The Cleveland Browns want to leave the city and build a new stadium. But the mayor is fighting for the NFL team.
Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb confirmed that the Cleveland Browns plan to leave the city and move to neighboring Brook Park, Ohio.
“Last evening I had a meeting with Jimmy and Dee Haslam, directors of Haslam Sports Group (HSG), in which they expressed their intention to relocate the Cleveland Browns to Brook Park,” Bibb announced in a statement.
In August, the NFL team published the first sketches of the dome stadium that they could imagine for the location in Brook Park.
Bibb said he and other local officials presented the Haslams with stadium plans that would have kept the Browns in Cleveland. “We have submitted a financially responsible yet aggressive financial package – larger than any other financial package offered for a Cleveland sports facility to renovate the existing stadium,” he said.
The city of Cleveland also would have been willing to approve construction of a new stadium on a portion of Burke Lakefront Airport, which is east of the current stadium’s site. But apparently this didn’t change the Browns’ plans.
Construction cost $2.4 billion
When pitching their Brook Park idea, the Browns estimated the total cost would be $2.4 billion, of which about $1.2 billion would come from private funding. This would leave municipalities with a significant bill.
So there isn’t universal approval: Officials in Cuyahoga County, which includes Brook Park, said in August that they would prefer to keep the Browns in Cleveland and not invest county money in the Brook Park project.
The Browns’ current lease expires in 2028, so their exit from Cleveland isn’t imminent even if everything goes according to plan.
