News broke JUST before Grant & Danny went on the air Monday from Sam Fortier and others at the Washington Post that Virginia lawmakers were set to vote on a plan to bring the Capitals and Wizards to Virginia, them as the tenants of a new arena that would be the anchor of a mixed-use development in the Potomac Yards area of Alexandria.
“We’ve been talking about this for a long time, but now it feels like it’s further down the road,” Grant said in revealing the news. “Is this that they’re just meeting so they can be in position in the event it’s time to start making this happen and thy have their ducks in a row, or is this bigger than that?”
“This feels more significant than just the normal ‘lawmakers meet to decide to offer a resolution to provide the space’ – in other words, all that Stadium Authority was is a group of people willing to discuss the idea of a team coming, and that’s what this initially sounded like to me,” Danny said. “Virginia has been pining for a team and is always a bridesmaid, so the idea is one thing – but I still don’t have a definitive, but it sounds as if there’s been some negotiation here.”
“It is clear to everyone we’ve talked to that in that Potomac Yards area, they really want to bring as many people as they can in there regularly,” Grant said, “and I know we don’t do politics, but it’s hard to avoid this: Gov. Glenn Youngkin has been trying to point to a win from a business standpoint since he took office, but this could be his home run if he can lure the Capitals and Wizards to Alexandria, so urgency has ticked up.”
Of course, there’s the DC element too, and Ted Leonsis has asked the city for $600 million to help renovate Capital One Arena and its footprint, which seems like a lot of money that could be better spent on a new stadium.
“They understand that's where they could be the most successful in terms of controlling the land around the stadium, and that there are now enough models here where teams have done their own little village,” Danny said of a new Commanders stadium in DC. “You see what San Francisco and Miami did, and I get the sense that this ownership group wants that badly. They’re realistic that it may not work out, but in terms of what's needed for the city and its residents and what everybody seems to want, things have deteriorated.”
That, and even with an established arena, there serious issues in Chinatown around the arena and with the venue itself, especially if it loses its co-anchors.
“Let’s be frank about it: there are a lot of people like me that said, ‘I'm not dealing with this anymore,’ and left the city and that neighborhood in and around Capital One Arena,” Danny said. “I'm old enough to know what it was like before, what it was like during the golden era when it was good, and now it’s rapidly approaching what it was like when I was a kid…and that’s not good for anyone. Business owners, residents, people who commute to work or games – it’s not a great time right now, and it is a massive blow potentially to that part of town if that building is vacant of the two anchor sports teams 80 to 90 nights a year.”
“I would just bet on them being in DC, because I don't think there is an upside for the city to not meet whatever it is that they're looking for and keep them there. Like, what is your alternative, exactly?” Grant asked. “Let's say you do get the Commanders, which would be amazing, and they're over at the RFK site with a larger footprint and a giant stadium comparative to an arena that doesn't have nearly as many events. When you go to the RFK site, you’re going there for the game. I just don’t see DC allowing (Chinatown) to fall off right now. The only chance they have to return that to what it was early in the MCI and Verizon Center days is through the Wizards and the Caps being there, and concerts and comedians and people coming through there constantly.”
After taking a call about it from a caller born and raised in southeast DC, who says “there’s no reason to be in DC from a safety standpoint,” G&D disagreed again about the idea of leaving – Danny saying crime and safety in the Cap One area might be the No. 1 reason to leave, with Grant saying money will determine it all, even if he understands the safety concerns are large.
And that’s when Danny went all in on his thoughts about the three biggest things in real estate: location, location, location.
“Maybe there’s a 1A in terms of money solving a lot of problems, but from the viewpoint of the owners, I think they’d like to have everything back to normal and be in DC and have that kind of keep going, but it's not their job, necessarily,” Danny said. “I know this is gonna sound harsh and dismissive, but they're not solely responsible for city renovations and turnarounds and residents and businesses and the crime fixing. They're supposed to put on basketball games, and we’re trying to watch Ovechkin chase a record.
What they do is important, our whole medium is based off of it, but they're recreational stuff. They’re not sitting here involved in beefing up police presence – that’s government stuff. As businesspeople, I think they look at it and say it’s a 3 out of 10 compared to what it was when it was a 10 out of 10 a decade ago, and it ain't getting any better because people aren't coming back to work. Then, because people aren’t coming back, more businesses shutter, so more people aren’t coming back to work, and it’s a spiral we’re in now; it’s going right down the toilet, and I think they look at it and go, ‘I don’t see the fix here.’”
So yes, in Danny’s eyes, they can get some money ‘as a Band-Aid’ to fix some issues in the arena itself, but…
“That doesn't solve the big picture issue where we're talking about money-making for a long time,” Danny said. “Plus that deal that Leonsis inherited that he kvetches about to anybody who will listen, he doesn’t like it very much, and I think those two factors make him want out.”
