CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The city has agreed to give the Cleveland Browns a $5.8 million lump sum for stadium repairs, but public officials worry about the source of such payments after a countywide tax for maintaining the building runs out in 2015.
City Council voted 16-2 Monday to let the team take the money from a city-administered tax on alcohol and tobacco sales. Cleveland, which leases the stadium to the football team, is required to provide only $850,000 a year for major improvements.
Browns general counsel Fred Nance, who represented the city when the lease was negotiated, said $850,000 was a compromise at the time the agreement was drawn up. He said the amount, equal to less than 1 percent of the building's $300 million construction cost, is not nearly enough to cover what he termed routine work.
The Browns want to use the nearly $6 million to refurbish seats and replace, repair and waterproof concrete inside and outside the 12-year-old building. Osborn Engineering's Jack Krebs, hired by the team, blamed Northeast Ohio's often severe winters for the damage.
"It's the climate we're in," he told the council during an afternoon hearing. "What I see here is not uncommon."
The Browns, sensitive to criticism of the team's deal with the city, came to the hearing armed with a breakdown of money it has invested in the stadium and the community.
Included were $74 million contributed to the construction, another $50 million paid for features such as escalators, a restaurant and team shop and more than $30 million spent on cleaning and other everyday maintenance. The team also detailed more than $2.9 million donated to community programs and sports facilities.
Ken Silliman, chief of staff to Mayor Frank Jackson, said the city reviewed the repair plans and confirmed the need. The agreement approved Monday is supposed to free the city from its repair obligations for seven years, but Silliman would not rule out tapping sin-tax money again during that time if necessary.
"We own Cleveland Browns Stadium," he told the council. "When you own a building and a few years go by, it starts to develop needs. It's just like when you own a home."
The so-called sin tax took effect in 1990. Voters initially approved the tax to finance Progressive Field and The Q, then extended it for 10 years, starting in 2005, to build and repair Cleveland Browns Stadium.
The ballot issue required that the first $87 million from the extension pay a portion of the stadium construction costs.
After the cap is reached this year, the next $29 million must be applied to repairs previously paid for out of the city's general fund. Silliman estimates that the sin tax will raise about $31 million through 2014.
Cleveland's obligations for stadium repairs will spike from $850,000 to $5.9 million a year in 2021. The amount will continue to rise annually, reaching $7.1 million before the lease runs out in 2025.
City Council members called for working with Cuyahoga County leaders to renew the sin tax for a second time. The discussion may be complicated because there's been talk of renewing the tax for fixing The Q and Progressive Field, which opened in 1994.
"We have to go back to voters for a conversation to extend that sin tax." Councilman Zack Reed said. "There's no other way around it,"
Silliman said Jackson is determined not to use more money from the city's general fund for stadium repairs. The chief of staff would not commit to a specific source of revenue to fund the work but said the sin tax is among the options.
Whether the argument against the city of Cleveland hosting a Super Bowl are rooted in weather or amenities, WKYC’s Eric Mansfield writes that the outlook for Cleveland Browns Stadium hosting the NFL’s annual big event may not be as bad as some say.
High marks for Indianapolis as the host of Super Bowl XLVI — a first for that city — may set the stage for other cities to have a shot at the NFL’s biggest prize. [...]
The league’s decision to host the 2014 game in New Jersey — a first with an outdoor stadium in a cold-weather town — could mean cities like Cleveland will eventually get stronger consideration.
Mansfield adds that the city’s accoutrements have increased handedly and will continue to do so with the construction and opening of the riverfront casino. Factor in attractions such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and the recently opened aquarium, and those within the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission feel that Cleveland could be a legitimate hosting city.
The 2016 Super Bowl (L) is widely speculated to be destined for one of the NFL’s founding cities — a list that includes Cleveland, OH.
In order to make repairs to their stadium, the Cleveland Browns are asking the city of Cleveland for $5.8 million, a six-year advance of the money that the team collects annually.
Currently, the city sets aside $850,000 a year to help pay for repairs to the stadium and while this proposition would exempt the city from paying that amount for six years of their 30-year lease, there’s no guarantee – yet – that the team won’t just ask for additional money in that time.
It’s a request that certainly comes at an interesting time. The Browns aren’t exactly putting a great product out on the field, and asking for $5.8 million up-front is sure to rub fans – and non-football fans in Cleveland – the wrong way.
