The Cleveland Browns are building the first enclosed stadium in Ohio, and the dirt is already moving. The team formally broke ground April 30 on the new Huntington Bank Field in Brook Park, a $2.4 billion domed venue meant to anchor a much larger mixed-use district near the airport.
HKS designed it. An AECOM Hunt and Turner Construction joint venture, with Independence Construction on the team, is managing the build. The earthwork alone is a statement of scale.
A stadium-sized hole in the ground
Crews started mass excavation back in March, and the numbers are eye-watering: roughly 2 million cubic yards of dirt to move and a hole going down about 80 feet. That makes it one of the biggest earthwork jobs Cuyahoga County has ever seen, and it’s happening before a single column goes up.
Sinking the bowl that deep isn’t just for show. It keeps the roofline lower against zoning and sightline limits while still clearing the volume a fixed roof demands. HKS has pitched the design as a “Super Theater,” with seats pulled closer to the field and a Dawg Pound built to trap noise the way the old lakefront stadium never could.
Why an enclosed venue, and why now
The 67,500-seat building is sized to do more than host ten Browns home games. A roof turns it into a year-round box that can chase NCAA Final Fours, international soccer, and arena-scale concerts for crowds up to 75,000, the kind of events that skip northern Ohio when the venue is open to a lake-effect December.
The project isn’t without friction. The funding structure already drew a lawsuit, and big public-assisted stadiums almost always do. It’s the kind of megaproject bet that’s filling contractor backlogs nationwide, from record civil pipelines to major venue and airport work. The Browns are committed to a 2029 opening alongside the first phase of the surrounding development, and the schedule is now real enough to measure in cubic yards. (Cleveland Browns)