CLEVELAND — The off-field battle over where the Cleveland Browns should play – and how much of the cost the public should bear – keeps escalating.
In a letter this week, Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne asked Ohio Senate leaders to include $350 million for stadium renovations in the next state budget. He argues that’s a wiser – and more fiscally responsible – choice than putting $600 million into a new, enclosed stadium in Brook Park.
“You need to know there is a better, and less expensive, option for the stadium,” he wrote in the letter to Republican Senate President Rob McColley and Democratic Minority Leader Nickie Antonio.
During an interview on Wednesday, Ronayne said he’s trying to make three key points: The Brook Park proposal is too risky, built on financial projections he doesn’t believe. A $1.2 billion renovation is more doable than a $2.4 billion new construction project. And the cost to the public Downtown would be roughly half of what the Browns are asking for in Brook Park.
His $350 million request mirrors what the state’s other NFL team, the Cincinnati Bengals, is seeking to renovate its stadium overlooking the Ohio River. That’s intentional, Ronayne said, noting that the stadiums are similar in age, design and location.
“Fair is fair,” he said.
RELATED: Bengals make mid-game push for stadium funding
The Browns declined to comment on Ronayne’s letter.
Team owner Haslam Sports Group has been lobbying for the Brook Park project at all levels of government, with hopes of breaking ground on a 176-acre site near Cleveland Hopkins International Airport early next year.
The team’s lease at Huntington Bank Field, owned by the city of Cleveland, ends in early 2029. That puts them on a tight timeline, with hopes of starting the 2029 NFL season in an enclosed, suburban stadium surrounded by mixed-use development and parking.
Since last summer, Ronayne has been pushing to keep the team Downtown instead.
Now he’s raising the volume, as state lawmakers consider make-or-break financing for the project.
On April 9, the Ohio House approved its version of the next two-year operating budget, which would let the state issue $600 million in bonds for the Brook Park stadium.
The state would pay off the debt, with interest, over 25 years using tax revenues from the entire Brook Park stadium district. The total cost would approach $1 billion.
The Browns say the state ultimately will make money on the deal.
RELATED: Browns reveal more details about Brook Park plans in a pitch to state lawmakers
But the state budget office and the Legislative Service Commission, a nonpartisan agency that helps lawmakers prepare and evaluate bills, recently raised red flags about the proposal. In letters released this week, they questioned Haslam Sports Group’s projections about the traffic, events and tax revenues the project will bring in.
The Browns pushed back Monday, saying the letters contain misinformation.
RELATED: State agencies flag Browns' stadium plans; Browns say analysis contains misinformation
Now the debate over the budget – and stadium financing more broadly – has moved to the Ohio Senate. Lawmakers hope to vote on their version of the mammoth spending bill by mid-June. After that, the chambers will resolve any differences between their versions.
The budget must go to Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature by June 30.
During a visit to Cleveland on Wednesday afternoon, DeWine wouldn’t say whether he would veto the bond financing for the Browns if the language makes it to his desk.
“I don’t go out in public and use the V-word, the veto word,” he told reporters after a ribbon-cutting for a new history center at KeyBank’s headquarters Downtown.
The governor said he’s not surprised by disagreements over the Browns’ projections.
“The controversy that we’ve seen in the last several days, where there’s been different estimates of how much money this would actually generate back to taxpayers, is certainly predictable,” he said. “We’re trying to predict the future, and it’s very difficult to do that. I think it’s one more reason, frankly, why it’s very, very important that we don’t take general-fund dollars to build stadiums or to fix stadiums.”
DeWine wants to double the tax on sports-betting companies’ profits instead. His approach would create a dedicated fund for stadium projects and youth sports education, using some of the money that Ohio gamblers lose.
The House scrapped that plan from the budget, but there’s a proposal in the Senate to resurrect it – with a tax rate of 36% instead of 40% on sportsbooks’ profits.
“I know that people in Cleveland, understandably, are focused on the Browns. I get that,” DeWine said. “But we have a lot of stadiums all across this state that either need to be rehabbed next year or the year after.”
He noted that the state traditionally has put some money into stadiums. And that’s a practice he supports – but he says the way Ohio pays for those projects needs to change.
“We have more stadiums today than we’ve ever had … and we used to be talking about 10 million (dollars) or 20 or 30 or 40 million. Now we’re talking about hundreds of millions. So we can’t afford that anymore,” he said. “But what we can afford – because it doesn’t cost us anything – to frankly, very legitimately tax the people who are making just a ton of money on online sports gaming. And that’s what we ought to do. And I think that’s what we’re gonna end up doing.”
He's not opposed to the suburban vision that Haslam Sports Group is pitching.
“I think it would be a good thing to have a domed stadium in Ohio,” DeWine said, noting that at least half of the money for the stadium would come from private sources – and the Browns’ plans call for roughly $1 billion in development around the venue.
“The Haslam family are putting a ton of their own money into this,” DeWine said. “So when we can get an investment of that much private money, not just in a stadium but other things around that, that’s always a very good thing.”
The Haslams are asking taxpayers to chip in $1.2 billion for the stadium, with half of the money coming from the state and half coming from local sources.
They want Cuyahoga County to issue $600 million in bonds to cover the local share – and to repay the debt using admissions-tax, income-tax and parking-tax revenues from Brook Park, plus money from a proposed 1% increase in the countywide tax on hotel rooms and a countywide fee on rental cars.
Ronayne says that’s an unreasonable ask – and the math doesn’t make sense.
“(Haslam Sports Group) keeps sending everybody at me to tell me why Brook Park’s a good idea. But I trust the facts. I trust our fiscal analysts. The analysis is it’s a bridge too far,” he said Wednesday. “The governor’s team has now advised him of the same. And the legislator leaders have now been advised the same. So we’ve all been advised by our fiscal analysts that this is not a good idea.”
His letter to Senate leaders didn’t say what form a $350 million state investment in a renovated stadium should take – only that it ought to be included in the budget.
“The Senate is deliberating the state budget right now through June,” he said. “So we’ve got about 45 days. And we needed to make our voices heard.”
Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb also continues to push to keep the Browns Downtown. In an emailed statement Wednesday, a city spokesman said the Bibb administration has been “abundantly clear” that the stadium should stay put.
“We appreciate the county executive’s advocacy and commitment to our shared goal of transforming the stadium on the lakefront,” the spokesman wrote.
