11 hours ago, KJP said:

I was at that media event at RTA today. I was surprised to learn there is no plan for an infill station between Brookpark and the airport stations for the proposed stadium. RTA GM Birdsong said the walking distance from the Brookpark station to the proposed stadium is about the same as from Tower City to the existing Browns stadium. But it looks longer to me and certainly less hospitable. 

 

Could this answer simply be because HSG hasn't approached RTA about it yet? It sounds like the NWSL team and metroparks reached out and have had discussions with RTA on their potential stadium site, but we've heard nothing about Jimmy considering any form of public transit. 

Edited December 13, 2024Dec 13 by PlanCleveland

8 hours ago, columbus17 said:

- Why can the city not go ahead and decline funding for the BP location and provide funding for Burke.

The problem is all the proposed money that the City of Cleveland committed to the lakefront stadium was based on admission taxes and the like that won’t exist without the team there. (If I’m understanding you correctly)

1 hour ago, Chris314 said:

No offense, but it sounds like you want the taxpayers to bend over backwards in cold hard cash for very soft "commitments" with no guarantees whatsoever.  This is a terrible framework.  The county has much more pressing concerns. In my personal opinion, they shouldn't get a penny from the county if they decamp to Brookpark, but even if there is some sort of public component, $500 million is stratospherically too much from Cuyahoga County.

 

Hah, it was just a thought experiment. If you read my other comments, you'll see I am not supportive of tax money for this. I am a little ambivalent on whether they build it or not without tax money. But if they do build it, right now it seems like Cleveland has the most to lose. So, are there ways to ensure that the city gets something?

It seems like the Airport Station is much closer than Brookpark Station, so if they're not going to build an infill station, maybe they could establish a connection to that one.  Maybe it would be too difficult given that station's integration into airport though.  If they are counting on using Brookpark Station, hopefully it's possible to add a pedestrian path next to the rail lines to make the walk closer to the distance as the crow flies (still wouldn't be the most pleasant walk obviously, but at least shorter).

 

It's disappointing that there doesn't seem to be much consideration of ToD with this project.  I've always been higher on the idea of moving the stadium here than most, mainly based on it at least being rail-connected, but if there's going to be no effort to make rail access convenient, that kind of vaporizes the best feature of this site in comparison to other non-downtown options.

3 hours ago, Boomerang_Brian said:

Why on earth would they build an infill station for a stadium that will be used 10-15 times a year? There is zero reason for RTA to put money into any rail extensions that do not immediately start generating big ridership (e.g. Clinic extension over Euclid Ave, which would be great). They are not in a position to “spur future ToD” when there is so much low hanging fruit for immediate improvement elsewhere. Even if this stupid waste of money gets built in Brook Park, I’d rather RTA add a Red Line infill station at Fulton or West 44. 

But but but....this place is gonna be hopping 365 days a year with the Taylor Swift residency and Pokeman conventions?  

if it were built out like they say, this could be like a bigger van Aiken. it would be a good stop from a red line node perspective 

1 hour ago, Ethan said:

Fair, but I think the original assumption, at least on this forum, would be that the mixed use district would be located near the new infill stop, thus justifying both of their existences. Ideally these would both also be near a new Amtrak stop, and a pedestrian bridge overpass to the airport. Perhaps overly optimistic on our part, but those three things would have more than justified an RTA stop. 

 

For that matter, if 3C+D happens, we might want a local transit stop to service the station anyway, so it could have been considered pre work in the hopes of that landing. 

 

To be honest, the massing for the proposed mixed use district have been wildly disappointing to say the least. I'm now hoping that part just doesn't happen. Keep public investment to a minimum, and don't pull business from downtown. Weirdly Cleveland would perhaps be better served if this domed stadium is mostly a flop. It would free up Lakefront land without pulling other non-football events from downtown. If the mixed use district doesn't happen, a good portion of the football restaurant traffic may still end up going downtown. 

 

That's not to say it still couldn't be done well, but I've seen nothing to this point to suggest that will be the case. 

Last time around, the 3C&D “airport” station was going to be at Puritas. It seems like the Brook Park station would be a better location - there was a good reason they selected Puritas, but I don’t remember that reason. When it comes to an airport station for the rail line, unless riders can walk from the rail station to the terminal, or there’s some form of people mover, a new passenger rail / red line infill station would not be any more useful than the existing book park station. Just give 3C&D riders a free transfer to the red line. (The CLE-Toledo-Detroit passenger rail route also uses these tracks as well as any future additional service.)

