Plans for the HOF Village were originally announced in '15 with a projected completion date of '18HKS
The development of the Johnson Controls HOF Village at Canton's Pro Football HOF is "progressing, perhaps a little slower than initially envisioned," according to Susan Glaser of the Cleveland PLAIN DEALER. HOF Village CEO Mike Crawford said, “If I didn’t believe that this was going to get done, I wouldn’t have come." The village "won't be ready for the Centennial Celebration, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the NFL, planned for Canton" in September '20. This new timetable is a "significant slowdown for the project," which was first announced in '15 with a planned completion date of '18. There has been "no meaningful construction on the site in more than a year, since before a group of local contractors filed liens against the project because they had not been fully paid for their work." Crawford, a former Disney exec, has "spent his first four months on the job prioritizing the construction timetable and securing financing for the project." The 100-acre village will "eventually spread primarily west and south around the hall." Currently, there are "large swaths of vacant land around the museum, surrounded by fencing, awaiting construction." The NFL has "not been asked to directly financially support the village in an effort to keep the two organizations operationally separate." The league "strongly supports the village in many other ways -- through marketing, event planning and other projects" (Cleveland PLAIN DEALER, 4/14).
