The Cleveland Charge is likely on the move again.
Cleveland City Council approved entering into an agreement with the Cleveland Cavaliers at Monday night's meeting to host the Cavs' G League team at Public Auditorium.
The current home is just over a mile away at the Wolstein Center at Cleveland State University.
The six-year agreement, which begins in September for the 2024-2025 season, requires the Charge to make $3 million in improvements to Public Auditorium and also pay for labor during each game. In exchange for improvements, the city plans to credit rent and labor costs to a maximum of $1 million. Renovations are planned for this summer and are to include architectural and design improvements to locker rooms, plumbing, electrical and mechanical systems.
The emergency ordinance notes the Charge will need to be quickly relocated due to the scheduled demolition of the Wolstein Center where the Cleveland Charge wrapped up its third season in April.
In a campus master plan approved by Cleveland State's Board of Trustees and released to the public in November 2022, the university stated that it intended to build a new multi-use arena but that there were no final decisions about the Wolstein Center. A spokesperson for the school told Ideastream Public Media Tuesday there are no immediate plans for demolition.
This is the third change of venue for the team in four years. The Charge played its home games at the Canton Memorial Civic Center from 2011-2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the team spent the shortened single-site 2020-2021 season in the NBA bubble in Orlando, Florida. With the expiration of the team's lease in Canton in 2021, the team relocated to the Wolstein Center.
