Report: Browns will ask for $1.1B in public funding for new Brook Park

(The Center Square) – Cleveland Browns ownership will reportedly unveil a plan for a $3.6 billion new stadium and development in Brook Park in the coming weeks.

That plan includes $2.2 billion for the stadium and parking lots, with half of that coming from a tax capture fund at the site along with $1.4 billion in development surrounding the stadium that will be privately funded, according to the NEOtrans blog .

The blog has covered Cleveland development, real estate, construction and transportation news since 2011.

The report comes a week after Cleveland Mayor Justin M. Bibb announced a proposal to spend $461 million of taxpayer funds on renovations to the Browns’ lakefront stadium.

Bibb sent a letter to the Haslam Sports Group including a 30-year lease proposal, asking for a response from Browns ownership by Aug. 12.

The Ohio General Assembly’s most recent budget includes $20 million for a North Coast Connector land bridge near the lakefront.

That funding would come from $227 million in new admission taxes, $120 million in Cuyahoga County sin tax and $20 million from stadium capital reserves. The new lease proposal would shift $1.3 million in annual property tax payments from the city to the Browns while ending the teams’ $250,000 annual rent.

“Losing the Browns would harm Cleveland and all Clevelanders,” Bibb said in a statement . “Lower spending downtown would negatively affect tax revenues that provide essential services for a city in need. It would close businesses, cost jobs, empty out storefronts, and make our downtown feel less alive.”

Economists who have studied publicly funded stadium deals have repeatedly shown the deals do not bring the promised returns and do not spur other economic activity in a community.

"There is no legitimate policy justification for devoting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to upgrade an NFL football stadium," economist J.C. Bradbury of Georgia’s Kennesaw State University previously told The Center Square. "The research on this is clear and unambiguous: sports stadiums are not salutary public investments.”

The $1.1 billion of proposed public funding for the new stadium would come in just shy of the $1.27 billion of public funding set for the Tennessee Titans’ new stadium in Nashville.

But a large factor in the actual cost of a project is ongoing maintenance and updates on any stadium.

In Nashville, the stadium is getting a $500 million direct subsidy from the state of Tennessee while a tax capture estimated to collect $3.1 billion over the length of the team’s 30-year lease would be used to pay off bonds on the other $727 million along with funding future maintenance and updates at the stadium along with infrastructure costs.

The city councils of Charlotte and Jacksonville each recently approved more than $600 million in public funding for renovations at their stadiums.