One of the most exquisite and ancient buildings close to the lake is historic City Hall, which houses the mayor’s office in downtown Cleveland. The massive and dilapidated Cleveland Browns Stadium, located one block away and across the street, looms in the distance, serving as a continual reminder to city leaders of both the past and the future.
Throughout the upcoming months and years, the steps that separate the two sites might act as a kind of battlefield. There’s a silent showdown under way that could only get louder.
A Browns owner and a Cleveland mayor have attempted to negotiate a stadium agreement before. Compared to the violent conflict between Michael White and Art Modell, this one will conclude very differently. There’s no way the Browns are going to leave the area this time. Following the 1995 Great Heist to Baltimore by Modell, laws were changed to guarantee it.
The Browns and the city, however, have been exchanging polite statements that haven’t really revealed much since the blog NEOtrans first broke the story about the Haslams’ interest in land near the airport and their practice facility as a potential new stadium site. This is because the original 30-year stadium lease is scheduled to expire after the 2028 NFL season.
Let’s be clear: I think the Browns want a new domed stadium, whether in Cleveland or one of the neighbouring suburbs. The team and the city of Cleveland continue to treat each other with civility in public. Even if it’s still a possibility, renovating the current stadium seems like a last resort right now, something they would only do if they couldn’t raise the money for something more ambitious.
Cleveland Browns Stadium is terrible, even by NFL standards these days. It’s a horrible place. When the team returned in 1999, the job was completed in a hurry. Some of the most expensive seats have horrible sight lines. There are not enough suites. There isn’t a single service level that stretches all the way around the stadium; none exist. When cars and people leave the stadium after a game, there are safety concerns. The concourses are excessively cramped and small. Not to add, when the winds whip in from Lake Erie in December, it’s a very terrible place to be. Everything about it is a mess.
