It was a celebration fit for a Super Bowl – or at least a town hoping to host one someday. 

The Cleveland Browns kicked off construction of the $2.6 billion stadium this week in Brook Park with a ceremonial groundbreaking at the site of a former Ford Motor Co. plant. (The city’s former longtime mayor, Tom Coyne, who was in attendance, used to joke that Brook Park had two big cemeteries: Holy Cross and the Ford plant.) 

But new life is taking shape in the form of an 80-foot hole that will become Ohio’s first enclosed stadium. The ceremony itself matched the scale of the project, one of the largest in the region in decades. 

Giant construction vehicles branded in the team’s colors and featuring the Brownie mascot were parked outside a transparent, football-field-size tent with a vaulted roof. Inside, a large stage anchored one side; a lounge with macaron towers and soft couches greeted guests on the other end. A massive LED video screen displayed animation of the construction process and interviews with leaders in the Haslam Sports Group, the entity behind the team. 

Owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam invited hundreds, including elected officials, reporters, construction workers, and former and current Browns players. After an hour of interviews with guests of honor – including Jimmy Haslam, Gov. Mike DeWine and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell – team leaders and officials used shovels with guitar-styled handles to dump sand on a miniature replica of the new stadium. 

About two dozen seats were reserved upfront  for state officials, according to the tags on the chairs. The Haslams shouted out many Republican leaders by name – some were there and some were not — for their support of the project, which includes a $600 million state loan that is forgivable if the project meets certain economic goals.  

The event marked the end of a tumultuous several years for the Haslams. They began to sour on staying on the lakefront when Justin Bibb became mayor in 2022 and moved away from the lakefront plan pushed by former Mayor Frank Jackson. That plan was being partially shaped by the Haslams. 

Thursday was the Haslams’ day, and it made them the big winners. Here’s Weekly Chatter’s brief scorecard of winners, losers and tossups. (Always subject to change.) 

Winner: The Haslams. They are building a stadium that puts fans closer to the field and will bring the team owners more revenue and draw bigger attractions to the region. 

Winner: Taxpayers. Accustomed to paying a much larger share of stadium projects benefiting wealthy team owners, this deal requires the team owners to kick in 67% of the cost, a larger share than any current NFL project. 

Loser: Taxpayers. For some, one penny of tax revenue is too much. They are used to being burned by big promises and often forced to pay for repairs and upkeep on sports facilities in perpetuity. (Taxpayers are still paying financing and other costs related to the current lakefront stadium.) 

Winner: Construction trades. The stadium project creates real jobs and paychecks during the three-year building process. 

Winner: Destination Cleveland/tourism planners. Goodell suggested that Cleveland deserved to host another NFL Draft to make up for Cleveland getting shortchanged on the 2021 draft because of the pandemic. He was less encouraging about whether Cleveland is ready to host a Super Bowl.

Tossup (though leaning winner): Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne, who were not at the groundbreaking. Each of them in their own way fought to keep the team downtown to complement earlier investments. Now Bibb gets new acres to play with on the lakefront. But he will always get criticized for letting the Browns go without getting more than the $100 million buyout from the team. 

Ronayne, who represents Cleveland and Brook Park, stood strongest against the team, which could pay dividends with future voters tired of such public deals. But he’s lost some political friends and finds himself on the sidelines of a big economic development project. Plus, he will have to jump back into the game to do something with the county’s sin tax, which is falling short of covering repairs to the existing three sports facilities. 

Loser: Cleveland.com. The largest newsroom in the region, it was initially blinded by its own opinions and ignored the first signs that the Haslams were setting the stage to leave. 

Tossup (leaning winner): Brook Park.The city’s leaders have to ensure the details of the planned public-private authority overseeing the stadium protect the city’s economic interests. And it must keep traffic from overwhelming the suburb of modest sidestreets.

Winner: Martin “Party-With-Marty” Sweeney. The Democratic County Council member got to backslap at the ceremonial groundbreaking with politicians and Browns legend Bernie Kosar, while never having to get his hands dirty with a public vote on whether to give county tax money to the team owners.

Lights up

After copper thieves turned the Metroparks’ Red Line Greenway trail dark last fall by yanking wiring from light posts, the park system is ready to hit the switch again. 

Invoices show the Metroparks recently spent $10,000 on repairs. It tells Weekly Chatter electricians made design changes that it hopes will foil future thieves. (The Metroparks declined to describe the changes to keep any thieves from planning the next heist.) Last year, dozens of street lights in several parts of the city got hit. So surely the city should pay attention to what the Metroparks is doing as a possible solution. 

Feed me, Seymour! 

To avoid horrors on Election Day, voters who have not mailed in their absentee ballots yet for the May 5 primary should consider feeding them into the ballot drop box at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, advised Anthony Perlatti, the board’s director.

He said at a recent news conference that Senate Bill 293 prohibits elections boards from counting ballots received after 7:30 p.m. on Election Day – even if they were postmarked prior to the date. 

Elections boards can have only one drop box — but there’s nothing that says it can’t have two mouths. The county has added a second chute to the box to make it accessible by drivers from two sides. The box is available through 7:30 p.m. on Election Day. 

If you are fascinated by dropboxes, you can watch the live feed of the ballot box here.