Nevertheless, it might be worth putting up that money, as the sin tax – which helped build Cleveland Browns Stadium and will begin paying for repairs starting this year – expires in 2015. After that, the city must figure out another way to come up with the money. Paying $5.8 million of it now would at least give them extra time.
As of right now, that proposed payment includes $1.2 million that would go toward refurbishing club seats on the north and south sides, along with the east end zone. Another $750,000 will go toward waterproofing the concrete under those seats.
The rest of the $5.8 million would be used to repair and replace the concrete on ramps, walkways, and a plaza outside Cleveland Browns Stadium.
7.30pm, Sunday 14 August 1966 (45 years ago), I was at Cleveland Municipal Stadium anxiously waiting for the Beatles to take the stage that was located on top of second base.
The third date of The Beatles' final tour took place in Cleveland, Ohio, where they performed one concert before 20,000 people.
Support acts for the entire tour were The Remains, Bobby Hebb, The Cyrkle and The Ronettes. The show was temporarily halted during The Beatles' fourth song, Day Tripper, when 2,500 fans invaded the baseball field. The group spent some time backstage before order was restored.
August 14, 1966
One of the wildest shows took place at the Municipal Stadium in Cleveland - where the crowd broke loose, crashed through a four-foot security fence and invaded the field during Day Tripper. Hopelessly outnumbered and overwhelmed, the local police simply gave up and stood back while hordes of fans took control of the stage and the 'secure' grassy area around it. The boys rushed off to their makeshift dressing room - a caravan/trailer parked behind the stage - and the concert was stopped for 30 minutes while private guards and police reinforcements restored order. At the end of that show roadie Mal Evans had to stop fans from stealing the boys' instruments from the stage as souvenirs.
After the concert The Beatles stayed in Cleveland. The following day they flew to Washington, DC.
Cleveland Stadium, also known as Lakefront Stadium and Cleveland Municipal Stadium, was normally used for baseball and American football matches. It was demolished in 1995 and the Cleveland Browns Stadium was built on the site.
CLEVELAND – From the old wooden bar at Flannery’s Pub you can look out the big front window, across Prospect Street and the East 4th parking lot, and see Quicken Loans Arena, former home office of LeBron Raymone James.
Late Sunday night, a crowd of Clevelanders gathered here to watch their onetime hero turned all-time traitor, and with each disinterested LeBron offensive possession, each failed LeBron chase down of Jason Terry,each embarrassing LeBron crunch-time turnover, the prevailing emotion was simple.
Laughter.
They weren’t hating LeBron here. They were laughing at him.
LeBron started it, of course, laughing at Cleveland nearly a year ago when he took himself to a Boys and Girls Club in Connecticut of all places to announce on national television that he was taking his talents to South Beach. That South Beach has about a million nightclubs and technically no basketball arena said it all.
So on Sunday, Cleveland laughed right back.
All over Flannery’s and places like it across Ohio, they cracked oft-told jokes. (“I asked LeBron for a dollar, he gave me 75 cents back. He doesn’t have a fourth quarter.”) They showed pictures on their cell phones mocking LeBron as a quitter. Bartenders rang bells and shouted things like, “Last call for LeBron.”
They mostly reveled in the beauty of a night right out of their wildest dreams, LeBron coming up small on the biggest of stages, standing around as lesser talents on the Dallas Mavericks blocked his shortcut to a NBA title, winning the game 105-95, the series 4-2.
This was the girlfriend that dumped you getting dumped herself – only live in HD while an entire city toasted her comeuppance.
“He can’t blame the supporting cast,” Cavs fan Keith Clapacs said. “He can’t blame Mike Brown. There’s no excuses. Ball’s in your hand and you didn’t do it. It’s your elimination game, and Jason Kidd is diving on the floor for loose balls? You’re losing the hustle plays, committing turnovers?
“It’s the whole too-cool-to-care thing. He was too cool to care.”
From Miami, LeBron would later send his message to them, to the folks enjoying his failure.
“At the end of the day, all the people that was rooting on me to fail – at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today,” James said. “They have the same personal problems they had today …
“They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal, but they have to get back to the real world at some point.”
A sentiment to which Ryan Smith, an insulation installer from Mentor, Ohio, with a Jameson on the rocks in front of him, offered this simple response:
“[Expletive] LeBron James.”
Perhaps there’s no greater example of the life of a Cleveland sports fan than watching a series not involving your team so you can root for someone to lose.
