As Cleveland Makes Stadium Pitch, Optimism in Brook Park After Meetings With Haslam Reps for New Dome

The day before Mayor Justin Bibb publicly released Cleveland's latest proposal to the Browns for renovating the existing stadium on the lakefront—a contribution of $461 million to the $1-billion-plus project—and asked the Haslams to respond by Aug. 12, the team welcomed officials from Brook Park for a series of meetings at Browns headquarters in Berea.

Starting at one o'clock in the afternoon on Wednesday, roughly a dozen officials from the suburb convened in a series of small groups in a conference room at 76 Lou Groza Blvd., itching to entertain the Haslam Sports Group's plans for the future of Cleveland Browns Stadium a few miles south of Cleveland.

By 4 p.m. that day, many had walked away with an answer crystal clear from their point of view: The Haslams are all but likely to pursue that 176 acres of land in Brook Park and a new dome over renovating the current stadium on the lakefront.

"I think they have big plans," a source familiar with the Wednesday meetings told Scene.

"If you put a gun to my head? Yeah, they're going to Brook Park," they added. "Do I still think that legally or financially it could still be held up? Yeah, I do. I do."

The meeting, which the source said was conducted with representatives from the Haslam Sports Group, marks a plot point in one of the meatiest Cleveland sports sagas since Art Modell infamously moved the Browns to Baltimore.
[content-2] Since February, when news broke of Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam's planned purchase of a massive plot of land in Brook Park, the team has kept mum their intentions for what happens after the lease at Cleveland Browns Stadium's lease ends in 2028.

But just days after Jimmy and Dee Haslam told the assembled Browns press squad in West Virginia that there was no hard deadline to make a decision, Bibb ended the city's public silence and gave them one.

“The Browns have been an essential fixture on our lakefront for decades. But our first priority is always our residents,” Bibb said in a statement, arguing it's better financial sense to renovate the stadium than open public coffers to build a $2-billion dome in Brook Park. “Having the Browns play here is integral to our city’s identity and community spirit. This initiative must go beyond the Browns and be about what’s best for downtown, the neighborhoods, the suburbs, and the region.”

"The stadium is more than just a venue. It's tailgating in the Muni Lot. It's celebrating on West 6th," he said, adding what might be an unconvincing note selling the lakefront stadium over a dome: "It's Lake Effect snow drifting over the field—toe-warmers and three sweaters on the bone-rattling wind-chill days off the lake."

Of the public release and deadline, Bibb's Chief of Staff Bradford Davy told reporters it was simply time, after more than a year of negotiations, to get an answer.

“It’s the result of 18 months of conversations. We’ve talked about every deal point that exists in that lease,” Davy told Signal Cleveland . “The only thing left to do is transmit those deal terms in a formal document and that’s what we did.”

"We’ve gotten to a point where we’ve really exhausted a lot of the deal points,” he told Cleveland.com . "We’re at a place now where we need to be asking questions about what the future of the lakefront looks like, and to answer that question, we need to know whether or not the Browns will call it home.”

The Haslams Sports Group, in a statement from Chief Operating Officer David Jenkins, responded that day: "We appreciate the latest proposal from Mayor Bibb and his administration and will be following up with the City of Cleveland to better understand the details while we are still reviewing it.

"We are working diligently to comprehensively examine all options to identify the best path for not only our fans, but also Greater Cleveland and Northeast Ohio," he added. "Our region deserves to be thought of as evolving, forward-thinking, and innovative, so we need to think boldly and creatively in the process."

All of which seems to have taken front row at Wednesday's meeting at 76 Lou Groza Blvd.

While Bibb offered the Browns exclusive use of the Willard parking garage and Muni Lot on game and event days, and while he said he'd welcome the Haslams for discussions on participating in the city's plans to develop the land around the stadium, what the billionaires have in mind for a possible Brook Park complex seems far more lucrative and dramatic in comparison.

A Haslams Sports Group rep admitted as much on Wednesday to some Brook Park officials, noting the limitations of the current stadium site, issues with parking, and saying it simply doesn't match up with what the Haslams ultimately want to do, the source said.

In other words, what's possible in Brook Park.

Some initial renderings of those plans, portions of which have been leaked and others of which have been shared in off-the-record presentations with reporters from various Cleveland media outlets, show what the Haslams have in store beyond the dome, and the splashy events and concerts they would expect to draw thanks to a roof.

For the Brook Park coalition, which included Mayor Edward Orcutt, the Haslams Group played a flashy minutes-long flyover video.

"Think Disneyland," the source said.

Imagine a Crocker Park-style shopping and entertainment center. Luxury condos.

"The Box," as Haslam's team dubbed it. Everything self-contained. Everything, including parking, in the team's control.

Brook Park can't put the financial backing toward a stadium that Cleveland can, of course, meaning the question of how it all gets paid for remains open.

“Those kinds of things are being worked out behind the scenes,” Mayor Ed Orcutt told Fox 8 earlier this week. “I’m going to be very limited in what I can say with information on that.”

The state would likely play a major role; Cuyahoga County, which is going to shoulder a massive financial burden with the upcoming jail and courthouse projects, has remained on the sidelines of the current talks.

“We are hopeful that the city of Cleveland and the Browns come to a resolution. We have not been a party to their negotiations,” a county spokesperson said in a statement Thursday.

Given Bibb's public release of the city's proposal and new deadline for the Haslams to respond, it appears the City of Cleveland won't go quietly. City Council is likely to raise a fuss, especially after passing an ordinance confirming their intentions to utilize Ohio's "Art Modell law," which theoretically makes it harder for teams to leave cities. (It's yet to be tested.)

But, given the tenor of talks with Brook Park officials, neither that nor Cleveland's latest offering will stand in the way, according to the source.

"They're building that dome."

The Haslam Sports Group, in that statement Thursday, emphasized no decision has been made. "We will continue to provide updates as we have more information to share," it read.

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