Negotiations over the Browns future stadium plans continue to be an evolving situation.
A week removed from the Browns releasing a statement last week expressing their desire to survey “additional sites” for future stadium, a new report from Signal Cleveland reveals that the team made an initial pitch to split a $1 billion bill to renovate the current stadium along the Lakefront with city and state governments.
The news comes from Nick Castele, who cites two city council members as sources. As Castele writes, at a meeting this past fall the Haslam Sports Group proposed a figure between $500-600 million in funding from state and local government to cover half of the renovation project. The other half of the estimated $1-1.2 billion project would be covered by the ownership group itself.
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This latest update comes on the heels of Ken Prendergast of the NEOTrans Blog reporting that Browns’ owners, Jimmy and Dee Haslam were nearing an agreement to purchase 176-acres of land in Brook Park about 1,000-feet from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. While there was no firm evidence that the plot of land is definitely going to be used for building a new stadium, the aforementioned statement from the team hours later seemed to suggest it’s at least a possibility.