The nonprofit that owns and repairs Cleveland’s ballpark and arena needs more money.
In Cleveland’s neverending stadium story, that simple sentence could have been written this week, in 2024, 2014 or 2004.
Twenty-two years ago, Gateway Economic Development Corp. negotiated more favorable lease terms with the Cavaliers and the then-Indians. Twelve years ago, voters extended a tax on alcohol and cigarettes to pay for repairs. And less than two years ago, Cleveland and Cuyahoga County coughed up $40 million for stadium work.
At its meeting last week, Gateway’s board exhausted all but about $300,000 of sin tax proceeds available for fixing up the Cavs’ Rocket Arena and Guardians’ Progressive Field.
The same day, the Cavs dropped big news. It wasn’t about LeBron James but about the arena’s scoreboards. The team plans to replace the hanging central scoreboard — a fire-breathing set of HD displays nicknamed the Humongotron — plus other scoreboards and the audio system at a cost of $37 million.
The team installed the scoreboard a dozen years ago, in October 2014. Antony Bonavita, the Cavaliers’ chief of venues, said those 12 years were like 40 in technology terms. The audio system “is incapable of supporting modern audio production,” a letter from the Cavs said.
Gateway’s leases with the teams require it to pay for certain repairs. The nonprofit already owes Dan Gilbert’s basketball team $4 million for elevator upgrades that the Cavs funded. New repair costs are coming for the ballpark, too.
“We will pursue this project with the urgency required so Rocket Arena can continue to provide the best fan experience in sports, and will continue to collaborate with Gateway and our public partners for long-term sustainability,” Rock Entertainment Group, the company behind the Cavs, said in an emailed statement.
Where will the money come from? No one seems to have a firm answer yet. Proposals to hike the sin tax or sales tax don’t seem to have taken hold yet.
“As you all know, there’ve been a lot of news articles about the fact that we have no money,” GiGi Benjamin, the chair of Gateway’s board, said at last Wednesday’s meeting. Then she rephrased herself: “We don’t have enough money to do what we need to do.”
Gateway is working with the teams, Cleveland, Cuyahoga County “and anyone else that has any ideas with respect to this,” she said.
In the meantime, she said, Gateway is hiring a scoreboard consultant to evaluate just how much of the Cavaliers’ project is the nonprofit’s financial responsibility under its lease.
As for new sources of money for Gateway, “there have been a number of suggestions,” Benjamin told reporters after the meeting.
“At this point,” she continued, “I don’t know where any or all of them stand.”
