The Bengals now have space for their permanent indoor practice facility

Pretty soon, Cincinnati Bengals fans will no longer have to listen to the complaint we’ve heard for years, as the team is finally getting an indoor practice facility.

Now, the Bengals will have space for their permanent indoor facility after a recent move by another business.

Chris Wetterich from Cincinnati Business Courier had this to report.

Hilltop Companies plans to acquire a site in Cincinnati’s Riverside neighborhood to move its downtown operations. Moving the asphalt and concrete plant makes room for more Bengals parking and space for the indoor facility.

This has been in the works really since 2019 when Hamilton County paid just under $30 million to acquire the land that Hilltop Companies was on in order for the Bengals to make expansions like these. The bubble Cincinnati currently uses as the indoor facility is on that land already.

The Bengals have been the target of being “cheap” for a very long time. At times, it was warranted, but the front office has shown over the past few years they are willing to pay to put a winning team on the field. They went out and spent on big-time outside free agents and other areas they needed improvement.

The most common thing that was held onto to keep that narrative alive is that the team didn’t have an indoor practice facility.

Should they have had one? Probably, but they didn’t have the space to make that happen until now.

The deal to have Hilltop Companies move to downtown will be under consideration by the Cincinnati Planning Commission in late April, and it isn’t like the facility will pop up overnight. We are probably looking at the 2024 or 2025 offseason being the time when the Bengals can show off their new permanent indoor practice facility.