When the Cleveland Browns open the fully enclosed New Huntington Bank Field stadium in 2029, the Haslam family expects to offer the NFL a first-of-its kind experience.

“The Haslams weren’t interested in building the next version of a NFL stadium but wanted to do something truly transformational in the league,” Lance Evans, venues design director and principal at HKS, tells me. “It started with this idea of how we could bring fans lower and closer to the action.”

The idea morphed into a bowl design that puts more of the 67.500 fans in the lower bowl than any other stadium in the league, also with the smallest upper deck in the NFL, says Evans, the designer of both SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, and U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. “It created a seating environment that is about the amplification of the energy and the sound of Browns’ gameday.”

To make it happen—and to comply with Federal Aviation Administration rules at the 176-acre site near the Cleveland airport—Evans will embed the stadium roughly 80 feet into the ground and build a seating bowl with the closest seats to the field as allowed by league rules. Even the upper bowl is tight to the field, with the last row in the venue closer to the field than any other last row in the NFL.

Then, to amplify the energy of the team’s famed Dawg Pound, the new stadium will have a soccer-style supporters section with a 34-degree rake—the steepest allowed in new construction—of safe standing, bringing the more than 6,700 standing-rail seats up against the northwest end zone.

“It is the first time you are going to see it in the NFL,” Evans says. “Bringing the Dawg Pound as close as we could to the back of the end zone, making it as steep as we could make it, it will feel like they are over top the players as the come to the end zone.” Add in that the visiting team will enter and exit the field at that end and Evans says the idea was about creating a “machine for energy.”

“Every design decision we made,” he says, “we asked if it would amplify the experience for the fans and the Browns on gameday.”

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That experience starts with the entry. Dropping the stadium into the ground, allowed HKS to construct a ground-level entry where most fans travel down to seats in the 21,500-seat middle bowl and 22,500-seat lower bowl and only about 14,000 fans need to head to the upper bowl. The elimination of so much vertical transportation, as typically seen in large stadiums, means the at-grade grand concourse will be about three times larger than what the fans have now and offer a fresh perspective on concourse design.

“With the removal of all that vertical circulation, we were able to give that area back to the fans,” Evans says. “It was an exercise of what we could eliminate in conventional stadia and invest back into the fans.”

Evans says the concourse becomes an experience, a destination in and of itself. Not only does it offer space for food and beverage and activations that may draw fans to the game earlier, but being at grade means the Browns can open the grand concourse to the new entertainment district planned for around the stadium. And with a plaza flanking both end zones, Evans says the stadium can easily flex from intimate gatherings to mega events, such as Super Bowls and the NCAA Final Four.

The new $2.4 billion New Huntington Bank Field at Brook Park, anticipated to be built with $1.2 billion in private funding, is the anchor of the total $3 billion-plus phased mixed-use district that plans 300,000 square feet of retail, two upscale hotels, 1,100 apartments and 500,000 square feet of office space. Located centrally for the regional fan base roughly 15 miles from downtown, the site’s footprint with existing infrastructure can support the development, according to the Browns.

Evans says the stadium will come straightforward as it relates to interaction with the area around it. Most fans will enter the stadium through the two plazas and then the end zones, which means the south plaza can serve as a key artery into the stadium, all anchored with mixed-use development. It also makes it easier for the stadium to handle large events by expanding ticketing boundaries. Evans says the plazas are designed for year-round use.

Key to giving fans in Cleveland year-round use—and the ability to host the mega events—was about more than the size of the venue and the development space around the site, but also the need for a fully enclosed structure. When complete, New Huntington Bank Field will become the only domed stadium in Ohio, offering the state a “large room for entertainment.”

The folded plate ETFE roof—the same material used at SoFi and U.S. Bank stadiums—is pitched to shed snow in the winter but comes lightweight enough for maximum transparency to welcome natural light into the site. Along with opening year-round use, the roof should serve to help create a “loud and raucous” environment for fans. Evans says that having worked for years with the roofing material, HKS has been able to take that knowledge and tune the material to understand how best to amplify the noise in the venue, all for the benefit of the Cleveland fans.

“It is a truly one of one idea,” Evans says about the stadium. “This was created for the Cleveland Browns and the Cleveland fans. You look at the building and it should resonate of northeast Ohio but should read really different and offer a unique contribution to the world of entertainment.”

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