Cleveland Browns Stadium received its latest checkup from a team of engineers hired by City Hall. Their verdict: The stadium, which opened in 1999, is in good shape considering its age.
Nevertheless, the audit from Osborn Engineering still laid out a sizable – and costly – list of repairs the city-owned stadium will need over the next decade.
There are $252,300 in immediate repairs – fixing fire doors, broken lights, cracking concrete and the like.
Another $10.4 million in emergency repairs – defined by the Browns’ lease as repairs needed to protect health and safety – will come due by next year. The stadium needs new grease interceptors in its plumbing system. Pedestrian ramps are in need of replacement. Trash cans are rusting. Plus there’s a host of expensive concrete, steel and joint repairs to make, just to name some of the items on the list.
The truly big repairs – $106.3 million of them – come between 2026 and 2034. The stadium’s scoreboards, installed just in 2014, will need their video displays replaced for $14.4 million, the audit said. There will be seats to replace, more structural repairs to make and video equipment that will go out of date.
Read more: Cleveland’s 2023 capital repair audit of Browns Stadium.
The Browns tell Signal Cleveland that the team isn’t asking for the city to make all of these repairs, which fall on the citizens who pay the county sin tax. What the team wants to see right now are essential repairs needed for fans’ safety – for instance, ramp replacements and concrete repairs, a spokesman said.
After all, the team is really after something bigger: either a $1.2 billion renovation of Browns Stadium or a new, roofed facility in Brook Park that could cost twice as much.
The city conducts a capital repair audit of the stadium every five years under its lease with the Browns. Since 2014, Cleveland has been on the hook for $28 million in repair work, including projects still in the planning stages.
