A village of 4,000 built an empire next to O'Hare. Brook Park starts with more.
Rosemont, Illinois has no NFL team, no million-square-foot expo hall it didn't build itself, and fewer residents than a Browns tailgate lot. What it had was an airport next door and a plan. Fifty years later it hosts tens of thousands of visitors a day and its residents pay no municipal property tax. Brook Park has the airport, the dome under construction, and the expo hall — within one mile. What it doesn't have yet is the plan.
Haslam Sports Group just became the bridge. Officially.
This is no longer a hypothetical, and it's no longer just a citizen's argument. The team that owns the new stadium is now, by contract, also running events at the IX Center — the exact linkage CLENext proposed, except nobody has said the word "corridor" out loud yet.
Haslam Sports Group struck a three-year lease with the I-X Center's owners covering 530,000 sq ft of event space. The Cleveland Auto Show, Boat Show, Home & Garden Show, and RV Fest are all returning — with a stated plan to migrate into the new dome starting in 2030. HSG designed the stadium's concourse clearances around these shows' needs before the ink was even dry.
The two cities settled the decades-old tax-sharing dispute tied to the 2001 runway settlement. Brook Park receives 34 acres of land and $23.45M in cash; Cleveland gets full tax revenue from the IX Center and the adjacent business park. The single biggest structural obstacle to coordinated planning — mutual distrust over money — just got resolved.
The Browns broke ground on the enclosed stadium with the Governor and the NFL Commissioner on stage. Opening 2029.
Reporting indicates the proposed RTA stadium station is advancing. It still connects the stadium to downtown — not yet to the IX Center or the wider corridor. That gap is still open.
Cleveland is still marketing part of the IX Center to a manufacturer that could bring 700 jobs and $72M in annual payroll, needing 500,000 sq ft. A hybrid future — industrial tenant plus event space plus corridor connector — is exactly what CLENext has argued for. It is now, provably, the direction things are already headed.
Three asks. No new taxes. One deadline.
CLENext is not a request for a blank check. It is a request for coordination — the one asset Rosemont had that this corridor still lacks.
Stand up a corridor working group
Brook Park, Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Haslam Sports Group, GCRTA, and the airport — one table, one brand, one federal grant strategy. Cost: staff time. Cleveland's own development chief has already said these assets have to be considered together. Put it in writing.
Put the connector in the traffic study
Feasibility and traffic work for the stadium area is underway now. Add one alternative to the analysis: a people-mover or dedicated transit link running IX Center → Hopkins → stadium district. If it isn't studied, it can never be funded. Cost of adding an alternative: a line item.
Decide the IX Center's future in daylight
Before any lease amendment locks in a warehouse future for 49 years, commission a public hybrid-use study: industrial tenancy and preserved event capacity serving the corridor. The building was supposed to be demolished decades ago. It survived for a reason. Find out if this is it.
The honest objections
The IX Center is already committed to an industrial future.
Cleveland and Brook Park have fought over this land for 25 years.
The stadium district is designed to keep visitors on-site. Why would the Haslams share?
Who pays for a tram?
Isn't it too late?
Rosemont didn't wait for permission.
If you work in Northeast Ohio economic development, planning, transit, media, or you just believe this region should think bigger — read the case, poke holes in it, and pass it on.