Urgent Repairs are Needed at Progressive Field

This article was published through an exclusive content-sharing agreement with neo-trans.blog.

Significant, urgent repair projects are to be pursued in the coming months at Progressive Field in Downtown Cleveland while questions linger as to whether there is enough funding to pay for them.

Most of the projects focus on vertical circulation — six elevators and one big ramp — at the home of the Major League Baseball Cleveland Guardians. Hot water tanks also need to be replaced as do other equipment.

But unless and until help arrives in the form of Ohio Sports Facility Performance Grants — $64.8 million requested for Progressive Field and $40.3 million for the neighboring Rocket Arena — the owner of both facilities, the Gateway Economic Development Corporation of Greater Cleveland, is forced to defer some projects to afford urgent ones now.

On the East 9th Street side of the ballpark, which has a street address of 2401 Ontario St., is the biggest single project. Here, a $3.4 million job to replace concrete, structural steel, expansion joints and deck drains on the multilevel ramp is about to get underway.

Cleveland-based architectural firm OSPORTS submitted the plans to the city this week for permits to reconstruct about 30,000 square feet of the eight-switchback ramp which connects all levels of the ballpark, from the service level up to the upper concourse level. The work area is equal to that of the floor area of a small- to medium-sized grocery store.

The Guardians in April submitted the repair request to Gateway for it to pay. The Guardians, referring to a recent facility assessment, considered the repairs to be “Urgent.” Gateway Executive Director Todd Greathouse didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail from NEOtrans seeking more information.

Guardians’ Vice President of Communications and Community Impact Curtis Danburg told NEOtrans he had no comment on the project. He referred further inquiries to April 10 letters to Gateway from the Guardians’ Vice President and General Counsel Maxwell Kosman.

Kosman said that, last year, Gateway commissioned Cleveland-based Osborn Engineering to undertake a comprehensive Facility Conditions Assessment (FCA). The ramps, elevators and hot water tanks were among the immediate repairs urged by the FCA that was completed in December 2025.

“The FCA identifies the East 9th Street pedestrian ramps as one of the ballpark’s highest-priority capital repair needs,” Kosman wrote. “The FCA’s condition assessment assigns the ramp’s concrete slab components a ‘Priority 1’ designation, the highest tier in the FCA’s five-level prioritization framework.”

“As defined by the FCA, ‘Priority 1 – Critical Structure’ is the most urgent classification of capital need, reserved for items that are integral to the critical structural integrity of the facility,” Kosman added.

The FCA assessment showed that the ramp’s slabs had regular joints and occasional cracks, often with failed or missing sealants, and joints along edge kick plates are also often failed or missing, resulting in leakage to soffits, corrosion related deck deterioration and structural steel corrosion.

Also the ramp assessment showed there was occasional floor deterioration from rebar corrosion and side steel mesh railings that are also often moderately to heavily corroded. Composite galvanized steel decks throughout the pedestrian ramps exhibited varying levels of corrosive related deterioration.

While building permits have not been requested yet for elevator repairs, Kosman sent a separate letter in April to Gateway requesting that it also fund a modernization of four elevators at the ballpark which are exposed to Mother Nature’s elements.

Those were also estimated to cost about $3.4 million and deemed by the FCA assessment to be the most urgent “Priority 1 – Critical Structure” repair — same as the ramps.

“The passenger elevator system at Progressive Field — including Car 1 (East 9th), Car 3 (Carnegie), Car 5 (Ontario), and Car 10 (Media Gate), addressed in this letter — was installed as part of the original 1994 construction of the ballpark using Montgomery Elevator equipment,” he wrote.

“The traction controllers, geared hoist machines, and associated systems in these cars have now been in continuous service for over 30 years,” Kosman continued.

Two freight elevators which also date to 1994 need to replaced, as well. Each replacement will cost about $1.5 million. To support ballpark operations, only one freight elevator can be replaced at a time.

Lead times on ordering replacement equipment are about 30 weeks so planning got underway last spring to replace one freight elevator during the 2026-2027 baseball offseason.

And four hot water tanks, all of which are leaking and beyond their useful lives, must be replaced as emergency repairs an estimated cost of $270,000. Greathouse said at recent Gateway board meetings that another four hot water tanks need to replaced soon.

But making minor repairs to, rather than a budgeted total replacement of an aging air handler unit — an indoor device that regulates and circulates air as part of an heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system — would save Gateway more than $4.9 million. That would allow it to afford the new freight elevators and hot water tanks.

The major repairs follow the conclusion of the $200+ million three-year renovation to the 32-year-old ballpark. These and other repairs were anticipated as part of the Guardians’ 15-year lease extension signed in 2021 with the Gateway Economic Development Corporation of Greater Cleveland.

That $435 million deal had anticipated funding up to $233 million in repairs, maintenance and operations at the ballpark over 15 years with two-thirds coming from local and state taxpayers. The agreement can be extended by 10 years to 2046 by exercising two contract options.

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