BROOK PARK, Ohio — Browns owner Jimmy Haslam was in Brook Park early Thursday, so he took a drive around the site where crews are digging an 80-foot-deep hole for the team’s new stadium.
“It was so satisfying,” he told a crowd later in the day, at a groundbreaking ceremony for the future Huntington Bank Field.
“And I can’t think,” he said, “of how satisfying it’s gonna be in three and a half years, when we go to the first game here.”
Nobody broke any actual ground — or any major news — during Haslam Sport Groups event, which took place under a transparent tent at one edge of the construction site.
RELATED: Groundbreaking for Cleveland Browns' Brook Park stadium
But NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Northeast Ohio’s got a shot at bringing the NFL Draft back to town soon. Hosting a Super Bowl is another story, though.
“I have no doubt that this stadium is gonna be Super Bowl quality. Zero doubt about that,” he said during a panel discussion. “I think the challenge now for this community, and hopefully this stadium and this development is gonna be transformative, is how do the rest of the facilities in the community develop. … Airports. Hotels. We have hotel-room needs of close to 50, if not 60,000.”
The Cleveland area has just over 22,000 hotel rooms, according to the latest market report from the Newmark real estate brokerage.
There are a handful of new projects on the drawing board, including two hotels planned for the stadium district site.
But that wouldn’t put the region anywhere close to what the NFL — and Super Bowl crowds — needs.
At nearby Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, the City of Cleveland and airlines are embarking on a major overhaul.
The project, broken into phases, started last year and eventually will involve a new terminal, likely to open in 2032.
“You have the stage,” Goodell said. “Now we have to bring the facilities around it.”
Here are other things we heard at and after Thursday’s event:
Costs for fans
Haslam said there’s a heavy focus on making sure that “anybody that wants to — or almost anybody that wants to” can attend games in Brook Park.
“The Dawg Pound will have the exact same number of seats, but it’s gonna be a way better experience. And we will have seats that are affordable, just like our seats are now,” he told reporters after the formal program.
The Browns have said every seat will require a personal seat license — a one-time fee that fans pay to get the right—and obligation—to buy season tickets every year in the same location.
Haslam Sports Group surveyed season ticket-holders about possible seat-license prices last year but hasn’t released any follow-up information on PSLs or ticket costs.
RELATED: Longtime Browns fans outraged by possible seat-license pricing in Brook Park
Personal seat licenses are a financing tool for NFL stadiums, enabling team owners to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for construction. The Browns expect to start selling PSLs in late summer. The new, $2.6 billion stadium is scheduled to open in the fall of 2029.
Speaking of stadium financing …
A $600 million state grant for the stadium is still in limbo, tied up in a court fight over the state’s move to grab unclaimed funds for pro sports facilities and other projects. Ohio’s holding billions of dollars of misplaced money from people’s old bank accounts, insurance payouts, utility deposits and other sources.
DeWine, who participated in Thursday’s celebration, said he believes the state eventually will win that legal battle.
But he has a backup plan — one that members of the General Assembly rejected last year.
“My initial proposal was to … tax sports-gaming companies,” he told reporters after the event. “So I think that’s still a possibility.”
Haslam Sports Group is still moving forward. Deep digging at the stadium site began in early March and will last until the fall.
Then, the foundation work will start for the building.
“We’re not attorneys, OK? But in talking to our attorneys and the state’s attorneys — Governor DeWine and I talk frequently — we do think it’ll be resolved,” Haslam said of the litigation, which centers on questions about private-property rights and whether Ohio has been doing enough to reunite people with their missing money.
“The state and Governor DeWine and the leadership in the legislature have been great partners,” he said. “And if that falls through, we feel confident they’ll come up with a plan B.”
The most recent financing plan for the stadium shows that at least $1.75 billion will come from private sources — a mix of debt and equity. Haslam Sports Group has pledged to cover any cost overruns during construction.
The public will pick up about a third of the tab. In addition to the state grant, there’s a $245 million request on the table for Brook Park.
That money would come from upfront borrowing and be repaid over decades using city admissions tax revenues and income tax revenues from the stadium district.
Brook Park City Council is likely to see a detailed development agreement between the city and Haslam Sports Group in May, Mayor Edward Orcutt said.
“The business points have been agreed to. … And now they’re working out the legal things,” said Haslam, who described Orcutt as a tough negotiator. “It’s a massive agreement, 30 years, etcetera. But I think we’ll have it done by, I’ll go out on a limb and say July 1.”
Outside of the stadium site, the state is providing $35 million for changes to freeway ramps at Interstate 71 and Snow Road to support the project.
Brook Park is seeking federal money — an infrastructure grant and congressional earmarks – to pay for upgrades to local streets and sidewalks, along with a pedestrian bridge leading to the property.
A closer look at the building
Haslam Sports Group also released some new images of the planned stadium.
The building will hold 67,500 people for Browns games and up to 75,000 people for concerts and other major events. The stadium will sink 80 feet into the ground because of its proximity to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
It will have a clear, glass-like roof made of a durable, lightweight plastic.
“It’ll feel like you’re sitting outside, with all the benefits of sitting inside,” Whitney Haslam Johnson, a managing partner of Haslam Sports Group, told the audience at the groundbreaking event.
The Dawg Pound section will have a steep slope, designed to put fans closer to the action and intimidate opposing teams.
Renderings also show wide concourses.
Designed by HKS, the stadium will be built by a joint venture between AECOM Hunt and Turner Construction Company. That’s the same design and construction team behind SoFi Stadium, outside of Los Angeles.
The new Huntington Bank Field is expected to open by the fall of 2029, along with a 350-room hotel, 624 apartments, a smaller live-music venue, a few parking garages, and about 255,000 square feet of retail. Lincoln Property Company, a Texas-based real estate company, is tackling that development, aiming to start construction next spring.
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.