1 hour ago, acd said:

It's disappointing that there doesn't seem to be much consideration of ToD with this project. 

 

From all appearances, there has been virtually 0% consideration given to anything except for Jimmy Haslam's ego ever since Brookpark was considered an option.

1 hour ago, Boomerang_Brian said:

Last time around, the 3C&D “airport” station was going to be at Puritas. It seems like the Brook Park station would be a better location - there was a good reason they selected Puritas, but I don’t remember that reason. When it comes to an airport station for the rail line, unless riders can walk from the rail station to the terminal, or there’s some form of people mover, a new passenger rail / red line infill station would not be any more useful than the existing book park station. Just give 3C&D riders a free transfer to the red line. (The CLE-Toledo-Detroit passenger rail route also uses these tracks as well as any future additional service.)

 

The reason was because there was and is much more freight rail activity at Brookpark than at Puritas. There are 10-15 more freight trains here due to the Cloggsville Connection -- the two tracks built in 2000 or so around the north side of Rockport Yard and added tracks to near the expanded connection with NS's Lake District that goes through Lakewood and Avon Lake. Those trains plus some of the 50-70 trains on the Chicago Line stop in the vicinity of the Brookpark station to back-up into and out of Rockport Yard to pick up and set out freight cars there. It's a much busier location for NS.

My impression of what is going on here is that Jimbo has contracted the site plans and designs, promising a total $3B in development to sell the $1B he's requesting in public support. It allows him to (1) claim that the private investment will double the public investment and (2) promise jobs, economic activity, and tax revenue in the hopes that is betters his chance of maximizing the public funds and he has no real intentions of building anything other than the stadium and surrounding surface lots. 

 

If that's his grift, then any public dollars need to have claw-back provisions linked to employment and job creation targets and timelines. 

3 hours ago, Boomerang_Brian said:

Fair enough. I’d love to get a chance to vote against this stadium. That would bump my say in it up to one out of 565,000 (last election voter turnout).

True the may win and get all that they want and more but nd why make it easy and let them treat us like a doormat as when the French watched the Nazis steam rolled into Paris unscathed.  The Haslams and DeWine are shining us on with the new bs about a listening tour or fact-finding multi-day visit to Cleveland and now deWine introducing the new theme - it's a "process" - that he must folliow when the local media surprisingly pressed him a little for his position after all of this time while now pretending he just woke from a 20 year coma to now act as to be an unbiased observer when he is in fact an active participant in the ruse and grifting.

12 hours ago, columbus17 said:

Vivek cannot become gov fast enough. Dewine will happily hand over taxpayer dollars to this madness!

Anytime Vivek is mentioned I feel obligated to point out that he is only wealthy because he defrauded his investors. He is a con man. The grift is strong with that one!

keep it to the current events section

4 hours ago, Luke_S said:

My impression of what is going on here is that Jimbo has contracted the site plans and designs, promising a total $3B in development to sell the $1B he's requesting in public support. It allows him to (1) claim that the private investment will double the public investment and (2) promise jobs, economic activity, and tax revenue in the hopes that is betters his chance of maximizing the public funds and he has no real intentions of building anything other than the stadium and surrounding surface lots. 

 

If that's his grift, then any public dollars need to have claw-back provisions linked to employment and job creation targets and timelines. 

Sounds good on paper but is only table scraps once the team leaves. The same people now on their 2-day "facting finding" and "listening tour" all part of "following the process" process leading to a laughably unbiased decision will still be beholden to the grifter class and will have moved on from this issue if 20 years from now it is raised in a blog post.  At least in 1996 when Mayor White misplayed a winning hand with the NFL, he at least came away with a team in 3 years if we met all of the NFL's list of conditions (they really thought we woudn't follow thru but thanks to the Lerner family for righting a wrong that fateful day on the BWI tarmac we did).  Clawbacks and targets do not get us a team in 3 years only more disinvestment downtown and even less money in Cleveland coffers for its critical social safety net.

11 minutes ago, Willo said:

Sounds good on paper but is only table scraps once the team leaves. The same people now on their 2-day "facting finding" and "listening tour" all part of "following the process" process leading to a laughably unbiased decision will still be beholden to the grifter class and will have moved on from this issue if 20 years from now it is raised in a blog post.  At least in 1996 when Mayor White misplayed a winning hand with the NFL, he at least came away with a team in 3 years if we met all of the NFL's list of conditions (they really thought we woudn't follow thru but thanks to the Lerner family for righting a wrong that fateful day on the BWI tarmac we did).  Clawbacks and targets do not get us a team in 3 years only more disinvestment downtown and even less money in Cleveland coffers for its critical social safety net.

