The federal government is putting $25 million behind Brook Park’s plan to revamp roads near the future Cleveland Browns stadium site.
The U.S. Department of Transportation announced the funding Tuesday afternoon.
It’s part of a $1.73 billion round of grants awarded through a competitive program called BUILD, which stands for Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development. Across the country, most of that money will flow to roads and bridges.
Brook Park applied for the $25 million grant in February. The funding will help pay for upgrades to the Interstate 71 and Snow Road area, where reconfigured freeway ramps and streamlined local roads will lead to the stadium and the surrounding entertainment district.
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“This is huge,” Mayor Edward Orcutt said during a phone interview.
Consultants working with the city and team owner Haslam Sports Group have plans for roughly $100 million in public infrastructure upgrades, including new pedestrian paths. Between the federal grant and $35 million awarded in April by Ohio’s Transportation Review Advisory Council, the city has amassed $60 million in public funding so far.
"It’s been a lot of hard work for the developers and the city of Brook Park, working together as partners, to make this generational project a reality,” said Orcutt, who traveled to Washington, D.C., earlier this year to make a pitch to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
The department’s BUILD grants announcement did not mention the stadium as the impetus for the infrastructure spending. Instead, the agency’s news release said the grant will help Brook Park “modernize I-71 to separate freight and passenger traffic to increase safety and save travel time.”
The BUILD program provides money for road and transit projects considered to have a significant local or regional impact. In its grant application, Brook Park said upgrading the I-71 ramps at Snow Road and cleaning up a tangle of streets around the future stadium site will reduce the odds of crashes and potential conflicts between cars and freight trains.
The plan includes adding a left turn lane to the I-71 northbound exit ramp at Snow; remaking the I-71 southbound ramp to Snow and Engle roads, with a flyover bridge that will stretch over busy railroad tracks; simplifying neighboring streets; widening Engle Road; and building a pedestrian bridge over Engle Road, near Hummel Road.
Orcutt said the price tag has increased from roughly $70 million to $100 million in recent months because of plans for additional pedestrian paths to the site. The city is seeking other funding, including congressional earmarks, to help cover the tab.
Rep. Max Miller included $12 million for Engle Road on his list of earmark requests for the 2027 fiscal year. Sen. Jon Husted wants a $21.7 million earmark for upgrades to Snow Road. And Sen. Bernie Moreno requested $5 million for road work in Brook Park.
If all that money comes through, the city will be close to reaching the $100 million mark.
That infrastructure budget does not include the cost of potential road work beyond Brook Park, in neighboring communities, to alleviate congestion from the stadium.
And it doesn't reflect Haslam Sports Group's desire to coordinate with the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority to build a Rapid train station to serve the new stadium district — at an estimated cost of at least $40 million. RTA has said it won't help pay for that project.
On Tuesday, Orcutt said he's grateful for the support from Miller, Husted and Moreno, along with Duffy and the transportation department's staff. Brook Park was one of four Ohio communities to win a BUILD grant.
Hamilton County won $25 million for the first phase of a project to cap a trenchlike, eight-lane highway in downtown Cincinnati and build a plaza over it. Toledo landed $19.5 million to upgrade its Front and Main Street corridors. And Sharonville, in southern Ohio, is getting $320,000 for a roadwork feasibility study.
In a news release, Husted said he advocated for the investments in Brook Park and Cincinnati. “I fought for these projects because they will improve safety, support economic growth and help Ohio communities compete and thrive for decades to come,” he said.
Haslam Sports Group started site preparations for the new, enclosed stadium last fall and held a ceremonial groundbreaking in late April. The goal is to open the stadium and the first wave of mixed-use development around it by late summer of 2029.
Brook Park City Council is set to hold a special public hearing and a vote on July 15 on legislation to create a new community authority, a quasi-public entity that would own the stadium and lease it to the Browns. The new community authority also would be able to impose surcharges on spending across the broader stadium district on everything from concert tickets to restaurant bills to hotel stays.
Michelle Jarboe is the business growth and development reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow her on X @MJarboe or email her at Michelle.Jarboe@wews.com.
