Cleveland Browns to Leave City and Pursue Suburban Domed Stadium

The Cleveland Browns officially announced that they are moving forward with plans to build a new $2.4 billion domed stadium outside of the city. The new stadium would the centerpiece of a retail and entertainment district in Brook Park, a suburb about 15 miles southwest of Cleveland.

In a statement, the team said that after exhaustive negotiations with Cleveland mayor Justin Bibb, it believes the benefits of brand-new, domed building outweigh those of another renovation of the current stadium, which was built in 1999. “We also explored building a new stadium on multiple sites, both within and outside of Cleveland,” the Browns said. “We’ve learned through our exhaustive work that renovating our current stadium will simply not solve many operational issues and would be a short-term approach.”

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Prior to the team’s announcement, Bibb himself said the team informed him of its intentions. “We must be practical about our many needs and resources,” Bibb said in a press conference at City Hall. “The city’s approach has always been rooted in fiscal responsibility and the long-term value for all members of our community. As such, I am deeply, deeply disappointed that our exhaustive efforts, that the Haslam Sports Group has chosen to pursue a move to Brook Park.”

The lease at Huntington Bank Field expires after the 2028 NFL season.

In early April, Bibb publicized a letter he sent to team owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam stating that the city would devote $461 million toward a $1 billion renovation of Huntington Bank Field, which sits in the revived downtown Cleveland. The purse came with a deadline of April 12, ideally to compel the Jimmy and Dee Haslam to take the money and start rebuilding.

Yet in August, the team announced its plans for a new domed stadium, which it said would become “a modern, dynamic, world-class venue that would greatly enhance the fan experience and enable the state of Ohio and our region to compete for some of the biggest events in the world 365 days a year.”

The open-aired Huntington Bank Field faces Lake Erie and is often exposed to the harsh elements of Ohio winters. The Browns have maintained that Huntington Bank Field “requires major infrastructure moves to improve our operational and fan experience challenges.” The stadium underwent a prior $120 million renovation in 2014-2015, shortly after the Haslams bought the team from the Lerner family.

The Browns said that construction of the dome would not utilize existing taxpayer funding streams that would take away from other public needs. “Instead, the over $2 billion private investment, together with the public investment, will create a major economic development project that will drive the activity necessary to pay the public bond debt service through future project-generated and Browns-generated revenue,” the team said.

The public negotiations from both sides will stir up calls to invoke Revised Code 9.67, colloquially known as the “Art Modell law;” a decision that could be risky to the city, Brook Park and the Haslams. The code states that pro teams that use “a tax-supported facility for most of its home games” and “receive public assistance” cannot play home games elsewhere. The workaround would be if the affected local government is given six months’ notice, and the team is required to be offered for sale to local buyers.

Revised Code 9.67 came to be after Modell, the owner of the original incarnation of the Browns, moved the team to Baltimore in 1995. The city retained the Browns’ history and image, which was given to the expansion franchise granted to the city by the NFL for the 1999 season.

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