No city has lost like this one, not a single major professional sports championship since 1964, when the Browns won a pre-Super Bowl NFL title. You’d have to be in your mid-50s to remember it. Cleveland’s modern sports memories are defined in short terms, as if elaborating is just too painful: The Drive, The Fumble, The Shot, The Move and, of course, The Decision.
You want collapses? The 1997 World Series is as bad as anything the Cubs or Red Sox ever dealt with. It’s just this city doesn’t have the media poets to chronicle it like Chicago or Boston. You want the true gut punch? Their beloved Browns moved to Baltimore only to finally get their act together and win a Super Bowl.
And then there was this, LeBron James, the local kid from Akron, the one who claimed he understood your heartache, the one you defended for years, the one that was finally going to deliver sporting glory. He bails for some fair-weather sports town and an arena full of white-covered chairs with pretty people who can’t even be bothered to watch the game while it’s going on.
So, yeah, when LeBron James’ dream gets delayed, you bet you’re going to get regional schadenfreude like nothing we’ve ever seen.
Yet LeBron’s take, the same one that too often has been bandied about nationally, doesn’t begin to understand the emotions in Cleveland.
It’s too trite and small to view Cleveland as some bottomed-out, post-industrial postcard to the past. These aren’t all people trapped in awful times or terrible circumstances or living small lives in jealousy of LeBron’s big one.
There’s money here. There is success in Cleveland. There is contentment. As sure as there are poor in Miami, as sure as the VIP area of the Mansion Nightclub isn’t the full reality of South Florida, neither is some boarded-up East Cleveland warehouse the story here.
There are doctors and lawyers and entrepreneurs and financial planners and artists and teachers and dreamers and, yes, insulation installers. (“In the column can you mention the company, Pure Seal Inc.?”)
There are happy families and neighborhoods and the American Dream in full view. There are plenty of people who don’t have any personal problems who are quite content to keep their talents in Cleveland, a place they love just the way it is.
“We get a bad rep,” said Pawel Wencel, who happily moved back from Washington, D.C., and watched the game at Flannery’s. “It’s not New York. It’s not L.A. And we don’t want it to be.”
Why New York or L.A. can never seem to get that is anyone’s guess.
The distaste for James didn’t come solely from the desperate and the depressed, and to suggest as much is to miss the entire point, to insult the entire region all over again.
The “bitter” storyline has been told so many times that fans here are as sick of it as they are LeBron. There’s been an overcorrection of late, a trend to say they are over LeBron, that they are better than to bother with him.
That’s not honest either, though. This mattered. No one should have to apologize for it.
It’s not just how LeBron left but how he operated when he was still here. He talked such a big game. He promised to end the title drought. He gave them all those endless playoff runs, all those spring nights of entertainment. He was good to them. Then he wasn’t, bailing before the proper Hollywood ending.
And for what? To stand around and watch J.J. Barea drive the lane?
Nothing angers fans like getting stood up by someone who had promised the moon. When college football coach Lane Kiffin bolted Tennessee for USC, there was a movement to name a local sewer treatment plant after him.
It’s human nature.
With LeBron, a championship felt inevitable.
That was the destination. What was also lost was the journey.
The Cavs drew people together, city and suburb, white and black, rich and poor. They also connected family and friends. They gave reason to send a text message to someone you had drifted away from. They provided a reason to share an experience with your parents or your children or both. They offered an excuse to catch a game with a high school buddy.
And it gave all those ex-Clevelanders who had to chase their professional and personal dreams elsewhere feel that pull to these old neighborhoods, those old sunsets over the lake, those old memories of days and people back home.
At its best, that’s what professional sports can do for a place. It makes a city come together in the shared pursuit of something simple and tangible, even if, in the end, it’s not all that important. It just feels that way in the moment.
And that’s what many here feel James stole when he left. In one swift Decision, it was gone.
Downtown was marked by desolate streets, empty parking garages and half-filled bars on Sunday. The place should’ve been popping. That game in Miami should’ve been that game right here at the Q. Those fans screaming in Florida should’ve been right here in Ohio.
LeBron left, and that’s what he took with him to South Beach. And maybe that’s too much of a burden to put on guy who simply chose to take a job in another town, but that’s what comes with all the millions, with all the commercials, with all the chutzpah of calling yourself “King.”
