Cleveland Just Broke Ground on a $2.4 Billion Stadium and It Is Already Being Sued Over How It Was Funded

On April 30, 2026, Cleveland broke ground on the largest construction project in the history of Northeast Ohio. By the time the ceremony ended, it was already in court.

The new Huntington Bank Field, future home of the Cleveland Browns National Football League (NFL) franchise, officially started construction in Brook Park, Ohio, with a joint venture of AECOM Hunt and Turner Construction managing the build. Designed by global architecture firm HKS, the enclosed stadium will seat 67,500 people with capacity expandable to 75,000 for major events. The total project cost is $2.4 billion. It is scheduled to open in time for the 2029 NFL season.

The stadium will be Ohio's first enclosed venue of this scale. Its translucent roof is inspired by Cleveland's iconic urban atriums and is engineered to admit natural light while providing full weather protection. The roofing system is described as the first long-span roof of its kind built without a truss, a structural achievement that also eliminates the columns that typically interrupt sightlines in large covered venues. The seating bowl has been designed to bring every seat closer to the field than any other existing NFL stadium.

Mass excavation began on March 2, 2026, well before the formal groundbreaking ceremony. The site in Brook Park, located near Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, required digging 80 feet deep and moving nearly two million cubic yards of dirt, described by the excavating contractor Independence Excavating as one of the most significant earthwork operations ever undertaken in Cuyahoga County.

The funding structure combines $1.2 billion in private investment from Haslam Sports Group with $600 million each from state and local public sources. That public contribution is at the centre of a class-action lawsuit filed against the project, which alleges misappropriation of state funding. No judgment has been issued, and construction is proceeding.

More than 6,000 construction jobs are projected across the stadium and adjacent mixed-use development, with a minimum of 75 percent of total workforce hours committed to the residents. The Haslam family has separately announced a $1 billion investment in an entertainment district surrounding the stadium, forming phase one of a broader development of the Brook Park site.

The AECOM Hunt and Turner joint venture previously delivered the $5.5 billion SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, which opened in 2022, and is currently building the $2.1 billion New Nissan Stadium in Nashville for the Tennessee Titans. The Cleveland Browns project is their third simultaneous NFL stadium.