It was Washington Business Journal's Michael Neibauer that broke the news we got officially today that Monumental Sports is ready to move to a new complex in Alexandria, and before the actual presser, EB and Bish checked in with WBJ's Tristan Navara, who covers real estate and economic development issues for the outlet – and he confirmed what we all know, that losing the Caps and Wiz would be a HUGE blow to Chinatown and Penn Quarter.
"It can't be understated that this would be a massive hit on downtown. If you think about kind of how things have changed there since 1997, there's 47 million people that have attended 4500 events and come downtown to eat, go to bars, etc.," Navara said. "They've already been struggling this year, and I understand crime is part of it, but downtown's got a lot of other struggles that that really are kind of at the forefront of the problems here."
Leonsis has seen, and made his feelings known on, all that, and this event today didn't come out of nowhere like some may think.
"As we understand, there's been negotiations going on for a couple of months; they've been kind of under the radar but, but you've seen hints of it here and there," Navara said. "He's been openly frustrated with feeling like the arena is falling apart and talking about his frustrations with the condition of the area around it. Virginia has generally been pretty aggressive the past couple of years about trying to bring more teams, and DC is kind of at a weak moment right now. Several places in that area have closed this yar, and looking at the rest of the week outside of events there, the latest data was that last week, downtown had 43 percent of the traffic they had before COVID.
Folks aren't coming down there to work and those businesses are hurting from that already, and those issues lead to some of the perceptions people have."
EB even noted that nationally, cities are not the same as they were pre-COVID because of that, and in his personal opinion, he has some sympathy for Mayor Bowser, who is in a tough spot trying to acquiesce to Leonsis in the situation.
"This is a business decision, and one of those realities with sports arenas these days. Replacement time for these things used to be 30 or 40 years, now it's 25, and it's pretty typical for owners to start saying I want something new or I want a big upgrade or somebody else is gonna try and offer me a package here," Navara said.
EB recalled how The Junkies did the first-ever broadcast from FedEx Field 25 years ago, and we're already talking about that falling apart the same way Leonsis says Cap One is…but nothing is ever final until it's final.
"This is a negotiation, and up until the final minutes, they're still gonna be talking about how they're gonna work things out," Navara said. "And if and when they move, what's he gonna do with the current arena? One way or another, that's still their property, whatever they end up deciding with it."
The announcement became official shortly after Navara appeared on the show, and there's still a DC presser later, so it's all fluid – but you can take a listen to Tristan's entire appearance above!
