BROOK PARK, Ohio — Jamie Davis is a lifelong Browns fan who grew up on Cleveland’s East Side.
So at first, he wasn’t sure about the team’s proposal to move to Brook Park, to a 176-acre site where Haslam Sports Group envisions a new stadium and entertainment district.
“I’m such a purist for Cleveland and Cleveland sports,” he said.
But on Tuesday night, Davis was one of dozens of union leaders and laborers who came out to support the project, packing the house for a public meeting at the Brook Park Recreation Center. There wasn’t a peep of dissent in the standing-room-only crowd as the city’s planning commission voted to advance a rezoning of the future stadium site.
For Davis, it all comes down to jobs. He’s the vice president of IBEW Local 38, which represents electrical workers. And in Brook Park, he sees the potential for a win all around.
“It’s a domino effect,” he said. “There will be more development outside of this. And then Cleveland can keep developing, as well, as far as where the old stadium was.”
Team owner Haslam Sports Group recently bought the Brook Park site, a former Ford Motor Co. property that has been cleared and prepped by industrial real estate developers.
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Now the city is laying the groundwork for change, by creating a new, more flexible zoning district that will allow sports facilities, hotels, apartments, restaurants, retail, offices and parking while leaving wiggle room for other uses, including warehouses and healthcare facilities.
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“We want to make this right for everybody,” Mayor Edward Orcutt said. “We want to make this right for the visitors and the residents that live here in Brook Park.”
After winning unanimous approval from the planning commission, the rezoning will head to Brook Park City Council. Orcutt said there will be three readings of the legislation and additional public hearings.
The land-use changes are just part of a broader public process.
“We welcome our residents to come and ask questions, tell us how they feel – if they support this, if they don’t support this,” Orcutt said after the meeting.
On Tuesday, only one member of the audience stood to speak: Dave Wondolowski, the executive secretary of the Cleveland Building and Construction Trades Council.
“We urge you to move this out of planning committee tonight and to get this passed so we can get shovels in the ground and get this thing going,” he said.
Emma Varner, a member of IBEW Local 38, said a call went out to union laborers to show up at the meeting.
“The word was passed around, for sure, but it wasn’t anything mandatory,” she said.
A foreman for Lake Erie Electric and vice president of the Greater Cleveland Council of Tradeswomen, Varner hopes the need for construction workers will hold steady or grow over the next few years. She’s confident there’s enough skilled labor in the region to build a $2.4 billion enclosed stadium and $800 million to $1 billion worth of nearby development.
“We’ll find the labor to do all of it. For sure,” she said.
Mike Redlin, the president of Plumbers Local 55, echoed that.
“If we have work for the next 5 years, 10 years, that will make us very happy … We have a lot to offer. We have a lot to give to this project,” he said.
Browns executives made a brief presentation about their vision for the site, where they hope to start moving dirt later this year. They didn’t take questions afterward and fielded only a few from planning commission members. The hearing lasted 30 minutes.
“Look, I guarantee there’s a lot more work ahead of us than the work we’ve gotten done behind us,” said Dave Jenkins, Haslam Sports Group’s chief operating officer.
He said the Browns, who took a preliminary look at traffic and infrastructure issues on and around the site last year, are working on a deeper study. The results of that analysis should be available in the next few months.
“If we don’t solve or make this a tremendous experience, then we’re gonna fail, day one,” he said. “So we’ve put a lot of time and energy already into the site layout.”
Jenkins said Haslam Sports Group is laser-focused on the former Ford plant site.
“As of right now, we have not talked with anybody about any potential acquisitions outside of the 176 acres,” he said, in response to a question about whether the proposed stadium district could grow. “We also haven’t planned for any additional development that this could drive, by others.”
The team is still pulling together public and private money for the stadium, with the goal of starting construction in early 2026.
The Browns’ lease at the existing stadium on Cleveland’s lakefront is scheduled to end in early 2029. Haslam Sports Group is racing the clock, hoping to kick off the 2029 NFL season in a new Huntington Bank Field in Brook Park.
In addition to the stadium, the first phase of the project would include nearly 600 apartments; two hotels; a possible 40,000-square-foot event venue; and about 193,000 square feet of retail, with a mix of restaurants, bars and more traditional shopping. That’s based on a presentation the team showed at Tuesday’s planning commission meeting.
There’s also enough room on the site for 12,000 to 14,000 parking spaces.
Future phases of the development could include another 600 apartments, more retail, and nearly 500,000 square feet of office space – though that’s a long way off.
“The initial phase that’s scheduled to open with the stadium for the fall of 2029 is pretty set. … We’re gonna let the market dictate the rest of the development,” Jenkins said.
Whatever the project looks like, union workers like Davis see plenty of upside.
“We’re still Cleveland Browns. Even though it’s in Brook Park, it’s still Cleveland Browns,” he said. “It will be a good thing for the future. A good thing for everybody involved.”
