Haslam deal revives Cleveland I-X Center auto and home shows

The 2.2-million-square-foot I-X Center has hosted some of the largest consumer shows in the country and annually welcomes an average of 1 million guests each year, said officials.

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Organizers said upcoming events, dates, and ticket information will be released in the coming weeks.

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It seems the Haslam Sports Group is interested in seeing the shows continue at the I-X Center and be able to see first-hand what it takes to host such shows, ranging from car shows to Christmas craft shows.

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The some 2.2-million-square-foot exposition space had slowly been gobbled up over recent years for other uses, including as a warehouse for Akron-based GOJO at the height of the pandemic.

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It started in 1942 as a plant that built airplane bombers and employed as many as 15,000 workers at the height of World War II.

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The holiday show will mark the 40th anniversary of the exhibition.

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It was converted into what was billed as the world's largest exhibition space in the world that even boasted an indoor Ferris wheel and a zipline.

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After the war, it briefly became a storage place for soybeans.

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Marketplace Events manages the show, along with The Great Big Home + Garden Show, and Cleveland Home + Remodeling Expo.

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The loss of the I-X Center put some show organizers in a quandary to find a new space to host shows that require a lot of space to show off everything from RVs to boats.

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The Cleveland Auto Show dates back to 1903.

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Burke says that the Haslam Sports Group even factored events like the Cleveland Boat Show into its architectural plans for the new football stadium.

"Some of the people from my team meet with an entire roomful of their architects, asking us what are our needs as far as clearance size and space when it comes to our show. And in fact, what was very cool is, they actually increased the clearance so that we could get larger boats onto that field," she says.

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In February, a deal to land a Fortune 100 company at the I-X Center space reportedly fell apart.

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The long-term future of the I-X Center has been in flux in recent months.

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In a City Club discussion in June, before the deal was approved, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb hinted at plans of redeveloping the I-X Center.

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The I-X Center is located adjacent to Cleveland Hopkins Airport and near the new Huntington Bank Field location at 18300 Snow Road.

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But in June 2025, ICP told Cleveland City Council, in requesting to extend its lease, that a new company promising to move in and create 250 jobs would mean the closing of the event space.

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The I-X Center initially closed during the pandemic in September 2020 without any promise of returning to operation, then reopened two years later and closed again this past spring.

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In 2021 Industrial Realty Group and ICP (Industrial Commercial Properties) partnered up, bought out the lease and committed to major renovations.

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The plan at the time was to divide the main floor to create a new 530,000-square-foot event space and then section off about 720,000 square feet for leasing opportunities for industrial uses.

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What was described as the I-X Center's last show, the three-day Piston Powered Auto-Rama, was March 27-29, though no new employer has been announced.

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Events started to be held again at the I-X Center in 2022.

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Yet the cities of Cleveland and Brook Park struck a tax-sharing deal in May to end years of litigation over the center, which sat in Brook Park until a land swap deal involving property near the airport included moving the center into Cleveland in 2001.

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About 1.5 million people a year flowed through the doors to attend a variety of events, from home and garden and boat shows, to even an indoor amusement park for several years.

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In 1977, Park Corp. of Charleston, West Virginia, bought the facility, eventually converting it into the International Exposition Center.

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Typically, more than 70 events were held annually, adding up to about 125 operating days, officials said earlier this year.

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The auto show was one of the early events, first taking up space in 1985.

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Military production halted in 1970.

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A serious but unsuccessful bid for the 1992 Democratic National Convention included a demonstration for the national site selection committee, with 3,000 people filling the center decorated with red, white and blue balloons as the Berea High School band played to showcase the atmosphere the convention could have.

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Haslam Sports Group recently struck a three-year lease deal with a group of real estate developers who control the I-X Center.

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That agreement covers roughly 530,000 square feet of event and meeting spaces — less than a quarter of the 2.2 million-square-foot structure.

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About 530,000 square feet is dedicated to events.

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The goal is to host major consumer shows and other events at the property through 2029.

