The bill to give control of the RFK land back to DC is included in a larger spending bill that will be voted on by the Senate, and as always on Capitol Hill, there’s some chicanery going on from one side or the other about some of the bill’s other contents that could hold it up.
“I know obviously the Commanders would like that. I’m not somebody who's opposed to stadiums, I fought hard to make sure that DC kept Capital One Arena and I’ve been a strong supporter of investing in Nats Park, because it’s a math problem,” Allen said. “When I know that we can invest your public tax dollars and get a really strong return – Cap One Arena is active 250 nights out of the year, the ballpark’s got events happening 120 nights out of the year, so these places are active all the time, bringing people down on top of Metro, really great for the businesses around them. NFL stadiums…when I talked with the Commanders, they said they thought they'd held 20 to 25 events per year. That means it sits dark 90 percent of the year, and I don't think that's a good return on the investment. So if DC residents are asking if I think I should be spending hundreds of millions of their dollars on an NFL stadium that doesn't have a return on investment, I don't think that's a good deal for DC.”