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| Gus Frangos spoke in 2017 before the City Club of Cleveland on the Cuyahoga Land Bank’s first eight years of existence, as it increasingly became more active in repurposing blighted land. Frangos led the land bank from its inception (Cuyahoga Land Bank). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM. |
One day after the Cuyahoga Land Bank won its largest score of Ohio Brownfield Program grants to repurpose blighted, long-fallow properties, land bank President and General Counsel Gus Frangos suddenly passed away.
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| City-owned Cleveland Browns Stadium has been the venue for the National Football League team’s home games since 1999. And after the team’s lease expires following the 2028 football season, city and now Cuyahoga County officials want the team to play there for another 30 years following a $1 billion renovation (Iryna Tkachenko). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM. |
Two Cuyahoga County leaders sent a letter today to Cleveland Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam urging the football team to keep playing at the stadium on the Downtown Cleveland lakefront rather than build a new domed stadium in suburban Brook Park. County Executive Chris Ronayne and Cuyahoga County Council President Pernel Jones Jr. said the Haslams’ Brook Park plan “does not make fiscal sense.”
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| In Downtown Cleveland, Bedrock’s Riverfront Development is planned on the Tower City Center side of the Cuyahoga River. But the riverfront land has historically been used for industrial purposes for nearly two centuries and needs to be cleaned up before new construction can begin. Cuyahoga Land Bank won $10 million to help make that happen (Adjaye Associates). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM. |
The Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corp., known simply as the Cuyahoga Land Bank, has secured multiple funding awards from the Ohio Department of Development’s Brownfield Remediation Program for demolishing more than 1,100 structures, mostly blighted single-family homes in Cleveland and East Cleveland. But there are also multiple funding awards it got for cleaning up polluted industrial sites so they can be redeveloped for new housing and jobs.
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| The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s Brookpark Rapid Station in suburban Brook Park could soon host a Greyhound and Barons intercity bus station, too. Negotiations are underway for an agreement among the transportation providers to make that a reality (Tom Horsman). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM. |
The Cleveland Browns aren’t the only one considering a move from Downtown Cleveland to suburban Brook Park. Now, it’s Greyhound/Barons intercity bus services that could move to the west-side suburb near Cleveland International Hopkins Airport.
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| Fifteen Cleveland-area businesswomen have joined forces to financially support the Cleveland Soccer Group’s bid for a National Women’s Soccer League expansion team. The investors are a who’s-who of Cleveland-area women business leaders (CSG). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM. |
Cleveland Soccer Group (CSG), which submitted a bid for Cleveland to be awarded a National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) expansion team, announced today that it is being backed by a group of 15 local, influential businesswomen as investors. However, the money they have raised thus far has not be publicly disclosed. If successful, this would be Ohio’s first women’s professional soccer team.
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| The Haslam Sports Group released this and other renderings today in officially announcing the proposed venue for Cleveland Browns’ home games in suburban Brook Park (HKS Architects). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM. |
One day after NEOtrans broke the news that the Cleveland Browns’ home games would likely be moved from Downtown Cleveland to a proposed domed stadium in suburban Brook Park (and why), the football team’s owner Haslam Sports Group has outlined what that could look like. However, the Haslams stopped short of saying it was a done deal despite their obvious enthusiasm about the Brook Park stadium-development.
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| This is a conceptual rendering commissioned by the Haslam Sports Group showing the future home of the Cleveland Browns in suburban Brook Park along with park- ing and stadium-area development, starting with a hotel, restaurants, shops and public spaces (anonymous). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM. |
A COMMENTARY
In the coming weeks, the owners of the Cleveland Browns will reveal their plans to build a $3.6 billion domed stadium and associated development in the Cleveland suburb of Brook Park. According to public sector sources familiar with the plans, owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam have their capital funding identified for the stadium and a small first phase of development.
Cost of the new domed stadium and the provision of about 20,000 parking spaces, almost entirely in surface lots, is estimated at $2.2 billion. Half of that will be privately funded and create new tax revenues that will fund the other half. Much of the funding for the stadium will come from bonds serviced by new stadium-related revenues and city, county and state taxes generated by stadium activities and employment. Another $1.4 billion in private, stadium-area development is planned.
The Haslams have reportedly identified their bond financing firm, a company with lots of experience in financing sports stadiums, arenas and entertainment venues. And they have hired their joint-venture construction management team for the Brook Park site — M.A. Mortenson Co. of Minneapolis and Independence Construction of Independence, soon to be relocated to Brecksville.
