CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Cleveland Browns believe an enclosed, suburban stadium will bring more big concerts to Northeast Ohio. But a new Huntington Bank Field isn’t the only venue on the drawing board at their proposed 176-acre sports and entertainment district in Brook Park.
The team’s development partner is working on plans for a smaller music venue and event center, with a possible capacity of 3,000 to 4,000 people.
Peter Kelly, an executive vice president at Lincoln Property Company, dropped that news Monday, during a daylong summit focused on bringing more jobs and activity to the area around Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and NASA Glenn Research Center.
“Our plan is to deliver a music venue. Our plan is to deliver a hotel,” he told a crowd at the Aviator, a restaurant and event center off Brookpark Road. “It’s airport-adjacent. We have 10 million visitors coming through that airport every year. … So we want to improve the front door, so it’s the first thing you see and the last thing you see on your flights out.”
Kelly’s remarks came midway through a series of panel discussions about aviation, aerospace and economic development in the region. The sold-out summit was put together by the Aerozone Alliance, an organization working to encourage regional collaboration and growth.
The event brought representatives from Hopkins and the Browns into the same room – just as airport leaders and team owner Haslam Sports Group are sparring over airspace.
Nobody on the panels, or in the audience, mentioned that fight.
The Federal Aviation Administration gave the stadium a green light in the spring. But citing objections from Hopkins, state aviation officials rejected a permit for the project last month, saying it’s 58 feet too tall.
RELATED: ODOT rejects new Browns stadium as too tall. Browns push back, citing FAA's OK.
Now, Haslam Sports Group and its lawyers are negotiating with the Ohio Department of Transportation, in hopes of overturning that decision. Meanwhile, Cleveland’s top airport official is standing his ground, saying the project will pose a safety risk to pilots and travelers.
RELATED: Cleveland airport director, Browns' aviation lawyer speak up about stadium fight
During one session at the Aerozone summit, airport officials talked the audience through a major makeover plan for Hopkins, which the city of Cleveland owns.
An hour later, Kelly and Ted Tywang, general counsel and chief administrative officer for Haslam Sports Group, were part of a panel discussion about mixed-use development.
In both cases, the situation with ODOT didn’t come up.
“I know it’s a controversial topic,” Hrishue Mahalaha, the executive director of the Aerozone Alliance, said while introducing the conversation about the stadium. “I know it. But we just want to understand, what are they thinking about. What are the ideas?”
Tywang and Kelly declined a request for an on-camera interview after their presentation.
From the stage, Tywang referenced previous speakers’ comments about the need for a more regional approach to economic development.
“We want to build on that. And it sounds like, from our experience, not everyone has fully bought into that yet. We hope they will,” he said.
He and Kelly said they believe a new stadium will complement the airport.
“We may be kind of the odd one out here,” Tywang said. “That ‘hey, why are the Browns at this aerospace summit?’ But we really see our great project as adding to the company-attraction, job-attraction ability of the Aerozone. And we’re really excited to fit in.”
Haslam Sports Group and Lincoln, which is focused on the site beyond the stadium, still hope to open the first phase of their project in the spring or summer of 2029.
In addition to the stadium, the most recent site plans presented during a public meeting in Brook Park show two hotels, with 452 rooms; 576 apartments; almost 200,000 square feet of retail; and a smaller event venue – with a footprint of about 40,000 square feet.
“There’s a renaissance going on, and it’s benefiting the Midwest. … We’re hearing groups saying, 'Hey, Cleveland’s not an area that we would have looked at 5 years ago. But times have changed,'” Kelly said.
Additional apartments, retail and office space could come later in Brook Park – but that will depend on the real estate market, particularly when it comes to office tenants.
Haslam Sports Group still aims to start moving dirt on the property in the fall, with the goal of relocating the Browns in 2029 – once the team’s lease ends at the existing, city-owned stadium on the Downtown lakefront.
Brook Park City Council recently agreed to rezone the land, a former Ford Motor Co. plant site right across State Route 237 from the airport, to make way for new uses. The city still needs to approve the development plan, along with a development agreement with Haslam Sports Group.
RELATED: Brook Park OKs rezoning for proposed Browns stadium site as debate over airspace continues
Tywang said the combination of the stadium and mixed-use development is critical to ensuring a return on public and private money invested in the project.
“We need to make it authentic,” Kelly said. “We need to listen to the region. We need to make sure that everybody’s excited about it. And that’s our job. To deliver.”
