HUGE news broken by Grant & Danny on Thursday’s show, via DC City Council member Charles Allen: the $500 million proposal from Mayor Bowser Tuesday night, after rumors that Wednesday’s presser in Virginia was exactly what we saw, was NOT seen by the actual DC council until after that Virginia press conference was announced.
“It’s no secret that Virginia has been courting them pretty aggressively, and I’ve been warning for months that DC need to be serious about making sure that they stayed at Cap One arena that we made an investment – that’s how I viewed it, as an investment – and I just didn’t see the urgency,” Allen said. “I mean, the very first time that any of us actually saw a proposal was 7 p.m. the night before the press conference where they were going to Virginia. We did not feel a sense of coordination around this, and it doesn't reflect the urgency that should have been there a month ago.”
Allen was, ironically, at an event with Wizards forward Kyle Kuzma in Ward 6 in DC on Thursday before calling in to Grant & Danny, but to his point, he wrote an op-ed months ago about the possibility of giving money to Monumental, and, apparently, it fell on deaf ears until it was close to too late.
“I’m disappointed, and I think it’s a wrong move for the team, and I think more than anything, there just wasn’t the urgency,” Allen said. “I think the Mayor and the city just kind of assumed or took for granted that the caps and the wizards wouldn't go anywhere, when we could see Virginia courting them aggressively offering land and money. DC needed to be able to compete to keep them downtown, and if they are gone, we've got a lot of work ahead for downtown to really revitalize this. And, I hope this really helps light the fire there to bring the urgency around downtown.”
Allen does believe Monumental when they say they want to continue events at Cap One, since “they own the building and it's in their interest to have activities there,” but...
“Another thing that's not really getting talked about is they're also saying, maybe what they'll do is move the Mystics downtown – well, that might fill some nights downtown, but you just moved a team out of Ware 8 where we want to keep economic development going there.”
The Councilor also agreed with how much the area around Cap One has changed since the pandemic and the economic impact involved, and did somewhat shoot down some of the reports about poice presence being an issue – but did say this move “wasn’t inevitable,” only that “we could see it coming, but we just didn’t act.”
“This was about money and urgency. This was something that months ago the city should have been putting forward a more aggressive deal to make sure that we showed Monumental that we wanted them in this space, and we could see them being a vital part of the future of our downtown redevelopment,” Allen said. “I think the city's gotta have a much more laser focus on downtown, on its rehabilitation and its revitalization, and I think that's gonna be both public and private. With or without th teams, there has to be a plan for downtown. Having that many events bringing in folks is a built-in advantage and if we don’t have that, we have to have a different vision for what downtown looks like, since the nature of commuting has changed significantly and rapidly. I don’t want to see what happened in Atlanta with all their teams happen in DC.”
He would love for Monumental to change their mind and not relocate, but seeing who was on stage for the announcement tells him it’s “highly likely” a deal is finished.
And while he is ‘disappointed’ and disagrees with the decision, he also thinks Leonsis eventually will, too.
“I’ve heard from a lot of constituents that have reached out to say they’re canceling their season tickets and are angry at the city for letting it happen and Ted for moving,” Allen said, “and I think at the end of the day, they're going to find out this is a bad move. They need to stay here; I think the fan base would commute and be here, and I think you're going to see a significant drop in DC fans willing to travel all the way down there for a game.”
Take a listen to Allen’s entire call-in, which also touches on issues with the Metro in regards to game day access in Virginia, and more.
