The Guardians and Cavaliers are hoping to tap the same pool of state money that is paying for the Browns’ new stadium in Brook Park.
Cleveland’s professional ball club and basketball team have applied for $105 million from Ohio’s pot of unclaimed funds for repairs and updates at Rocket Arena and Progressive Field. The state money comes from old bank accounts, undeposited paychecks and other payments that never reached their intended recipient.
The teams are seeking the money with support from the Gateway Economic Development Corp., the nonprofit that owns and pays to repair the two facilities.
Gateway “enthusiastically supports the Cavaliers’ and Guardians’ Grant Program requests and ultimately will be the beneficiary, along with Gateway’s public partners, the City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, of the capital improvement renovations when completed,” Executive Director Todd Greathouse wrote in a Jan. 30 letter to the state.
There’s reason for that enthusiasm. Ongoing repair costs at the three-decade-old facilities have largely exhausted Gateway’s usual source of money for repairs, Cuyahoga County’s sin tax on alcohol and cigarettes. That has sent Gateway seeking money elsewhere — including $40 million from Cleveland and the county in 2024.
At the arena, the dollars would support $40 million in repairs and upgrades in anticipation of Cleveland’s new WNBA team, according to Gateway general counsel Scott Simpkins. The Guardians have asked for $65 million for work at the ballpark.
The grants could fund up to a quarter of the total project costs of $161 million at the arena and $259 million at the ballpark, Simpkins told reporters after Gateway’s board meeting Wednesday.
That’s if the state’s plan survives a legal challenge. In January, a Franklin County magistrate extended a temporary restraining order holding up the state’s payment to the fund that would support sports facilities. The order stemmed from a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of repurposing the unclaimed funds. The case is ongoing.
Even if the teams were to win the money, Gateway wouldn’t be entirely off the hook. The nonprofit would likely pay for repairs up front, drawing down reimbursements once the work is done, Simpkins said.
Curtis Danburg, a spokesperson for the Guardians, wrote in an email to Signal Cleveland that the team would use the money for “projects necessary to preserve and modernize Progressive Field—Ohio’s oldest major professional sports facility—for the remaining 11 years of the approved lease.”
Rock Entertainment Group spokesperson Zach Abaie wrote that the Cavaliers’ grant would “ensure the arena’s readiness to welcome the return of the WNBA to Cleveland in 2028, while serving as home to three professional franchises and supporting a full year-round sports and entertainment calendar.”
Stadiums claim Ohioans’ abandoned payments
When state lawmakers set aside $600 million unclaimed funds for the Browns last year, they also designated $400 million for other professional sports facilities. The state is giving that money out through a competitive grant program.
Guardians executive Neil Weiss said he doesn’t expect to hear if the team’s application succeeded until this summer.
Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne had criticized using unclaimed funds for a new Browns stadium. But he said Wednesday that he didn’t fault the Cavaliers or Guardians for going after money that the state is making available for them.
“I disagreed with that source for the Browns stadium,” he said in an interview. “But I do understand, because the legislature approved it and the governor has built a fund from that, I do understand the other sports teams’ desire to draw on that — because if not them, then somebody else.”
Introducing state funds into the mix might reduce the burden on local taxpayers to keep the buildings up, he said. Even so, Ronayne, the teams and the Greater Cleveland Partnership have been talking about asking voters to quadruple the county’s sin tax, he said.
“I think the Gateway district is a real Cleveland treasure, and it was built to last, and we’re going to have to steward it if we’re going to keep it here,” he said.
Read Gateway’s letter below: