coneflower

I’m not in favor of this but based on all the media coverage, it looks like Bibb and Ronayne played a weak hand as best they could but it’s time to start thinking about what comes next for the current site. Would the Haslams donate something to help with new lakefront development? Can they work their connections to get the federal funds already promised for the land bridge that the current Administration for sure will DOGE otherwise?

I would support public funding if the building could also be used for high school and college tournaments, free/low-cost soccer clinics for kids and other special events.

Hopefully the Cleveland soccer folks have a plan about how they are going to talk about and promote these leagues. Northeast Ohioans are going to react with a bit of annoyance/offense to getting two minor league teams when our peers have pro teams. I could see the logic in doing it this way since we don't have any teams at all. If we were growing faster with more international residents, it'd probably be easier. And if the team investors had more money, it'd be easier still! I think this is going to be a tough one to build a strong fanbase.

What does this mean? Was the a parking deck what was being contemplated?

Dewine’s comments in that article are interesting and lead me to wonder if he is more likely to like item veto the Browns’ money than I originally thought. He could use the Bengals asking for money as an excuse and say it’d be unfair or something along those lines.

So, are they just going to leave the Bengals hanging? I'm surprised no one from Cincy is down there saying they want their $600M too.

I don’t have a lot of confidence Dewine has it in him to veto the bill. I think we have one of the worst state governments in America.

Jason Kelce comes out as very opposed to moving the stadium 😆 https://www.instagram.com/newheightshow/reel/DH34ll-PPiQ/

What’s crazy about this is if he switched gears and said they’d renovate the stadium and showed people these renderings that are supposed to be so great, everyone would go nuts and be very excited. I guess it shows how lucrative this new stadium and development must be to them if they will suffer through terrible PR when a giant win is ready to go right now.

I t Doesn't Brook Park want the county to issue bonds on their behalf? Otherwise putting $400M on their credit card is a lot of risk for a small city.

The one thing that hasn’t been said is the city probably needs Republican help getting the federal money already awarded for the land bridge, assuming Trump is still illegally holding back funds in 2027.

I don't agree with the framing of this column but it does raise an interesting question. At what point does Bibb take whatever consolation deal Haslam is offering? https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2025/03/justin-bibb-battled-the-haslams-now-cleveland-needs-a-browns-exit-deal-leila-atassi.html The thing the column ignores is the county is more important than CLE right now because that's where the rest of the money is potentially coming from. Whatever Bibb were to accept would have to be done in concert with Ronayne and the county council. Based on the survey above, it doesn't seem like the county government has much pressure to give the team any money. It will be fascinating to see what happens if the state votes to give them money. I don't know if that situation has ever happened where state gives money local government doesn't want! Only in Ohio!

This will not be a popular sentiment but I’m coming to the perspective that we would be better off without this toxic team. This ownership is putting their personal profits ahead of the future of our entire region. We are in a place where every public dollar is precious for supporting our critical needs. If we blow a bunch of money on something foolish and decadent, we know no one in DC or Columbus is coming to help us when we need help paying for health, roads or schools later.

I'm curious what doing BP without county money looks like. Asking BP to put that on their credit card seems like a red line for the mayor there who says he must protect the city. Elon is raising all kinds of billions for his flunky app, so it seems like they could find $600M from the private market but I'd guess it'd be more expensive than the county doing it. Not an expert and would love to hear more about this!

I believe BP wants the county to issue the bonds on their behalf. Their mayor said that in a recent interview and I think that is where Ronayne is coming up with the idea that the county is liable for $600M in the Haslams’ dream world. If that were the case, BP would have to cover a variety of city services but the lion share of the project wouldn’t be on them. But the rest of the county shouldn’t shoulder it. Ronayne indicated that if they got the state money, the Browns have said they can do BP without the county. They clearly don’t want to, though.

I thought the mayor's response to the Haslams was strong. ^ The Haslams definitely don't have the public behind them locally or around the state. They are leaning almost entirely on their ability to influence Ohio Republicans to offer them freebies. Those elected officials are among the least responsive to voters in the country so I still think they have good odds of getting the money lol. @KJP, in your story your mention the money offered by Brook Park as a tax pass-thru. Based on my reading of past coverage, they seem to want the county to sell the bonds on their behalf because they have more capacity to borrow. Is that true? And if that's true, doesn't it put the responsibility for shortfall on future tax revenues in the hands of county taxpayers? Am I misunderstanding?

They don't have buildings with roofs where you can watch music or sporting events back East. It's quite sadly, really 🥴 Based on this CLE.com article, the county has a bit more leverage because Brook Park apparently needs them to offer the bonds to cover the cost, which they will pay back with hypothetical revenues. Which means if the numbers don't work out, the county is on the hook. This is like if your cousin comes up with some hair-brained business idea and asks you to sign for a $500K loan from the bank and give the money to him.

@KJP is the county tax that must be voted on required by the Haslams? That doesn’t seem like a slam dunk. Also if this development doesn’t bring in the revenue estimated, who pays for Brook Park’s missing share? The county has to pony up for that, too? So, BP still needs the county to sell bonds on its behalf to make it work?

Even if the state passes this legislation to give the Browns $600M, what leverage do they have on the county to chip in the $600M more they want? Do the state Rs make threats at Ronanye and Bibb like Trump with states that defy him? It would be a complete financial malfeasance for the local government to fund this at this time with the economic outlook so poor. Very few times do policymakers have the ability like we do right now to see bad economic tides coming our way.

They want to pick NASA apart and outsource the big stuff to SpaceX. I am supportive of jobs for Cleveland but we must be clear-eyed this is not good for the country, and it's depressing to me that our regional economic plan seems to be to scavenge for the crumbs that fall off a corrupt table. Do we seriously think this Administration is going to take this letter and say "Let's consider the options on the merits. Cleveland has great background in aerospace..." No, they are going to strip the agency down to nothing and figure out who will give them the most goodies to get the privilege of being home to an entity they have hollowed out. Gross! As you can tell, I'm pretty down on the direction our country is going 😆

I'm not sure if you're responding to me but what I'm talking about is getting the FAA to stand down when it comes to closing the airport so it can be developed faster. I'm not saying they will provide money for it.

This is the golden age of billionaire grift and Jimmy Haslam is 71 right now. Who knows what things will look like in 10 years. That said, it seems like a lot of obstacles are getting cleared away to close that airport with Trump. With the support of Jimmy and the statewide Rs, it seems like a pretty solid bet the FAA would find a way to make it easy and maybe they could get started sooner than anyone thought.

I just think it’s a bad idea to deconstruct the federal government and ship pieces/parts all over the country. I of course want jobs here in Cleveland and these folks gotta take a swing at it if it’s truly up for grabs. I am just expressing cynicism that I think this is a shiny object that distracts from the giant cuts to Medicaid, scientific research funding and academic freedom happening that are way more likely to have an impact on our regional economy.

Another Hail Mary economic play. This is as likely as Amazon putting their HQ2 here. Even if they did move NASA here, as unlikely as that is, the administration is arbitrarily laying off giant portions of their employee base and slashing budgets.

My concern isn’t traffic jams but distracted drivers running over pedestrians to get in and out of that location.