The nonprofit owner of Progressive Field won’t need to dip deeper into taxpayer coffers to fix the Guardians’ scoreboard system.
Instead, Gateway Economic Development Corp. — which received a $40 million lifeline from Cleveland and Cuyahoga County last year — will pay the bills with money left over from an earlier project.
At a meeting Wednesday morning, Gateway board members agreed to buy new computer servers for the scoreboards for $376,000. The meeting did not touch on the bigger questions about how Gateway will continue paying for stadium repairs.
Gateway spending is under the spotlight because ballpark and arena costs have been outpacing revenue from the countywide sin tax on alcohol and cigarettes. That mismatch has left city and county leaders juggling Gateway expenses while also trying to keep the Browns from leaving the city-owned lakefront stadium.
The work approved Wednesday is small compared with last year’s $40 million.
The ballpark’s scoreboard and ribbon boards — the thin video displays around the park that flash statistics throughout games — run on seven servers. One server has already gone down and the boards have experienced glitches, team general counsel Max Kosman said.
Gateway has money to spare for replacements: $1.2 million in unspent funds from an upgrade to the system that controls the ballpark’s heating and cooling. The new servers will have a useful life of five to eight years, team representatives said.
A larger expense may sit on the horizon: the scoreboard itself.
Progressive Field’s current scoreboard is 10 years old. The Guardians are evaluating “the timing and need for a scoreboard replacement” as part of an overall look at the ballpark’s longer-term repairs, Kosman said.
Gateway also signed off on upgrades to the restrooms and corridors on Rocket Arena’s event level, which houses bars and the passageway that players take to the court. The Cavaliers are paying for the work.
A new way to pay for Progressive Field, Rocket Arena repairs?
The city and county haven’t yet settled questions about how to continue paying for repairs at the ballpark and arena. Both Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne and Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration have talked about finding new sources of revenue.
One idea backed by the city is to create a “new community authority.” Known as an NCA, the authority is a special district that could raise money from participating businesses.
Last November, Bibb advisor Emily Collins told Cleveland City Council that the administration was ready to move “imminently” to begin setting up such a district.
In February, city Chief Operating Officer Bonnie Teeuwen — a Gateway board member — told the board that the city was setting up calls with Gateway and the teams to discuss the idea, according to meeting minutes.
Representatives from Gateway and the two teams met last week with Bradford Davy, Mayor Justin Bibb’s chief of staff. A city spokesperson described the meeting as “an informational session with community partners in the normal course of business.”
The county sin tax, which voters extended for 20 years in 2014, is another possible source of new money. Last year, Council President Blaine Griffin said that he and Ronayne had discussed the possibility of asking voters to increase the tax.
