CLEVELAND — State, county and city leaders joined Cleveland Indians owner Paul Dolan for a news conference on Thursday to announce a lease agreeent that would keep the club at Progressive Field through 2036.
The agreement would include a $435 million renovation of Progressive Field, which Dolan called “necessary” to keep up with the current and future needs of players and fans.
The city and county would contribute $17 million per year combined toward the renovations while the state would add $2 million a year over the next 15 years. The Indians would pay $10 million a year, $4.5 million toward ballpark improvements.
Cleveland City Council, Cuyahoga County Council and the Ohio legislature would all need to agree to the plan.
Gov. Mike DeWine, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, County Executive Armond Budish and County Council President Pernel Jones Jr. joined Dolan for Thursday’s announcement.
“I think this is a good victory for everyone. Good for the team. Good for the city. Good for the county. Good for the state,” DeWine said.
DeWine noted that the there is an option to extend the lease to 2046.
Budish said that the club never threatened to sell or move the team, but doing nothing came with a risk.
“We had three choices: renovate, build a new (stadium) or risk losing the team. To their credit, the Indians never threatened to sell or move but we understand the business of professional baseball and we didn’t want to take that risk,” Budish said.
Last month, DeWine confirmed that his office was involved in a plan to keep the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field well into the 2030s.
The current lease is set to expire after the soon-to-be-renamed Indians play their 30th season in Progressive Field in 2023. The stadium is owned by Cuyahoga County.
The stadium, along with Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse which houses the Cleveland Cavs, opened in 1994 with the support of public dollars. The Indians originally signed a 20-year lease, according to the Gateway Economic Development Corporation of Greater Cleveland. The Indians later signed a 10-year lease extension through 2023.
Given that the Indians are a small-market club with an expiring lease agreement, there has been speculation around baseball that the Indians are ripe for a relocation.
The Indians were near the bottom in the league in attendance, ranking 29th in attendance in 2014 and 2015, only ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays, according to ESPN data. After the team remodeled the stadium from 2014-16 to reduce capacity of the facility, average attendance increased by more than 4,000 fans per game from 2015 to 2019. The Indians were 21st in attendance in 2019, according to ESPN.
Relocations have been rare for baseball in recent decades. Not since the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, D.C. in 2005 has a team relocated from its market.
Baseball also has not expanded from its current 30-team footprint since 1998.