 

Yeah, I really think you missed the point I was making to post a rant you've already posted on this thread several times...

8 hours ago, acd said:

It seems like the Airport Station is much closer than Brookpark Station, so if they're not going to build an infill station, maybe they could establish a connection to that one.  Maybe it would be too difficult given that station's integration into airport though.  If they are counting on using Brookpark Station, hopefully it's possible to add a pedestrian path next to the rail lines to make the walk closer to the distance as the crow flies (still wouldn't be the most pleasant walk obviously, but at least shorter).

 

It's disappointing that there doesn't seem to be much consideration of ToD with this project.  I've always been higher on the idea of moving the stadium here than most, mainly based on it at least being rail-connected, but if there's going to be no effort to make rail access convenient, that kind of vaporizes the best feature of this site in comparison to other non-downtown options.

To be honest, why would the Haslams even consider getting more rail access to this site, when he is literally moving to be the sole receiver of parking revenue? Truth is he wouldn't. 

17 hours ago, Luke_S said:

 

Yeah, I really think you missed the point I was making to post a rant you've already posted on this thread several times...

...any public dollars need to have claw-back provisions linked to employment and job creation targets and timelines. 

Nah, I only inteneded to reply to the new subject you introduced about clawbacks and employment targets. Anyway, message received. It was a wild week of new news as KJP stated and we may not be succinct as the pros or many industry insiders here.

 

btw...one important comment to add to our new shorter reply format 😂 

We heard KJP the other night on 1100 radio on the Haslam/DeWine subject and we were impressed how well KJP does in that medium and format!  Clear voice and calmly responded with interesting details (news!) to each question from the host.  We really hope this leads to other live show opportunites about Clevelenad development for KJP's much needed voice in this market.  We first stumbled on KJP and NEOTrans who hooked us with unique columns and rare passion for all things Cleveland.  KJP unexpectedly reignited our passion after a lifetime away from this beloved and quirky city and we hope KJP can continue to expand their reach to the general population beyond the small circle here if Cleveland is to excel.

Thanks Willo!! 🥰

 

A Browns stadium quid pro quo
By Ken Prendergast / December 15, 2024

 

Two years before Gloria Gaynor released her 1978 smash hit “I Will Survive” about recovering from a breakup, she released another song titled “Let’s Make a Deal” — referring to a marriage. In the coming days and weeks, we’re likely to hear more about a similar plot line albeit in reverse involving the proposed new stadium in suburban Brook Park.

 

MORE:

https://neo-trans.blog/2024/12/15/a-browns-stadium-quid-pro-quo/

8 hours ago, KJP said:

 

A Browns stadium quid pro quo
By Ken Prendergast / December 15, 2024

 

Two years before Gloria Gaynor released her 1978 smash hit “I Will Survive” about recovering from a breakup, she released another song titled “Let’s Make a Deal” — referring to a marriage. In the coming days and weeks, we’re likely to hear more about a similar plot line albeit in reverse involving the proposed new stadium in suburban Brook Park.

 

MORE:

https://neo-trans.blog/2024/12/15/a-browns-stadium-quid-pro-quo/

In recognition (reluctant) of the horse-trading phase described above between Haslams/DeWine and Bibb (watching Ronayne wild card) - A modest gift to bulldoze the current 31 acres is not equal to multiple Brinks trucks of public money requested for the 176 BP acres.

The baseline should be $ to repurpose the current 31 acres plus + a sincere Haslam Family Foundation contribution to wider Lakefront development which Dee publicly championed before their sudden U-turn to Brook Park (Burke and neighboring CHEERS, etc.,). Just cut and paste what the Bills founder gave to Buffalo’s Lake Erie parks (and Detroit) and call it a day and move to BP: 

“In celebration of his birth and legacy, The Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation announced it is donating $200 million toward investment in parks and trails in western New York and southeast Michigan — $100 million for each region.” 

DeWine can help negotiate this and also add further State $ to revive forgotten and resource-poor Cleveland but always rich in legitmate needs (and work on Vivek and JD on Burke).