So watching his little plan blow up, watching him have to answer for the same failures he produced across the street, watching him find out that maybe it’s him, not them, yeah, that’s a good night here.
It just is.
LeBron James had the right to leave. And Cleveland has the right to laugh.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Unbeknownst to viewers and even co-workers, WKYC TV 3 sports director and "radio voice of the Browns" Jim Donovan has been receiving treatment for leukemia for 11 years.
The disease is now causing him to undergo a bone marrow transplant. Donovan will take a leave of absence to have the procedure done in the coming weeks. He made the announcement on his 11 p.m. sportscast on Channel 3 tonight.
Donovan, 54, was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in the summer of 2000. The disease was treated by chemotherapy and other therapies over the years. A flare-up of the disease in January resulted in the decision to have the bone marrow procedure.
He was put on a waiting list for a donor and learned in April that a match was found.
"From the time I got diagnosed, the transplant option was always laid out to me," Donovan said in an interview prior to his sportscast. "The waiting has been kind of torturous. I think we're as ready as we can be."
A native of Boston, Donovan joined Channel 3 in 1985. In that time he's called play-by-play at the network level for NBC on NFL games, the Olympic Games and World Cup Soccer, and won numerous broadcast awards. He was named the Browns' radio voice in 1999. Calling those games has been his favorite assignment.
Donovan's trademark energy and enthusiasm never waned while the team floundered and he coped with various treatment periods. He never missed a Browns game, though he had to give up calling Indians games on Channel 3 because of a rough period in 2008.
"He gets that adrenaline rush just like a player," said Doug Dieken, the former Browns tackle and Donovan's partner on radio broadcasts. "On game day, he wakes up and he's ready to go. He puts everything he's got into it. After a game he's drained as if he played.
"He's a true professional. He's always been able to turn it up, regardless. I'm sure there's some suffering I don't see and people don't hear. It's got to take its toll. But he's a gamer."
Brooke Spectorsky, WKYC president and general manager, said that Donovan's ability to keep his battle private while performing his job at the highest level "is what makes him so exceptional."
"He's tackling this just like he's tackled every job, every project, he's ever done for us," Spectorsky said. "He puts every ounce of effort into overcoming this disease, just like he does his homework for a broadcast."
Donovan said he felt lucky that on most occasions the disease has not been debilitating physically. But "mentally, there isn't a day that goes by that you don't think about it," he said.
He said he dealt best with the disease by plunging himself into his job and staying as busy as possible. Besides calling Browns games and his duties at Channel 3, Donovan anchors Browns coverage on cable partner SportsTime Ohio. He also has served as spokesperson for several charities and frequently emcees events for the Browns.
The Browns have assured Donovan that his play-by-play job will be reserved for him when he's healthy.
"On behalf of everyone here at the Cleveland Browns, I'd like to wish Jim a speedy recovery," Browns President Mike Holmgren said in a statement. "Jim has been a respected voice in the Cleveland sports scene for many years, and his association with our organization is held in high esteem. His name has become synonymous with the Browns and we consider him a part of our family. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family during this process."
When not doing the games, Donovan has found peace in walking his two beloved dogs and spending time with wife Cheryl and daughter Meghan, 20.
Recovery from the bone marrow transplant is expected to be about five months. Donovan said he hopes to be back behind the microphone for the coming Browns season.
"My goal is to get healthy and be back covering Cleveland sports as soon as possible. I'm going to really miss my job. I love what I do," he said.
With the draft over and the NFL still in lockout mode, it is difficult for fans to feel engaged in football discussions. Fortunately for fans of all the Cleveland sports teams, there has been positive news when it comes to teams besides the Browns.
The Cleveland Indians have the best record in baseball at 26-13. That is a .667 winning percentage, and they have already had more dramatic walkoff wins than I remember all of last season. Attendance figures have been slowly creeping up, and I think more fans are convinced now that this team is not a fluke. With the way they are playing, warm weather on the way, and some great series coming up (i.e. the Cincinnati Reds), I think we're going to be seeing some heavier crowds and help pump even more energy into Progressive Field.
The Cleveland Cavaliers finished the season with a terrible record, but the best news since the post-LeBron era came yesterday when the NBA lottery awarded the team with the first and fourth overall picks in the draft. Given some of the pieces the team already has (veterans Baron Davis and Antwan Jamison, and the energetic Anderson Varejao), along with some of the young players developed last year, acquiring two premiere players in the draft will renew the buzz surrounding the Cavaliers.
