COLUMBUS – A Columbus development group plans to stop pushing a request for the state to help pay to build a practice facility for the Cleveland Browns at Ohio State University so the team can move its summer training camp.
READ MORE: In The Columbus Dispatch
The president of the Columbus Partnership, citing what he calls misplaced anger from northeastern Ohio lawmakers, said Thursday that his group is pulling a request for $5 million in state funding to help build a the summer training facility.
The idea has drawn backlash in Cleveland.
“Despite open communication among Columbus, the Browns and many Cleveland leaders who support these plans, this request has surprisingly raised the ire of several Northeast Ohio politicians in a manner that mischaracterizes our collaborative nature,” Alex Fischer, head of the partnership, wrote in an opinion piece published in The Dispatch. “We would never advance state funding that is perceived as pitting Columbus against another Ohio community. As such, we will remove this request from the priority list we give to legislative leaders next week.”
The move isn’t necessarily a fatal blow to get the Browns in Columbus three weeks of the year, Fischer said. It does sully talks with Ohio State University to build a new facility on or near its campus.
Fischer said the Browns still want to branch out to other cities and he is hopeful the team decides on Columbus.
The Browns have said they’ll conduct the 2016 training camp at their Berea facility but confirmed plans to eventually have camp at a new facility in Columbus.
The Columbus Partnership recently asked the state to fund the project in the biennial state capital improvements bill that will be proposed in the next few months. The partnership is a coalition of business executives from many of central Ohio’s largest employers.