Not once has Gov. Mike DeWine publicly strayed from his belief that the people who live here must decide if taxpayers subsidize the Browns’ desire to abandon Cleveland for a new stadium complex in Brook Park.
“This is a decision that needs to be made locally,” said DeWine, when asked about the controversy prior to leaving Columbus for meetings in Cleveland last December. “We get involved in these things, but ultimately the local community makes the decision and decides which way to go.”
Case closed. Or at least it should be, as the local community’s preference is crystal clear. A recent letter co-signed by Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne and Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb shows neither want the Browns leaving Cleveland for a new, $2.4 billion covered stadium in Brook Park. The Haslams want taxpayers to supply at least $1.2 billion for a pricey campus development 12 miles southwest of downtown.
That’s more public money than it cost to build the entire Gateway complex. But unlike past deals, the public would get no ownership, no naming rights, no seat at the table. All the public would get is fleeced.
Greater Cleveland’s spineless business leaders have refused to take a position on the proposed Browns move. Where are all those CEOs who claim to care about urban revitalization? Silence is complicity. If Greater Cleveland Partnership CEO Baiju Shah and his board truly care about our future, maybe they should act like it.
Business leaders should understand what Ronayne and Bibb have known for months: If county taxpayers were given a voice on using tax proceeds to help fund this stadium deal, the result would be a referendum on the Haslams’ ownership. For them, the result would be catastrophic. The Browns brain trust surely knows this, which is precisely why team officials want to keep democracy off the field.
Cleveland’s future shouldn’t be decided this way with billionaires cajoling and pressuring behind closed doors. To his credit, the governor has refused to publicly side with the Browns owners, despite their generous contributions to Republican candidates and causes -- even when the causes they support are designed to undermine the democratic process and harm the fans they claim to care about.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell donned his tin-man outfit and visited Columbus on May 13, pitching the Browns plan and, without promising anything,dangling the mouthwatering prospect of a Super Bowl in the heart of Brook Park, Ohio. If that happens, we know for sure the Browns will be idle that day.
The Browns viewed moving to Brook Park as a viable possibility since the day they purchased an option on the land in the spring of 2024. Jimmy Haslam has a reputation for doing whatever it takes to get what he wants, even if it involves allegedly trying to defraud Warren Buffett. That makes him an ideal suitor for a legislature with a reputation that’s as bad as any in the country.
The Ohio House giveaway that would force Ohio taxpayers to guarantee $600 million in state-backed bonds is almost certain to be changed in the final budget bill that lands on DeWine’s desk. But it won’t alter the long and irrefutable history of public subsidies for new stadiums invariably falling far short of revenue projections.
And adopting a hybrid version of DeWine’s far more realistic proposal to help fund stadium projects by doubling the tax on sports gambling doesn’t mean Ronayne and Bibb will support raising local taxes to help the Browns add another $600 million to their mountain of taxpayer cash. So far, team officials are finding that exerting public pressure on politicians doesn’t work when no one likes you.
The new stadium plan calls for hotels, restaurants, housing and office space. But using tax money to move economic activity from one part of town to another is the most reckless and indefensible public policy imaginable. And one of the losers would be Cleveland’s downtown. Another might be small businesses in the nearby Cleveland neighborhoods of West Park and others.
What won’t be known for perhaps a decade is the extent of the downtown damage. By then, the governor, mayor, and most of the state legislators will have moved on. Some of the major players in this decision-making debacle probably won’t even live here.
But if time confirms the suspicion that $1.2 billion in taxpayer funds were used as a weapon against downtown Cleveland, the ramifications could be devastating.
The most significant downtown development project since construction of the Terminal Tower might be Dan Gilbert’s heavily subsidized Bedrock plan. This 20-year development, a $3.4 billion reimagining of the Cuyahoga River shoreline, is the planned home of 2,000 residential units, 850,000 square feet of office space, and 12 acres of parkland, with room for retail and entertainment venues.
If successful, Bedrock could transform downtown. It is a major investment in urban America, as opposed to a flight to the suburbs by owners of a professional sports team who care only about themselves and parking revenue.
Among some who genuinely care about Cleveland exists a fear the Haslam project could do enough harm to downtown that it leads to a downsizing of the Bedrock development. So local leaders today better be careful not to sign a downtown death warrant dated 2035 or beyond.
Mitchell Schneider is the founder of First Interstate Properties, a successful developer of multi-use projects in the city and suburbs. He is also a board member of the North Coast Waterfront Development Corp.
“In a zero population growth environment, retail and dining dollars spent in Brook Park would largely come at the expense of downtown Cleveland,” Schneider wrote May 5 in Crain’s Cleveland Business. “Moving the Browns to Brook Park may sound like progress, but it risks undermining Northeast Ohio’s economic cohesion while erasing what makes Cleveland unique.”
Ken Silliman held prominent positions for three Cleveland mayors in a 33-year career in city government, and served for years as a longtime member and chair of the Gateway sports complex board. It’s difficult to imagine anyone caring more about Cleveland and its future than Silliman.
“My issue with the whole concept of this Brook Park plan is there is no public purpose for financing this project,” Silliman told me. “There’s not going to be this flowering of hundreds of other events. It doesn’t add to the economy. But if they (the Haslams) pull it off they will be draining tax money from Cleveland.”
This is about more than a football stadium. It’s about the future of a city and its downtown. It’s about not risking a city being sacrificed on the altar of private profit.
Brent Larkin was The Plain Dealer’s editorial director from 1991 until his retirement in 2009.
To reach Brent Larkin: blarkin@cleveland.com
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