This is sounding like fiduciary malpractice from the governor. I appreciate Bibb working to get whatever he can to lessen the blow of the Browns leaving downtown, but the problem of pulling matching state funds for lakefront development as a consolation is it would pull funds from other projects or initiatives ODNR, ODOD, or ODOT is pursuing that have their own merit. If we were going to get those funds anyway then it's not really much of a consolation prize... In addition, the state will be pitching in $600M when they could have otherwise contributed only $250M is very hard to square. 

 

And that's all before other cities and counties look over to see what Cleveland/Cuyahoga is getting and (reasonably) put their hands out to get state funds for whatever project they want to get pushed across the finish line.

Wouldn't it just be easier, cheaper, and better for everyone if we just go back to the rennovated lakefront plan, have public money build mixed use parking ramp/retail/residential structures and let Jimmy keep the parking money on game days? 

52 minutes ago, Cleburger said:

Wouldn't it just be easier, cheaper, and better for everyone if we just go back to the rennovated lakefront plan, have public money build mixed use parking ramp/retail/residential structures and let Jimmy keep the parking money on game days? 

Absolutely. That said the gut feeling I've had all along is that public officials will cave in for some pretty flimsy concessions. 

6 hours ago, Luke_S said:

This is sounding like fiduciary malpractice from the governor. I appreciate Bibb working to get whatever he can to lessen the blow of the Browns leaving downtown, but the problem of pulling matching state funds for lakefront development as a consolation is it would pull funds from other projects or initiatives ODNR, ODOD, or ODOT is pursuing that have their own merit. If we were going to get those funds anyway then it's not really much of a consolation prize... In addition, the state will be pitching in $600M when they could have otherwise contributed only $250M is very hard to square. 

 

And that's all before other cities and counties look over to see what Cleveland/Cuyahoga is getting and (reasonably) put their hands out to get state funds for whatever project they want to get pushed across the finish line.

Yup, the the correct remedy to the state spending public funds poorly, isn't to spend even more money. The solution is either to spend less money, or to spend it smarter. If investing public funds in a stadium is a bad idea, it's still a bad idea when paired with a good investment. The spoonful of sugar approach is great for getting little kids to take their medicine. It's inappropriate as a governing strategy. 

On 12/15/2024 at 4:11 PM, Ethan said:

Yup, the the correct remedy to the state spending public funds poorly, isn't to spend even more money. The solution is either to spend less money, or to spend it smarter. If investing public funds in a stadium is a bad idea, it's still a bad idea when paired with a good investment. The spoonful of sugar approach is great for getting little kids to take their medicine. It's inappropriate as a governing strategy. 

Haslam is just following the formula for hosing taxpayers as done in Buffalo and elsewhere:

https://nypost.com/2024/12/16/business/gov-hochul-slammed-over-tax-funded-buffalo-stadium-after-bills-owner-pockets-billions/

 

16 hours ago, Willo said:

Haslam is just following the formula for hosing taxpayers as done in Buffalo and elsewhere:

https://nypost.com/2024/12/16/business/gov-hochul-slammed-over-tax-funded-buffalo-stadium-after-bills-owner-pockets-billions/

 

 

Might've been a bad deal for the state but it was a great deal for the county all things considered. If we could shift ownership of the stadium from local to state, that'd be a massive win for our region (financially), but Ohio would never go for that. Likewise, the NFL would never go for some type of profit sharing agreement that this article is kind of hinting at. I hope whatever public funding mechanism is developed comes up for a public vote, granted Jimmy and Dee know how to make their money work.

 

The bills went waaaay too fancy with the new stadium, but 1999 Browns Stadium is 10000x nicer than 1960's Bills Stadium. 

 

An aside: as a native WNY'er, the NY Post is never going to go along with any subsides for upstate, but that's not for Urban Ohio.

 

Edited December 18, 2024Dec 18 by GISguy

for those who might want to hear something positive about the browns stadium in brookpark...   🙃...   tim writes an article in forbes about how he likes the design...    cleveland browns daily host talks to the lead architect....

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timnewcomb/2024/12/18/cleveland-browns-stadium-design-truly-transformational-for-nfl/

 

https://youtu.be/ImpZhSblc6I?si=gjNWATsIeQWwHSwt

HKS partner Lance Evans named lead architect of Browns Brook Park stadium. https://www.crainscleveland.com/sports-recreation/cleveland-browns-name-lead-architect-brook-park-stadium-plan

Before I fall for a potential fishing scam; anyone get a text from GM polling to get survey responses about the new stadium. Anyone else get this and/or know if it's legit?

