Is $100 million enough to make up for losing the Browns from Cleveland’s lakefront?
That was the fundamental question that Cleveland City Council posed to Mayor Justin Bibb and his staff during a three-hour hearing Monday. The mayor himself took a seat at council’s committee table — a rare move — to sell the deal that he and team owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam announced last week.
The settlement calls for the Browns to pay to demolish the lakefront stadium, hand over $25 million in December for lakefront development and give the city another $45 million in the coming years. The city and the team would drop the lawsuits they have filed against each other over the move, removing an obstacle that stands between the Browns and a new Brook Park stadium.
Bibb and his administration said that the Browns could have left without paying Cleveland anything. The $100 million deal was better than leaving Cleveland’s fate up to the Ohio Supreme Court, which could eventually hear appeals of the stadium lawsuits, the mayor argued.
“I’ll be very frank: I’m willing to take the political hit,” Bibb said. “Some will say, ‘Mayor Bibb sold us out.’ Some will say, ‘Mayor Bibb should have got us $300 million or $700 million.’ Those are all great what-ifs. If I saw a path to get us $700 million, I would have fought like hell to get it.”
He said that the state legislature undermined the city in its negotiations with the Browns. One, the lawmakers gave the Browns $600 million toward a new $2.4 billion stadium in Brook Park. Two, they rewrote the so-called “Modell Law,” which gave the city some leverage over a departing team.
Bibb sold the settlement as a “pragmatic deal” that would open up the lakefront to activity year-round, not just during Browns home games.
“Unfortunately, we were dealt a bad hand,” he said. “And now we have to pick ourselves up and fight for a new chapter for our city, because our residents deserve it.”
Council members pressed Bibb and his staff to explain how negotiations unfolded, how much the settlement will really net the city and what role the Browns will play in lakefront development.
They also bemoaned the fact that the billionaire Haslams appeared to be getting their way.
“From the White House to Lake Erie, billionaires are pretty much running the show and deciding what happens at all levels of government, and I think it’s discouraging,” Council Member Kris Harsh said.
Two council members, Michael Polensek and Brian Kazy, revealed that Jimmy Haslam had called them this past weekend. Polensek compared the settlement to a quarterback choosing not to run a play despite being inches from the end zone.
“If we give up the lawsuit, we take a knee,” he said.
Council will hold more discussions on the settlement more before voting on it, Council President Blaine Griffin said.
Here are some takeaways from Monday’s hearing.
Deal came at the ‘last minute,’ law director says
Cleveland hired the law firm Jones Day to press the city’s case for keeping the Browns on the lakefront. But even if the city had won its court fights over the Modell Law, that only would have provided a window of time in which investors would have the chance to buy the Browns, Law Director Mark Griffin said.
Negotiations between the city and the team were sometimes friendly and sometimes adversarial, the law director said. Sometimes the talks came to a halt, he said. Discussions happened between lawyers and in mediation sessions.
“There was never $100 million on the table until this very last minute,” the law director said, adding that he couldn’t divulge details from mediation. “I don’t think there’s a penny more that’s there. There was never more than $100 million that was even reasonable.”
How much is $100 million worth, anyway?
Council members probed whether the $100 million was all that it appeared to be.
If the settlement is approved, the city will receive cash in batches over the years. The first $25 million is due in December. After that, $25 million will come in $5 million increments between 2029 and 2033. The Browns will pay another $20 million over 10 years, beginning when the lease terminates in 2029.
Because of inflation, the Browns’ payment in 2025 will have more buying power than the cash coming in subsequent years. Council Member Charles Slife asked what the true value of the settlement was in today’s dollars.
Jessica Trivisonno, who works in the mayor’s office, replied that the $100 million settlement is worth $87 million in 2025 money.
The settlement won’t relieve the city of its stadium costs between now and 2029. At the start of the year, Cleveland still owed $32.9 million on the stadium’s original construction. On top of that, the city is still on the hook to pay for repairs using money from the Cuyahoga County sin tax on cigarettes and alcohol.
The Browns’ role in Cleveland developments
Under the deal, $50 million of the $100 million would support Cleveland’s lakefront. The team would also cover the cost of knocking down the stadium and making the land ready for future development. Demolition is currently estimated at $30 million.
The deal also calls for the Browns to assist with redeveloping Burke Lakefront Airport, which the Bibb administration wants to close. A summary of the settlement terms doesn’t go into detail on how the team might help with that.
Asked about that portion of the deal, Chief of Staff Bradford Davy said that the Haslams had shown themselves “adept at navigating” the state government and President Donald Trump’s administration. The city should take on such partners in its work to remake Burke and the lakefront, he said.
Matters of the heart
Kazy captured Cleveland’s tortured relationship with its woebegone NFL franchise. He likened the settlement to a dance with the devil. He said the team’s shoddy record had brought “nothing but absolute misery” to the city.
On the other hand, he compared the Browns to a girlfriend who had lost interest in her former love.
“Common sense tells you, ‘Let her go and never think about her again and move on,’” he said. “But your heart tells you that that team belongs in the city of Cleveland.”