Earlier this week the news was leaked by Daryl Ruiter of 92.3 the Fan that the Cleveland Browns will be building a $3.6 billion dollar Dome Stadium complex in the Cleveland suburb of Brookpark Ohio.  No official announcement has been made yet. That is expected to happen in the coming weeks. Last week the City of Cleveland’s Mayor Justin Bibb made a formal and public offer to the Browns to stay in downtown Cleveland. The offer was for a $461 million dollar renovation of the current Cleveland Browns Stadium and for the Browns to renew their 30-year lease with the city. The current lease expires after the 2028 season. The offer was insufficient to keep the Browns playing on the lakefront much less renew a 30-year lease.

I have written that what the city of Cleveland offered was a day late and a dollar short. That is because the city of Cleveland was limited on what could be offered to the Browns. They have limitations with real estate and funding to offer the Browns. What Mayor Bibb did was a political gesture on his part. He had to show some effort to keep the team downtown. Mayor Bibb knew the offer wouldn’t be accepted and he even put a deadline of August 12th. The stadium itself was built in a rush and was poorly built in 1999. A renovation would not fix the stadiums problems. Builders and architects from 1999 said that the foundation on the current Cleveland Browns stadium doesn’t have 30 years of life left in it. Also, there are differences of funding in the two stadium plans.

The Brookpark plan is expected to be privately funded and tax revenue from usage of the stadium and complex. No new taxes on Cuyahoga County Ohio residents are expected for this plan. The plan that the City of Cleveland had was to use taxpayer money and usage of parking spaces tax in downtown Cleveland. The Brookpark plan was more economically feasible for the residents of northeast Ohio. The Haslam Sports Group is hoping to attract more events to the area with a new state of the art facility. All of this and renderings of the stadium were released in an open letter to Cleveland Browns fans from the Haslam Sports Group on August 7th,2024.

https://www.clevelandbrowns.com/news/a-letter-to-cleveland-browns-fans-across-northeast-ohio-and-beyond

Currently having an outdoor football only stadium sitting empty on the shore of Lake Erie 350 days out of the year makes zero sense. A new dome stadium complex will bring events to the Cleveland area.  A Super Bowl and a WrestleMania would happen. I certainly can’t wait for it happen. But for it to happen, we all have to wait until at least 2029.