Will we ever find another LeBron? Probably not, but we can get some core players to help get this team right back into contention.
Meanwhile, the best thing the players of the Browns can do right now is to pull off as many good public relations moves as they can. Maybe some people could give two cents less about Joe Haden and Joshua Cribbs showing their love for the city of Cleveland by attending sporting events related to the Indians or Cavaliers, but I get a kick out of it. After periods of 'betrayal' in football, basketball, and baseball in Cleveland, it is nice to see some loyalty.
The spat between football owners and players over how to split $9 billion a year threatens paychecks, cash registers and accounting ledgers in 32 NFL cities, Cleveland included.
To some, it's premature to even talk about the financial hit Cleveland and Northeast Ohio would take if all or part of the 2011 season was wiped out.
"It's a long way off between now and the beginning of training camp," said Joe Marinucci, president and chief executive officer of Downtown Cleveland Alliance, a nonprofit group focused on improving downtown.
Training camp isn't until July. The season doesn't start until September. But it's pushing two months since negotiations between the NFL and its union broke down. The union decertified. Players filed lawsuits. The league imposed a lockout. For the foreseeable future, there is no pro football.
Cleveland learned to survive without the NFL from 1996-98. Fans rediscovered Sundays. Football widows (and widowers) renewed their vows. Sports economists say fans simply spent their NFL money on other things.
What economic impact does an NFL team really have on a community? Pinning that down is like trying to pick up Jell-O with your hand.
Consider, for instance, when civic leaders floated back-to-back economic impact estimates in the mid-1990s to unsuccessfully block the Browns' move to Baltimore. The former Greater Cleveland Growth Association, now the Greater Cleveland Partnership, released a study in 1995 and two more in 1996 to support the city's fight.
In the first, the chamber of commerce estimated the Browns were worth $34.6 million a year to the local economy. A year later, that number was up to $47.9 million and, a few months after that, as NFL owners were to meet to discuss the Browns' move, the number was inflated to $79 million -- and that was just spending by fans who didn't live here.
By 1997, then-Cleveland Mayor Mike White, in a Plain Dealer "op-ed" piece about the new lakefront stadium and the expansion Browns impending return, had put the team's economic impact at $77 million.
The most recent swipe at how much Browns games pump into the local economy was in late 2007 by Positively Cleveland, the region's tourism promoter.
The estimate: $63 million.
Tamera Brown, the agency's vice president of marketing, said the number represents actual spending by fans at the 10 preseason and regular-season games, not those who watch at local bars or buy souvenirs outside the stadium but don't go in. The figure includes tickets, souvenirs, food and beverages and, for tourists, lodging, transportation and other meals.
"Browns weekends are very good weekends downtown, there's no doubt about it," said David Gilbert, President and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission.
"But the economic impact from sports teams and sporting events is driven by out-of-town visitors, people who come in from out of market and spend their money in market. The vast majority of fans at games are locals. So, from that standpoint, I'd say [a lockout] hurts, but is not devastating."
Even Gilbert, who also oversees Positively Cleveland, said there's really no way to hang a dollar value on it, although downtown hotel operators and restaurateurs certainly do.
Hotels closest to the lakefront stadium sell out or come close to it on weekends when the Browns are playing. Leonard Clifton is general manager of the 380-room Doubletree by Hilton Cleveland Downtown Lakeside at East 12th Street and Lakeside Avenue. He estimated a $250,000 hit if the entire season is lost, not counting the $100,000 for food and beverage sales.
"Each of those games represents about 300 additional room nights for me," he said.
Fewer reservations means less work for employees. As a rule of thumb, about 40 cents of every dollar goes toward payroll.
"You're looking at potentially $150,000 toward staffing," Clifton said, "and that represents about 20,000 hours of labor. And I'm one hotel."
Ray Vallee, general manager of the Hampton Inn Cleveland Downtown on East 9th Street, said the extent of the economic hit depends on the home schedule. He can always count on big weekends when Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and teams from New York and New England come to town. A group of Steelers fans take 10 to 15 rooms every season.
"Business-wise, it's going to hurt," he said. "Cleveland fans are all over the country. You've got groups who come into town."
Rick Cassara, owner of John Q's Steakhouse on Public Square, said his restaurant does four to five times more sales on a Sunday when the Browns are at home, and maybe a third more sales on a Saturday night before a game.
