BEREA, Ohio — The Cleveland Browns are optimistic about landing make-or-break state funding for their Brook Park stadium project, but it’s still unclear what form that money will take.
A top team executive weighed in on Wednesday, one day after Republican leaders in the Ohio Senate announced their plan to provide $600 million for the stadium using unclaimed funds – money the state is holding for current and former Ohioans from things like forgotten bank accounts, utility deposits, uncashed checks and stocks and bonds.
“We’re very excited that the Senate chose to include $600 million in their version of the budget. … But not nearly to the finish line yet,” said Dave Jenkins, chief operating officer for team owner Haslam Sports Group.
At this point, three competing proposals are on the table to provide the state funding the Browns want for their $2.4 billion enclosed stadium, which would be the centerpiece of a mixed-use entertainment district in Brook Park, located across from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
1. The Senate wants to tap unclaimed funds to provide a cash grant.
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2. In April, the Ohio House approved a plan that called for the state to borrow $600 million for the stadium by issuing bonds – debt the state would pay back, with interest, an estimated cost of $1 billion over 25 years.
RELATED: Browns reveal more details about Brook Park plans in a pitch to state lawmakers
3. Gov. Mike DeWine, meanwhile, has suggested increasing the state’s tax on sports-betting companies’ profits – using money that Ohio gamblers lose to create a long-term fund for pro sports facilities and youth sports programs.
RELATED: State lawmakers look to revive governor's push to boost sports betting tax
Now all eyes are on June 30.
That’s when the state has to finalize its next operating budget.
It’s also the day Haslam Sports Group expects to buy the 176-acre property in Brook Park, Jenkins said on Wednesday. The land, a former Ford Motor Co. plant site, is owned by a group of industrial real estate developers and is under contract to a Haslam Sports Group affiliate.
Jenkins spoke to reporters after a groundbreaking for a much smaller project, a $150 million to $200 million development next to the team’s headquarters in Berea. Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam were at the event but did not join Jenkins to take questions from reporters.
“We’re here to stay,” Jenkins said, pointing to the Berea and Brook Park projects as further evidence of the Haslam family’s commitment to Northeast Ohio. “So we’re excited about what both these projects are gonna do for the community.”
The DiGeronimo Cos., a local developer that's part-owner of the Brook Park site, is tackling the Berea project through a partnership with the Browns. The development includes a hotel, apartments, offices, a sports medicine facility and a community athletic field. Construction in Berea is expected to take two years.
In Brook Park, the Browns hope to break ground in early 2026 for the new stadium and the first phase of a much larger mixed-use development project. They’re up against the clock, with the team’s lease at the existing Downtown Cleveland stadium set to end in early 2029. And the team is still sparring in court with the City of Cleveland over that potential exit.
If the state money comes through, Haslam Sports Group will be able to move forward, Jenkins said.
The Browns also have asked Cuyahoga County to issue $600 million in bonds for the stadium and to raise the bed tax at hotels and put a fee on rental cars to help pay off the debt. But Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne has flatly rejected those requests, saying the cost is too high and the risk for taxpayers is too great.
On Wednesday, Jenkins reiterated that the Browns will find a way to make the Brook Park project happen without the county’s support.
Haslam Sports Group is still looking for a new or existing public entity to borrow money for stadium construction and repay it using roughly $400 million in anticipated local tax revenues from the stadium district – from Brook Park admissions taxes, income taxes and parking taxes.
As for filling the rest of the gap?
“It’s a private solve. So it means we’re taking on more risk,” Jenkins said.
What's in the Senate's budget amendments?
Senate Republicans gave the Browns two significant assists in their budget package, which still has to be workshopped before going to the full chamber for a vote.
The first item is the $600 million grant to help build the new stadium.
The second is a provision that would let the Browns take so-called “sin tax” revenues to Brook Park with them, to help pay for stadium maintenance.
Cuyahoga County voters approved the sin tax on alcohol and tobacco purchases in 1990 to help finance the construction and operation of Rocket Arena and Progressive Field. In 2014, they agreed to extend the tax for another 20 years to cover ongoing repair needs at major sports venues.
Cuyahoga County Council decides how the money is split up. It currently goes to Rocket Arena, Progressive Field and Huntington Bank Field.
The county’s sin-tax agreement for Huntington Bank Field is with the City of Cleveland – not the Browns. It's specific to the existing stadium, which the city owns.
