Thanks to a mountain of state money, the Browns are preparing to abandon their lakefront stadium at Cleveland’s Huntington Bank Field for a new stadium to be built in suburban Brook Park, 13 to 18 miles inland, depending -– a pivotal point –- on solving likely traffic congestion.
The proposed $3 billion, 175-acre Browns Brook Park project would include about 14,000 parking spaces, plus hotels, restaurants and housing.
But getting to those spaces may be a challenge.
Brook Park (population about 18,100 people) isn’t big. But it’s traversed or ringed by Interstates 480 and 71 and State Routes 17 and 237. These are very busy roads already used by:
*Travelers departing or arriving on flights at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, which adjoins the Browns’ Brook Park site. Through September, the city-owned airport had already seen more than 7.6. million passengers this year -- and is embarked on a major $1.6 billion rebuild aimed at attracting far more;
*Workers heading to or from countless Greater Cleveland job sites, including Brook Park’s two biggest employers, NASA’s John H. Glenn Research Center, named for Ohio’s late US. senator, the first American to orbit the earth, and by Ford Motor Co.’s Cleveland Engine Plant No. 1; and
*Out-of-region drivers heading to central Cleveland for business meetings or appointments with Greater Cleveland health providers.
These factors are among the stark evidence for why any discussion of transportation challenges cannot be limited to talks just among the Browns, Brook Park and regional planners.
In fact, as part of their recent $100 million settlement with the city of Cleveland, the Haslams agreed with Mayor Justin Bibb to work together to solve transportation problems. That was part of their announcement; it now needs to become true in practice.
Any failure to encompass the broader needs of Cleveland airport passengers and those workers, inventors and customers engaged in Greater Cleveland’s most critical high-tech, health care and manufacturing businesses would be a disaster.
Cleveland.com’s Rich Exner has reported that Brook Park wants $70 million in state transportation funds for road and pedestrian improvements at the stadium site, scheduled to open in 2029, with the Browns paying another $12 million. The $70 million would be on top of the $600 million in state aid the Browns got earlier with support from Brook Park.
Meanwhile, the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, a planning unit for Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain and Medina counties, may require a traffic study of the new stadium’s potential effects on road congestion before the organization OK’s road work. A NOACA decision isn’t expected before March.
But as our editorial board has previously editorialized, it’s imperative that any planning take into account -- and address -- the larger transportation challenges of this site.
Among the most important requirements, transportation designs must look to Cleveland Hopkins’ critical passenger transportation needs as it rebuilds; long-obvious deficiencies of the area’s highways; and what anyone who’s driven though the area has to recognize to be the need for distinguished landscape architecture to transform what is now a bleak roadside viewshed.
Yes, there are stark divisions among Greater Clevelanders about whether to build this new stadium. But if it happens, as currently appears likely, it needs to be done right. And that requires a broad conversation, detailed studies and an inclusive planning approach. It cannot just be about what the Haslams and Brook Park want but also what the city of Cleveland, the airport and the region need. And it must include a solution, finally, for the many obvious deficiencies of surrounding roads and highways, accomplished in a way that enhances, not mars, the image Cleveland presents to visitors.
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