Karl Abounader, owner of Karl's Inn of the Barristers on West Third Street, said his place goes through 500 to 600 pounds of corned beef sandwiches on a game day. He beefs up with 15 to 20 part-timers to handle the crush.
Abounader said he survived but struggled those three years without the Browns, and that was when the economy was better.
"We'll be dead without the Browns," he said.
Winking Lizard President Jim Callam said his downtown restaurant on a Sunday when the Browns are on the road is 200 mostly empty seats. When the Browns are at home, those 200 seats are filled three or four times.
Football makes his suburban locations hum throughout the season because fans who don't attend the games enjoy watching together.
"It would affect every one of our stores," Callam said. "The NFL's big business."
Then there's the non-Browns employees who work game day at the stadium. Team spokesman Neal Gulkis said there are "a few thousand" of them. About half work 10-hour days as ushers, ticket scanners, elevator operators and handle other tasks for Tenable Event Services. Wages range from about $8 an hour to union scale for off-duty police officers hired for security.
Bruce Giberson of Lakewood has worked as a Tenable wheelchair escort for 11 seasons. He makes about $10 per hour, clearing about $80 per game. The extra money's nice, but a lockout wouldn't break him, he said.
"They're not going to repossess my house. They're not going to take away my car," said Giberson, who works full time as an AT&T truck driver. "This will mean my wife and I won't be able to go out on as many dates. The social calendar might diminish."
Tenable also uses staff from local community groups, churches, nonprofits and college sports teams and fraternities and sororities who work Browns games to raise money for their organizations.
Some are parents earning money toward private-school tuition for their children. Tenable has a program where earnings from a Browns game are given directly to the school. About a half-dozen schools are involved.
"It's going to hurt them," said CEO Pete Miragliotta.
And that doesn't count roaming vendors and people who work concession stands to raise money for their nonprofit groups.
At this point, Tenable is proceeding as if the season will be played without interruption. The company is advertising openings on its Web site as usual.
But Miragliotta said the uncertainty has crept into loan discussions with bankers who want to know the effects of a possible extended lockout on the operation.
"I've got to believe it has a devastating economic ripple effect," he said.
If so, then the ripple starts in Berea.
If the lockout eats into training camp, the 10,000 or so fans who migrate to the practice field behind Browns headquarters each summer would vanish. So would their dollars for local restaurants, coffee shops and other drop-in services, although Berea Mayor Cyril Kleem believes more training camp visitors tend to hit the strip of chain restaurants along Bagley Road, a freeway exit north in Middleburg Heights.
But an extended labor war that results in paychecks withheld from players and layoffs of coaches (only the head coach has a guaranteed contract), trainers and administrative staff would be a blow for Berea.
The Browns are Berea's biggest income-tax contributor, providing more than a quarter of the city's income-tax base. In 2010, $2.49 million in income tax was collected from 422 Browns employees, according to city Finance Director Dana Kavander.
Berea gets 100 percent of the income tax from administration and coaches. Players are paid a base salary and signing bonuses. Berea gets all the tax on player bonuses, but splits the tax on player salaries 50-50 with the city of Cleveland.
A spokeswoman for the city of Cleveland declined to provide income or admissions taxes received from the Browns, citing a law that prohibits them from doing so. She also said the city doesn't break out parking taxes for specific areas or by date, so there are no calculations for parking taxes in lots and garages near the stadium or by game days.
If much or all of that income disappears, Kleem said, the city would have to review and adjust its $14 million general fund operating budget.
"That," he said, "would be a big, big hit for us."
The sentiment within Browns central, for the moment anyway, is that the only hits will be on the football field.
Browns President Mike Holmgren assured fans through the media last week that it was business as usual and that he expected football to be played this fall. Gulkis, the team spokesman, said a lockout wouldn't diminish the Browns' charitable donations, because the team budgets for them whether games are played or not.
That may mean as much, if not more, to the region psychologically than economically.
"If you think of Cleveland as a body," Tenable's Miragliotta said, "the Browns are the heart and soul."
CLEVELAND---“Building momentum. Accelerating Change. The future is within our reach.”
Those phrases were part of the introduction to the presentation unveiling the Cleveland Lakefront District Concept during a press conference inside the Legends Club at Cleveland Browns Stadium on Wednesday morning. The concept is six-fold and involves job creation, private development, connections among the existing assets, developing public spaces, leveraging investment and community use.