County officials, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Cleveland Guardians have been talking about increasing the sin tax to help fill funding shortfalls for capital repairs. That would require three things: state-enabling language; a decision by Cuyahoga County Council to put a tax hike on the ballot; and a public vote.
On Tuesday, Ronayne said the Senate’s proposal won't yield enough sin-tax money to meet the team's needs. He believes a public vote on raising the tax will only succeed if it’s for upkeep at the existing stadiums Downtown – not if it extends to long-term maintenance of a new suburban stadium.
RELATED: Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne criticizes Senate funding plan for the Browns
“It’s a morally bankrupted budget,” Ronayne, a Democrat, said of the Senate plan. “Even the things that we thought we would get addressed, like the local ability to levy a tax, the state has put its hand in it and dictated the terms on which that would be levied. They need to walk that back. … And maybe the governor vetoes it. But for us to put something on the ballot that would be dead on arrival doesn’t make any sense.”
Ronayne accused Haslam Sports Group of doing an end-run in Columbus.
On Wednesday, Jenkins said the sin tax should continue to be a three-team solution, no matter where the Browns play. “We do see it as the most viable solve for capital repairs, long-term, for the community,” he said.
Sen. Jerry Cirino, the Republican chairman of the finance committee, echoed that.
“We wanted to make sure that there was a proper sharing of the teams, regardless of where the teams are in Cuyahoga County,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
What about those unclaimed funds?
Once the Senate votes on its version of the budget, the House and Senate will need to work through the differences between their proposals – and come to a compromise. The mammoth spending bill will then head to DeWine for his signature, and any vetoes.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for DeWine said the governor wasn’t available to discuss the Senate’s proposal and the idea of tapping unclaimed funds to pay for stadium projects.
“We are reviewing yesterday’s announcement and are looking forward to continuing the budget process with the Ohio General Assembly,” Dan Tierney, the governor's spokesman, wrote in an email.
The Ohio Department of Commerce is holding $4.8 billion in unclaimed funds.
RELATED: Ohio is making it easier to grab unclaimed funds if you're owed money
The state is using some of that money now – about $485.7 million – for short-term, low-interest loans for affordable-housing projects. The loans help developers bridge financial gaps on deals that involve tax credits awarded by the Ohio Housing Finance Agency.
Unclaimed funds from attorneys go to the Ohio Access to Justice Foundation, to pay for things like legal aid services, a commerce department spokesman said.
Senate Republican leaders want to pull $1.7 billion out of unclaimed funds to create a special fund for a variety of “stadium and culture improvements,” Cirino told reporters.
The state has been holding that money for at least a decade, lawmakers said.
The Senate’s plan calls for the state to take ownership of those unclaimed funds – money that courts have described as the property of their private owners, not the government. People still would have the ability to request their reappropriated money until 2036, lawmakers said.
The Senate’s budget proposal also puts $1 million more a year toward the commerce department’s efforts to reunite people with their money.
Cirino said lawmakers heard plenty of concerns about the risks and costs of issuing bonds for a new Browns stadium. The bond proposal would require the state to pay about $400 million in interest, pulling that money from the general revenue fund.
The Browns have said new state tax revenues from the broader Brook Park stadium district would be more than enough to cover the state’s debt-service obligations. But the state budget office and nonpartisan legislative analysts disagree. They’ve described the team’s financial projections for the project as overly optimistic.
The unclaimed-funds approach gets around those objections.
The Browns would receive a cash “performance grant” with a 16-year term. If state tax-revenue collections from the Brook Park stadium district fall short of what the Browns are predicting and lawmakers anticipate, the state can make up the difference by tapping a $50 million deposit, and, if necessary, a $50 million line of credit from Haslam Sports Group.
At the end of the 16 years, the Haslams will get back any of their security-deposit money that’s left.
Cirino said there will still be plenty of money left in the unclaimed funds pool to pay people who come forward about money owed to them, their parents or grandparents.
“It takes idle money and puts it to work to create jobs, to create incremental taxes, and that’s why we’re so excited about this project,” he said of the idea. “There are and will be detractors of this approach, probably. But this is about economic development, not just supporting a sports team. … We’re very confident this is gonna work. We’re very confident we’re not putting any of the state’s assets or credit ratings at risk. And we feel it’s a very creative way to do this, to use money that’s not working for us now.”
