County Executive Chris Ronayne took to the second floor of the Downtown Hilton on Wednesday to criticize the Haslams funding model for the $2 billion stadium site in Brook Park. Mark Oprea" class="uk-display-block uk-position-relative uk-visible-toggle"> click to enlarge County Executive Chris Ronayne took to the second floor of the Downtown Hilton on Wednesday to criticize the Haslams funding model for the $2 billion stadium site in Brook Park. - Mark Oprea
Mark Oprea
County Executive Chris Ronayne took to the second floor of the Downtown Hilton on Wednesday to criticize the Haslams funding model for the $2 billion stadium site in Brook Park.
On Tuesday, attorneys from Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, one of the most elite corporate law firms in Manhattan, filed a revised complaint on behalf of the Haslams Sports Group to make clear why exactly they want to move the Browns to Brook Park: the city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County did not do enough to stop them.
They didn't raise enough money for a lakefront makeover and stadium renovation, the Haslams argued. And from a purely legal point of view, Cleveland nor the county can stop them.
The filing came in a lawsuit over the Modell Law, the state statute enacted in 1996 to prevent another Browns move out of town. Haslam's lawyers argued it should not apply to sports team owners that are staying in the county and especially not to owners who for years tried themselves to bring life back to the lakefront.
We bought the Columbus Crew and kept them here, the Haslams argued. We met with Bibb in November of 2021 to host fair stadium talks. We entertained a choice between a suburban domed megapalace and an attempted renovation of a 25-year-old stadium by the water.
“If renovation of the lakefront stadium were indeed the priority the city claims it is, the city would have responded to the funding challenge with creativity and urgency,” the Haslams’ attorneys wrote in the complaint.
“But as months passed, it became clear to the Browns that it was imperative to develop a plan for a new home for the Browns that did not depend on significant public funding from the city,” it added. “Public funding that the city appeared to have neither the will nor the ability to offer.”
This new notch on the ongoing political battle between public officials and a sports team that seems unwilling to work with them has prompted Mayor Justin Bibb and County Executive Chris Ronayne to step up and defend—yet again—their position that it’s lakefront Browns or bust.
“They want to squander taxpayer dollars,” Mayor Bibb said in a statement on Wednesday, “to invest over a billion dollars into a domed stadium in Brook Park while openly violating state law.”
Like Ronayne and more outspoken members of City Council, Bibb attacked what seems to be a cloaked attempt by the Haslams to distance themselves from him. A lakefront plan was shown to them, Bibb said. $150 million in mostly federal dollars were secured. And the city would cover a half a billion. (Which was not a “viable proposal,” the Haslams' complaint said, “on which the renovation plan depends.”)
In Bibb’s mind, the Haslams' claim that $2 billion would be out of their own pockets, for both the stadium and its shiny new neighborhood, is just a sleight of hand.
Fans, he said, are the true source of funding.
“The Haslams need to raise your taxes, make it more expensive for you to attend games,” Bibb added, “and steal events away from Downtown Cleveland to pay for their stadium.”
The same sentiment carried Ronayne to the second floor of the Downtown Hilton on Wednesday afternoon, to lay out, in a highly-technical 30 minutes, why a Brook Park dome was, he said, “a risky bet,” and not a fully private investment as the Haslams have advertised it as.
Ronayne’s case, backed by his office’s financial analysis, pried under the hood of how the Haslams seem to be supplying their idea for $1.2 billion from the county and the state. Not via loans as some state lawmakers have framed it, he said—but by public bonds fueled by Ohioans.
The Haslams have “asked the county to risk its creditworthiness and its general fund on this project,” Ronayne told press in the shadow of Huntington Bank Field. “And my fellow citizens, I say to you that is a risk that we should not bear.”
Gov. Mike DeWine likewise has voiced his concerns, arguing that having Ohio contribute through $600 million in state bonds is risky. "That is a ton of money," he said last week.
To effectively cover the pricest bond issuance in the state of Ohio for a sports stadium, Ronayne said, the Haslams would inevitably have to depend on a range of tax hikes.
An admissions tax climb would have to match a climb in ticket prices. (Which currently average $166 a seat.) Money made off the Brook Park site’s massive parking lot would depend on that lot always being full of cars. (And charging at least $100 per spot.) And the Haslams would somehow have to lobby the Ohio General Assembly for a 1 percent increase in the state’s tax on hotel rooms. (Including the ones they want to build.)
“So you can hear a common theme,” Ronayne said. “An overly optimistic projection on the financial model that clearly puts this county at risk.”
In tandem with Tuesday’s filing, the Haslams have rested on both assurance they’re in the legal and financial clear and that—as a fresh rendering video showed off on Monday—their Brook Park Dome dream is so eye-catching that it’s worth all the funding that’s been proposed.
Whether it’s that “innovative transparent roof,” all the heart-pumping “sounds of gameday” in plush seats, those “unique club, concourse experiences” and all the bars, hotels and restaurants “not available at the current location.”
“In short,” a statement read, “our region deserves a world-class project like this.”
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