Reason I ask is that at that time, nobody knew for sure if Modell was able to actually successfully move and the city was suing to make sure they played in 1996. Therefore they would’ve had to fix the damage presumably.
They didn’t begin tearing down the stadium until December 1996. There are a few videos on YouTube of people touring it during 1996 and it looks cleaned up a bit. Did they end up repairing it as a precaution?
Story time. The company I work for got all of the metal scrap. I have scoreboard bulbs, bricks, and files you wouldn’t believe. Those files got me a personal tour into the archives room at the new stadium. I held Bernie’s game worn signed cleats with dried grass still stuck to them, Phil Dawson and Trent Richardson’s Pro Bowl jerseys. We had rows and rows of seats.
Anyway, there was no attempt of any sort of restoration. Art took on the the responsibility of the upkeep of the the stadium years prior for I think almost zero paid to the city. Then he went back and tried to get the city to pay for the renovations. The bill didn’t pass. Art immediately signed a contract with that stupid city in Maryland to move. It was a done deal before the season ended.
Knowing Cleveland, if they hadn’t secured a new stadium deal on that exact spot, that stadium could have gone years abandoned. They let a lot of buildings in the city sit abandoned for decades. Only recently have they started tearing some of them down