Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb confirmed Thursday that the Cleveland Browns plan to leave the city and move to neighboring Brook Park, Ohio.

“Last night I had a meeting with Jimmy and Dee Haslam, the principals of Haslam Sports Group (HSG), in which they expressed their intention to relocate the Cleveland Browns to Brook Park,” Bibb announced in a statement.

In August, the Browns published the first sketches of the Dome stadium that they could imagine for the Brook Park location.

Bibb said he and other local officials presented the Haslams’ stadium plans to keep the Browns in Cleveland. “We put forward a financially responsible yet aggressive financial package – larger than any other financial package offered for a sports facility in Cleveland to renovate the existing stadium,” he said.

Here is a look at how the Cleveland Browns envision their new, $2.4 billion domed stadium in Brook Park: pic.twitter.com/azo9fnPBqW

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) August 7, 2024

The city of Cleveland would also have been willing to approve the construction of a new stadium on part of Burke Lakefront Airport, which is located east of the site of the current stadium. But apparently this did not change the Browns’ plans.

Construction costs of $2.4 billion

When they presented their Brook Park idea, the Browns estimated the total cost at $2.4 billion, of which around $1.2 billion was to be covered by private funds. This would leave the municipalities with a considerable bill.

So approval is not universal: officials in Cuyahoga County, which includes Brook Park, said in August that they would prefer to keep the Browns in Cleveland and not invest any county money in the Brook Park project.

The Browns’ current lease expires in 2028, so even if everything goes according to plan, their departure from Cleveland is not imminent.