Haslams reportedly eyeing a domed stadium in Cleveland suburb

Browns owners exploring the options between renovating the current stadium or building a domed stadium in Brook Park.

The Cleveland Browns are reportedly studying the idea of having a domed stadium built in the Cleveland suburb of Brook Park.

That is according to owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam, who spoke with the media on Monday at the NFL’s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.

Previously, the Haslams were open to the idea of renovating Cleveland Browns Stadium, which was hastily built in the late 1990s and is lacking in many of the amenities that attract the corporate crowd (i.e. money) to games. But with their eyes on 176 acres of land near Cleveland Hopkins Airport, the Haslams are now thinking that a domed stadium might be the way to go.

While no decision has been made one way or another if they do decide to pursue a domed stadium, it would be to make the experience better for fans, said Jimmy Haslam, according to cleveland.com’s Mary Kay Cabot:

“I think it’s important to understand the goal is to come up with the best experience we can for our fans, and yet it still has to make sense financially. And so balancing those two things is something we’re working carefully on and putting a tremendous amount of effort into.

“We’re completely open-minded. We’ve got to really let both options play out and see what makes the most sense. We meet probably every other week with a group of our top people and we are working hard on it, but it’s complicated. It’s hard.”

The Haslams stated that renovating the current stadium, which has its issues with access, parking, and a general blandness, would cost around $1 billion. In February, a story in Signal Cleveland reported that the Haslams approached Cleveland city officials last fall with a similar number, asking that the city pitch in between $500 million and $600 million to the renovation project.

There was no dollar amount tied to the domed stadium plan, although the Tennessee Titans are in the process of building a domed stadium in Nashville that is projected to cost $2.1 billion. The Buffalo Bills are in the process of building an open-air stadium that initially was going to cost $1.4 billion but had already seen $300 million in cost overruns, pushing it to $1.7 billion, according to an Associated Press story from last August.

So with the realistic expectation that construction costs will only rise in the future, it is not unreasonable to expect a domed stadium in Cleveland to cost in excess of $2.1 billion.

In terms of newer stadiums, the Browns are falling behind the rest of the league as in the past 10 years, the Las Vegas Raiders (2020), Los Angeles Rams (2020), Los Angeles Chargers (2020), Atlanta Falcons (2017), Minnesota Vikings (2016), and San Francisco 49ers (2014) have all moved into new homes.

The Browns current stadium lease does not expire until 2028, and Jimmy Haslam said the lease could be extended by a year or two if needed. He also said the club will decide on which direction to go sometime in the next couple of years.