CLEVELAND — The city of Cleveland and the Browns filed to drop a trio of lawsuits Tuesday, ending a court battle over the team’s looming move to Brook Park.
Last week, Cleveland City Council signed off on a roughly $100 million settlement deal with team owner Haslam Sports Group. Now the city and Browns are making good on that agreement by terminating a tangle of litigation.
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On Tuesday morning, lawyers for the Browns filed a notice of dismissal in federal court. The team’s owners sued the city last year in a bid to challenge a state law that Cleveland was trying to use to block or delay the Brook Park move.
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Around the same time on Tuesday, Cleveland submitted its own notices of dismissal in two state court lawsuits related to the suburban stadium project.
In one of the lawsuits, filed in January, Cleveland’s lawyers had accused the Browns of violating Ohio’s so-called Modell law and the lease at the existing, city-owned stadium.
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In the other case, filed in October, the city was trying to appeal the Ohio Department of Transportation’s decision to approve a permit and a height waiver for the proposed Brook Park stadium.
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ODOT’s aviation office, which originally denied a permit for the project based on objections from officials at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, reversed its stance in September and gave the Browns the green light.
The city and Haslam Sports Group are dropping their lawsuits with prejudice, which means they can’t refile. As part of the settlement, both parties agreed to pay their own legal bills. Cleveland has incurred more than $1 million in legal fees related to the stadium fight.
Mayor Justin Bibb and team owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam announced a truce in mid-October. But aspects of the deal still required City Council approval – a process that involved several lengthy hearings, many follow-up questions and some last-minute tweaks.
The settlement agreement eliminates some headaches and potential slowdowns for the Browns, who are racing to lay the groundwork for a Brook Park move in 2029.
The deal also gives them some wiggle room – the option to add a year or two to their lease with Cleveland if the Brook Park project runs behind schedule.
The team’s lease ends in early 2029. If the Browns need a one-year extension, until 2030, they’'ll have to pay Cleveland an extra $1 million. A second extension, until 2031, will cost them another $2 million, according to the final deal teams.
In exchange for signing off on the Brook Park move and dropping its lawsuits, the city will get $70 million – $45 million for re-imagining the Downtown lakefront and $25 million for “community benefits projects” in other neighborhoods.
And Haslam Sports Group will pay to tear down the lakefront stadium and prepare the underlying land for development. The estimated cost of the demolition project is $30 million.
The city and Haslam Sports Group also agreed to work together to ensure that the Brook Park stadium and nearby Hopkins can coexist; to cooperate on infrastructure upgrades around the airport and the future stadium site; and to advance the city’s efforts to remake the lakefront and redevelop the sprawling Burke Lakefront Airport property.
The deal ends a yearlong clash between Cleveland and the Browns. But it doesn't eliminate all the litigation over the team’s plans to build a mixed-use sports and entertainment district in Brook Park.
There’s still a federal court lawsuit over the state’s decision to tap unclaimed funds – misplaced money the state is holding from sources including old bank accounts, uncashed checks, stock certificates and insurance payouts – to pay for professional sports facilities.
The Browns are set to receive a $600 million state grant early next year for their $2.4 billion stadium project. But attorneys for people with unclaimed funds are challenging the state’s move to take permanent ownership of money that’s been sitting for at least a decade – setting a clock, for the first time, on owners’ ability to claim their missing property.
During a hearing in Columbus on Monday, those lawyers asked a judge to call a timeout – preventing the state from laying claim to $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion in unclaimed funds on Jan. 1. But on Tuesday afternoon, the judge rejected that request, saying the attorneys did not prove that there's an urgent need for intervention in the form of a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order.
RELATED: Attorneys call for timeout on Cleveland Browns receiving unclaimed funds
The lawyers argue that the unclaimed-funds plan, approved by the General Assembly, is an unconstitutional taking of private property. And they say Ohio isn’t doing anywhere near enough to notify people, businesses, organizations and municipalities about their unclaimed funds.
Meanwhile, attorneys representing the state say the lawsuit is flawed – and that transferring ownership of unclaimed funds to the state doesn’t violate the U.S. Constitution. On Monday, they argued that the General Assembly’s highly publicized decision to tap unclaimed funds for stadiums and other pro sports projects provided ample notice to people who might have missing money.
Tuesday's decision is a setback for the opponents, but it does not end the litigation. The judge also denied the state's motion to dismiss the case.
Separately, former Cleveland mayor and lawmaker Dennis Kucinich has been trying to fight a Browns move in court. He sued the city in August, arguing that officials need to do more to keep the team on the lakefront. The city has asked a judge to throw out the case.
As a state legislator in the 1990s, when former Browns owner Art Modell moved the original team to Baltimore, Kucinich wrote a law designed to give cities more power in fights with pro sports teams looking to leave taxpayer-supported facilities.
The law requires team owners to get their host city’s permission to move – or to offer a six-month window for the community or local investors to buy the team.
In June, as part of a mammoth state budget bill, the General Assembly changed the wording of the Modell law so that it only applies to teams that are trying to leave Ohio.
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.
