A lakefront airport closure could provide needed land for a downtown Cleveland football facility.
There is the possibility that another plan to build a stadium in downtown Cleveland for the National Football League’s Browns’ owners, Jimmy and Dee Haslam, could be in the development stage. But this one is complicated. Ken Prendergast at NEOtrans blog has reported that Cleveland officials are thinking about shutting down Burke Lakefront Airport and using that large parcel of property as a lure for the Haslams so that the Browns’ owners can put up a stadium-village. Here is the major hurdle that the Burke Lakefront Airport has as the Haslams play the stadium game pitting Cleveland against nearby Brook Park, Ohio. The Federal Aviation Authority has to officially designate an airport as a reliever airport, and after an airport has the designation, it can begin accepting flights from commercial airports nearby.
Burke Lakefront Airport’s primary role, as designated by the FAA National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems, is to act as a reliever airport for Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. It is unlikely that the FAA would give the go ahead for shutting down Burke until a nearby airport is upgraded to FAA standards for runway length, tarmac area, hangar spaces and terminal spaces. There is no other regional airport in the Cleveland area that meets FAA requirements for reliever airports. The Haslams have been looking to either renovate the present Cleveland stadium which is 25-years old, or build a stadium village elsewhere. The Haslams have looked into building a stadium-village in Brook Park which is about 15 miles outside of downtown Cleveland. It is still early in the stadium game for the Haslams, and the municipal governments in Cleveland and Brook Park in the stadium game although the Haslams may be getting a bit impatient as the lease agreement between the franchise owners and Cleveland is done in four years.
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