{"id":579939,"date":"2026-02-18T21:45:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T21:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/579939\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T21:45:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T21:45:19","slug":"guardians-cavs-seek-unclaimed-funds-for-ballpark-and-arena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/579939\/","title":{"rendered":"Guardians, Cavs seek unclaimed funds for ballpark and arena"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Guardians and Cavaliers are hoping to tap the same pool of state money that is paying for the Browns\u2019 new stadium in Brook Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cleveland\u2019s professional ball club and basketball team have applied for $105 million from Ohio\u2019s pot of unclaimed funds<\/a> for repairs and updates at Rocket Arena and Progressive Field. The state money comes from old bank accounts, undeposited paychecks and other payments that never reached their intended recipient.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The teams are seeking the money with support from the Gateway Economic Development Corp., the nonprofit that owns and pays to repair the two facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gateway \u201centhusiastically supports the Cavaliers\u2019 and Guardians\u2019 Grant Program requests and ultimately will be the beneficiary, along with Gateway\u2019s public partners, the City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, of the capital improvement renovations when completed,\u201d Executive Director Todd Greathouse wrote in a Jan. 30 letter to the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s reason for that enthusiasm. Ongoing repair costs at the three-decade-old facilities have largely exhausted Gateway\u2019s usual source of money for repairs, Cuyahoga County\u2019s sin tax on alcohol and cigarettes. That has sent Gateway seeking money elsewhere \u2014 including $40 million from Cleveland and the county in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the arena, the dollars would support $40 million in repairs and upgrades in anticipation of Cleveland\u2019s new WNBA team, according to Gateway general counsel Scott Simpkins. The Guardians have asked for $65 million for work at the ballpark.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The grants could fund up to a quarter of the total project costs of $161 million at the arena and $259 million at the ballpark, Simpkins told reporters after Gateway\u2019s board meeting Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s if the state\u2019s plan survives a legal challenge. In January, a Franklin County magistrate extended a temporary restraining order<\/a> holding up the state\u2019s payment to the fund that would support sports facilities. The order stemmed from a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of repurposing the unclaimed funds. The case is ongoing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even if the teams were to win the money, Gateway wouldn\u2019t be entirely off the hook. The nonprofit would likely pay for repairs up front, drawing down reimbursements once the work is done, Simpkins said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Curtis Danburg, a spokesperson for the Guardians, wrote in an email to Signal Cleveland that the team would use the money for \u201cprojects necessary to preserve and modernize Progressive Field\u2014Ohio\u2019s oldest major professional sports facility\u2014for the remaining 11 years of the approved lease.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rock Entertainment Group spokesperson Zach Abaie wrote that the Cavaliers\u2019 grant would \u201censure the arena\u2019s readiness to welcome the return of the WNBA to Cleveland in 2028, while serving as home to three professional franchises and supporting a full year-round sports and entertainment calendar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Signal<\/p>\n

Stadiums claim Ohioans\u2019 abandoned payments<\/p>\n

When state lawmakers set aside $600 million unclaimed funds for the Browns last year, they also designated $400 million for other professional sports facilities. The state is giving that money out through a competitive grant program.<\/p>\n

Guardians executive Neil Weiss said he doesn\u2019t expect to hear if the team\u2019s application succeeded until this summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne had criticized using unclaimed funds for a new Browns stadium. But he said Wednesday that he didn\u2019t fault the Cavaliers or Guardians for going after money that the state is making available for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI disagreed with that source for the Browns stadium,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cBut I do understand, because the legislature approved it and the governor has built a fund from that, I do understand the other sports teams\u2019 desire to draw on that \u2014 because if not them, then somebody else.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Introducing state funds into the mix might reduce the burden on local taxpayers to keep the buildings up, he said. Even so, Ronayne, the teams and the Greater Cleveland Partnership have been talking about asking voters to quadruple the county\u2019s sin tax, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the Gateway district is a real Cleveland treasure, and it was built to last, and we\u2019re going to have to steward it if we\u2019re going to keep it here,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read Gateway\u2019s letter below:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Guardians and Cavaliers are hoping to tap the same pool of state money that is paying for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,135,51,2565,76001,39669,538,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-579939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-guardians","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cleveland","10":"tag-cleveland-guardians","11":"tag-clevelandguardians","12":"tag-cuyahoga-county","13":"tag-gateway-economic-development-corporation","14":"tag-guardians","15":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116093828254888618","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}