“This is kind of an exciting day for us,” said Browns president Mike Holmgren. “We are going to, hopefully, paint a picture that can be exciting for the city of Cleveland. I am here because of Randy Lerner. He has given me the opportunity of a lifetime. He cares deeply about this city; he cares deeply about his football team. As we were piecing the ideas together, he said, ‘Full speed ahead. Let’s go. This is a great idea.’ He has been a part of this since Day One.”
“When I looked at the Lakefront, even in my lifetime, I can see the changes,” Cleveland mayor Frank G. Jackson said. “We have developed numerous plans around the development of the Lakefront and those plans served as a general blueprint of how to proceed. If we’re to move the agenda forward and really begin to get into the doing phase, we’re going to have to have significant private investment.”
Fred Nance, a senior advisor to Holmgren, gave the presentation.
“We’re not going to get hung up on turf; we’re not going to get hung up on, ‘Well, my plan goes 50 yards this way and your plan goes 50 yards into my plan,’” Nance said. “The idea is, we’re all in this together. We want this community developed; we want this lakefront developed and we’re going to go out and determine what is the appetite in the private sector to invest in this lakefront.
“We’ll work out any differences, any issues,” he continued. “There is no reason this beautiful lakefront can’t be an asset that makes us all successful.”
Holmgren and Jackson were joined at the press conference by Joe Roman (Greater Cleveland Partnership), Will Friedman (Cleveland, Cuyahoga Port Authority), Linda Abraham-Silver (Great Lakes Science Center), Terry Stewart (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), Joe Calabrese (Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority), Ricky Smith (Department of Port Control, City of Cleveland), Tony Coyne (Cleveland City Planning Commission and Group Plan Commission), Martin J. Sweeney (Cleveland City Council President) and Ron Robinson (Hammes Company).
Hammes Company has worked on multiple unique projects, including New Meadowlands Stadium for the New York Giants and Jets, Ford Field in Detroit and renovations at Green Bay’s Lambeau Field.
“When we started working on that project (in Green Bay) back in 1999 and 2000, their annual visitation at the stadium was about 700,000 people for the football games,” Robinson said. “Today, in Green Bay, their annual visitation is over three million. The next phase will increase that visitation. These types of facilities and the magic of NFL football really do work as an agent to catalyze different, unique assets and brings things together in a way that many other things can’t.”
With regard to the connecting of existing assets, the concept is to get downtown visitors to use the waterfront line and RTA’s current and proposed trolley routes to arrive at a multitude of landmarks, including the Great Lake Science Center, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Lakefront Entertainment, Community and Waterfront Districts, Cleveland’s Medical Mart, Cleveland Convention Center, Cleveland Browns Stadium, Quicken Loans Arena, Progressive Field, Tower City Center, 4th Street, Playhouse Square, as well as the businesses and residents in the Warehouse District.
“We are not developers; we are in the football business,” Holmgren said. “We are a neighbor, a partner with these people in this area. We saw our role, as much as anything, as a catalyst and maybe the group that can bring people together and encourage other investors.
“I was a football coach for 40 years; that’s what I did and that was my focus,” he concluded. “Where we lived, we became a part of that city. We moved to Cleveland. Cleveland is our city. This is my city and in my role as president, it is my obligation to not only put a good product on the field, but to get involved in helping Cleveland, doing what we can as an organization, to make this better.”
Did you know that John W. Heisman was born in this house in Cleveland, Ohio on October 3, 1869?
He then grew up in Titusville, PA and went to Brown University and then Penn where, though small of stature he played offensive line on the football team.
After getting his law degree, he took on the coaching job at Oberlin College. He also coached at Auburn, Clemson, University of Pennsylvania, Washington and Jefferson and Rice and his most productive coaching was at Georgia Tech (1904-1919)where he coached the team to 33 straight wins.
Heisman was credited with many football innovations including the forward pass and having the center snap the ball to the quarterback.
After retirement, John W. Heisman was named the first Athletic Director of the Downtown Athletic Club (DAC) in New York. This led to the DAC voting to determine the best college football player in the country. Jay Berwanger, a halfback from the University of Chicago was selected as the first winner in 1935.
Before the next year's award could be announced, Heisman died and the Downtown Athletic Club award was renamed the Heisman Trophy.
The home is at the corner of West 29th and Bridge in the Ohio City Neighborhood of Cleveland, near the West Side Market.
team collects annually. 