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That's when the Browns expect to move into a new, enclosed stadium in neighboring Brook Park — a stadium where Haslam Sports Group envisions a lot more than football.

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The city of Cleveland owns the I-X Center, but Industrial Realty Group and Industrial Commercial Properties have a long-term lease on the building.

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Their only alternative was the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland, a downtown complex with limited dates, much tighter schedules and a lack of dedicated parking.

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The Cleveland Auto Show, for example, was looking at a three-and-a-half-day show downtown, compared with a 9.5-day run at the I-X Center.

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The home and garden show was in a similar bind, forced to downsize from 10 days to three.

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That lease gives them wide latitude to sublease space at the complex.

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The new arrangement allows the developers to hand over the events business — while bringing in rent.

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The management team at the I-X Center announced the reopening early Wednesday, issuing a written statement that didn't mention the players involved — or explain what prompted the sudden reversal.

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Plans to close the I-X Center surfaced in June 2025, during a Cleveland City Council discussion about the developers' hopes of returning the one-time manufacturing powerhouse to its industrial roots.

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The new stadium is expected to cost $2.6 billion, with roughly $1.75 billion coming from private sources.

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The funding also includes a $600 million state grant and a potential commitment of $245 million from Brook Park.

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But behind the scenes, event producers kept lobbying to get back inside.

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Vendors were told to leave their equipment at the I-X Center, in case something changed.

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And the staff at the venue, employed by management company Oak View Group, held steady, waiting for a possible reversal.

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At the I-X Center, Oak View Group will continue to run the event space, ensuring a smooth transition.

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During interviews and public events, Haslam Sports Group executives have described the building as a "365-day-a-year" venue.

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The convention center's staff did everything possible to accommodate a downtown auto show, Vitantonio said.

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The convention center is geared toward meetings and trade shows that bring lots of people to Cleveland from out of town, filling hotel rooms.

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The I-X Center attracts a regional audience, where proximity to parking matters a lot.

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To justify that investment, the stadium needs to host more than just 10 home games a year.

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During a council committee hearing in late June, members of Mayor Justin Bibb's team said an unidentified manufacturer is considering the I-X Center for a deal that could bring 700 jobs and $72 million in annual payroll to the city.

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The new Huntington Bank Field is being designed with wide concourses and the flexibility to accommodate everything from large concerts to smaller gatherings.

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Some of those events already take place at enclosed NFL stadiums and neighboring facilities.

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The developers and the city keep pursuing potential tenants.

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Instead, a longstanding tax-sharing arrangement made it tough for Cleveland to incentivize companies to move in.

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The company initially would need only 500,000 square feet.

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That deal, part of a decades-old legal settlement, earmarked most of the tax revenues from the I-X Center for Brook Park.

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Cleveland's still trying to land that business.

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Marketplace Events produces more than 130 shows across North America.

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But right now, it's sitting vacant, despite years of marketing.

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In exchange, Brook Park is getting 34 acres of former residential land back within its borders, along with guaranteed cash payments from Cleveland for 33 years.

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Industrial Realty Group and Industrial Commercial Properties control the I-X Center for up to 13 more years, into 2039.

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The last year proved that events weren't the biggest barrier to remaking the building.

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City officials have said they have no control over what happens with events — and no objection to bringing shows back.

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"Our priority is getting high-quality jobs into the facility, right?" Tom McNair, the city's chief of integrated development, told council members during a hearing in mid-July. "And so as long as they do not feel that operating shows in a portion of that building would interfere with attracting those types of tenants, that is fine for us."

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The developers want a major lease extension, though, to justify spending millions of dollars on renovations at the building.

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Last year, City Council authorized the Bibb administration to extend that lease term to 49 years.

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But they want to see progress on industrial leasing.

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Brook Park City Council signed off on the revised settlement in June.

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Cleveland City Council approved the deal in mid-July.

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The city and the developers are still negotiating over the details, though, trying to agree on a framework that lays out expectations and protections for both sides.

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Stu Lichter, the president and founder of Industrial Realty Group, did not respond to an interview request.

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