6 minutes ago, Luke_S said:

Before I fall for a potential fishing scam; anyone get a text from GM polling to get survey responses about the new stadium. Anyone else get this and/or know if it's legit?

 

I did too. My phone marked it as spam and I just deleted it.

I also received the survey. It’s clearly from Haslam and is one of the most biased pieces of market research I’ve ever encountered. 
 

it’s a direct link to Survey Monkey and doesn’t ask for contact info for anyone concerned about phishing. 
 

A couple of the questions directly challenge Ronayne and all the others are essentially looking for ways to position the Brook Park dome to make it a more favorable offer for taxpayers. 
 

Happy to share screen shots for @KJPor anyone else who might have interest 

I completed it and stood firmly against anything for Jimmy's Wally World. 

Thanks @Henke

 

For anyone interested:

 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JBXHTWC?tag=A132382

That appended URL may be specific to identify the recipient, my tag is different - which is to say each link is probably only good for one response 

 

My limited analytics knowledge suggests removing the tag= and following characters to submit your own unique response 

33 minutes ago, Henke said:

That appended URL may be specific to identify the recipient, my tag is different - which is to say each link is probably only good for one response 

 

My limited analytics knowledge suggests removing the tag= and following characters to submit your own unique response 

 

Seemed to work for me.

That was a great survey ☺️

Wow, that survey has some very leading questions. Your owner sucks. 

1 hour ago, Henke said:

I also received the survey. It’s clearly from Haslam and is one of the most biased pieces of market research I’ve ever encountered. 
 

it’s a direct link to Survey Monkey and doesn’t ask for contact info for anyone concerned about phishing. 
 

A couple of the questions directly challenge Ronayne and all the others are essentially looking for ways to position the Brook Park dome to make it a more favorable offer for taxpayers. 
 

Happy to share screen shots for @KJPor anyone else who might have interest 

Wow you weren't kidding. One of the most biased and potentially misleading surveys I've seen. And the Ronayne part was ridiculous. I love the question at the end asking where you get your news from so they can figure out who to add to the payroll. 

 

This section just felt predatory. I'm guessing their think was people won't read that first paragraph, and will answer each question referring to the question. Not whether or not it would make them more likely to support public funding.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Luke_S said:

Thanks @Henke

 

For anyone interested:

 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JBXHTWC?tag=A132382

Thanks. I took the survey and praised Ronayne and blasted the Brookpark stadium. That was fun. 

23 minutes ago, jeremyck01 said:

Thanks. I took the survey and praised Ronayne and blasted the Brookpark stadium. That was fun. 

 

If only there were space for free response...

i'll bet Haslem is counting the days that he can dump a bunch of money into the Cleveland Mayoral race and the County Commish race. He probably has a couple of Maga Morons ready to go. Just like he did with Vance and Moreno. 

you think a republican is going g to win a mayoral race in cleveland?

13 minutes ago, Whipjacka said:

you think a republican is going g to win a mayoral race in cleveland?

Money changes everything.

 

The most known secret in Cleveland is Griffin running against Bibb during the next election. 
 

Both seem to be on the right side of the equation at this point when it comes to the Browns stadium. It helps that Ronayne is backing the city as well. We’ll just have to see how things play out. 

59 minutes ago, Whipjacka said:

you think a republican is going g to win a mayoral race in cleveland?

Obviously he would or could fund the campaign of a challenging democrat, not a Republican. 
 

It would have to be a real sellout to go along with his agenda though 😂. 

Let's not turn this into a politics discussion.

I’m not talking politics, but was there any news that came out of DeWine’s meetings with Haslam and Bibb?

12 hours ago, Gordon Bombay said:

Wow, that survey has some very leading questions. Your owner sucks. 

Some people say this will create tens of thousands of jobs. Some people say this is the best thing ever for the region.
 

 

What were these questions 😭

Thanks for the survey link, I answered it too. What a terrible, terrible survey, it's not even trying to hide it's agenda. So wish it had a free response section though...

 

The fact they did this at all though seems to indicate they realize that they're losing the battle for the public's support. I'm guessing we're going to see a pivot in messaging here soon from the Haslem's side.

Odds that the results of this survey are made public? 

 

As many have already pointed out the questions are extremely leading. I know we have our own little echo chamber here, but when I've checked in on the comments on Instagram it seems most are against the move to Brook Park. I think (hope) they're not going to get the survey results they planned to. Not that I think it will change any decision making... They build it and fans will still come...