpayer money to renovate Lakeshore Stadium, plus $93 million for future maintenance. He announced this offer on August 1st.
When it became clear during negotiations that the Haslams would prefer a new domed stadium over a renovation of an outdoor stadium overlooking the lake, Beebe said he tried to focus by giving them part of the land on which Burke Lakefront Airport sits.
That late-game pivot cost time that could have been used to find a viable option in Cleveland, Pep said.
In describing how negotiations would begin in 2022, Pape painted a picture of a city council that was willing to take the Haslam family’s demands seriously.
The Haslams wanted a 50-50 split between private and public funding, so Cleveland “came close” to providing that, Beebe said.
They wanted a developed and lively lakefront around the stadium, and better ingress and egress for fans. Therefore, Cleveland sought and secured federal and state money for this plan, he said, and “accelerated” lakefront redevelopment efforts, including plans for a pedestrian land bridge over the Shoreway.
“We did everything they asked for,” Pep said.
Over the past four to six weeks, Beebe said he explored what it might take to close Burke and make part of that land available for a new soccer stadium and surrounding development, but the Haslam family “wasn’t interested in pursuing that option.”
This timing ties in with the city’s recent release of a study indicating that closing Burke would be feasible and “economically beneficial,” although Beebe did not mention the stadium at the time as a potential use for the site.
In both shows — at the current location and at Burke — Beebe said he tried to balance the needs of the Haslam family with the needs of the broader community.
“The Haslam Sports Group may want a roof over their heads, but my responsibility as mayor of this great city is to ensure the people of Cleveland have a roof over their homes,” Beebe said, adding: “We must be practical about our many needs.” and resources.”
Pep said his proposals would have provided a world-class facility, improved the fan experience and allowed the team to remain “extremely profitable.” Regarding Burke’s bid, he said it would have competed with — and perhaps been “better” than — the Brook Park development plans. However, Bibb did not say who would provide the rest of the money needed to build the expensive domed facility there.
In their statement, the Haslams said the economics would not have worked out at Burke, given what they described as “significant design, construction, geotechnical and environmental challenges.”
The statement said that this would be “expensive and not possible, especially with the uncertainty about the possible timing of the airport’s closure.”
What now for the city and the Browns?
The next steps are still uncertain.
Bibb brought two outstanding questions about the feasibility of Brook Park’s move to the City Council: implementing the state’s “Art Modell Law” and enforcing an agreement that would attach the “Cleveland Browns” name to any professional football team physically based in Cleveland. .
Those two points will be “a question that the city council will have to deal with,” Beebe said.
Regarding the state’s Art Modell law, which was passed after former team owner Art Modell moved to Baltimore in 1996, the courts have yet to conclusively determine its constitutionality. It requires sports teams to give their city six months’ notice before leaving the city and gives the home city or area residents a chance to purchase the team first.
The City Council quickly put the ball back in Babe’s court on the Art Modell ordinance. In a social media post later Thursday, the council said it expected the mayor to enforce the law on Cleveland’s behalf.
Separately, Beebe used Thursday’s press conference to send a message to state leaders, including Gov. Mike DeWine, about their potential funding support for Brook Park Stadium.
Bibb discouraged DeWine from enabling the Brook Park plan, saying that “allocating scarce public resources toward a [Brook Park] A move that hurts downtown and weakens Cuyahoga County is bad public policy.
If the state gives hundreds of millions to the Brook Park plan, Beebe said he hopes they will contribute the same to a new or renovated stadium in Cleveland.
Cleveland.com reached out Thursday afternoon to DeWine’s spokesperson.
Several state lawmakers told cleveland.com in recent days that they had not heard anything about the announcement of Brown’s move to Brook Park.
“No one has reached out,” State Rep. Tom Patton, a Republican from Strongsville whose district includes Brook Park, said in a text message Thursday afternoon.
During initial meetings with state lawmakers last spring, Brown representatives indicated the team was looking to the state to provide support through next year’s budget process.
When cleveland.com spoke to Orcutt, the mayor of Brook Park, he said he was “incredibly excited” about the news, which he said the team relayed to him Thursday.
Orcutt declined to discuss the potential funding plan, including any subsidies the city of Brook Park would provide. He said the city and team owners are working on a traffic study to determine potential changes needed to nearby roads, and acknowledged the city will have to beef up municipal services, including more police, to make the domed stadium a reality.
Orcutt said he has not yet been able to quantify the city’s increased costs for the new stadium and other related needs.
“We’re building a dome,” Orcutt said. “We’re going to have more events here. We’re going to make sure these events generate enough money for the city of Brook Park.” [allow the Browns to] Come here. If you cannot produce and secure enough funds for Brook Park, I will work with our commissioners and board so I can present the facts that this probably won’t work here.
Despite their decision to move the team to a new stadium outside of Cleveland, Haslam still insists that their commitment to the city of Cleveland is unwavering.
“Cleveland and Northeast Ohio are the fabric of Brown and that will always be the case,” they wrote. “Our community commitment to Cleveland and efforts to improve the lives of its residents will not change.”
Cleveland.com’s Jeremy Belzer contributed to this story.
