Tensegral trusses that enclose the stadium will be visible from the exterior plaza. (HKS/Courtesy Cleveland Browns)
The Cleveland Browns franchise has shared new renderings of a forthcoming stadium complex designed by HKS.
The future Ohio stadium in Brook Park, next to Cleveland’s main airport, will replace the existing Huntington Bank Field completed in 1999 by Populous on Lake Erie, to the chagrin of many Browns fans, and airport officials.
The domed stadium by HKS will measure 377,000 square feet and be able to host up to 75,000 people.
It will have a much larger concessions area in comparison to the existing stadium, as well as expansive video boards on the interior and exterior, and a reimagined Dawg Pound, the historic section for diehards.
The stadium will anchor the 178-acre site replete with hotels, restaurants, and chain stores. (HKS/Courtesy Cleveland Browns)
From afar, the stadium will be defined by sharp angled pitches.
Tensegral trusses that enclose the stadium will be visible from the exterior plaza leading up to the stadium. Large curtain walls will comprise most of the facade. Lamellas will regulate daylight in the concessions areas.
Renderings show a stone-paved promenades lined with hotels, restaurants, and bars outside the stadium. Aerial views show the complex shrouded in a sea of parking.
The domed stadium will be able to host up to 75,000 fans. (HKS/Courtesy Cleveland Browns)
NFL games but also basketball, soccer, and concert events will take place at the future stadium in Brook Park.
The project backed by Browns owner Jimmy Haslam combines three, disparate parcels into a single 178-acre site that will host the stadium as well as a mix of residential, retail, and hospitality uses.
The stadium itself is estimated to cost $2.4 billion, and its accompanying mixed-use development will cost another $1 billion—a cumulative $3.4 billion price tag.
The Cleveland Browns and state of Ohio have agreed to split the cost, although agreements are still being ironed out between officials. Per reporting in WKYC, the Haslam Sports Group will finance “the entertainment district” and about half of the stadium design and construction, while the rest of project will be funded from the state and other tax revenues generated by the city of Brook Park.
(HKS/Courtesy Cleveland Browns)
The public-private financing has been as dividing a controversy as the architecture. Ryan Scavnicky, a Marywood University architecture professor from Cleveland, has vocalized criticisms of the proposed stadium for years.
In regard to the new renderings cache, Scavnicky told AN what HKS has proposed is “not a stadium, it’s a new mall—that [Jimmy] Haslam will own—attached to the big new taxpayer funded state of the art entertainment venue.”
Stone pavers will line the plazas leading up to the stadium. (HKS/Courtesy Cleveland Browns)
Scavnicky said the renderings amounted to placeholder “architecture slop,” and he called the exterior realm portrayed in them “some kind of urbanism yet to be determined by shareholders which is being pushed through uncritically.”
“I still worry about the interior glass roof being so delicate it seems it wants to retract when it can’t and that’s a bit of a tease,” Scavnicky said, before adding: “The legacy of the Dawg Pound—the cheap end zone seats which saw the rowdiest fans in the original Cleveland municipal stadium—is now fully commodified will undoubtedly miss the mark.”
Construction on the new stadium is slated for completion in 2029.