In an appearance on the Grant & Danny Show this week, Ward 6 DC Councilman Charles Allen told the guys why he is against the RFK 2.0 proposal, with his take on the parking situation being one of the biggest red flags.
Apparently, G&D is a flag-waving contest, because in the middle of a segment Thursday, discussing how RFK 2.0 will happen, Mayor Muriel Bowser herself called the hotline and debunked Allen’s concerns!
The Mayor confirmed that the money DC is putting in is going to infrastructure and building the community around the stadium, not the facility itself, and this isn’t just going to be Landover 2.0.
“The biggest thing that I want to correct is that this is going to be one thing or the other. I think people have in their minds the current RFK Stadium, and the sea of parking that surrounds it – but what we're proposing is a vibrant, vital, mixed-use development with a built-in anchor,” Bowser said, again reiterating her plan for five districts. “The other thing that I think is the big missing piece, is that you just snap your fingers and 180 acres is developed with housing – it doesn't happen that way. What housing providers need is a catalytic anchor to get a site like that going, and having a built-in anchor that's bringing $2.7 billion in worldwide expertise is the jumpstart that this site needs. Without it, we won’t have a vibrant stadium that’s generating revenue in 2030, we’ll have a slew of community meetings talking about what's going to happen there and the hope that it will deliver in the following 10 years. So, the time for RFK is now; we come to terms with the team or the team is going to have to find a new location.”
And that’s another misconception of Allen’s that Bowser wanted to address.
“I was at a meeting yesterday that Charles was also attending in NoMa, and I pointed out to him and everybody gathered there that the district government has been a huge investor in NOMA. We put the first $50 million in the NoMa infill station, and we have money in our budget right now to add another entrance to NoMa,” the Mayor said. “It’s just not true that the government doesn't kickstart projects with public investment. Some of those are in the form of big catalytic investments like the stadium, and others come in other forms of public dollars that make it feasible for these projects to go.
The Wharf has huge public investment and does not have an anchor, but it has The Anthem that brings thousands of people up there to shows all the time. So, Charles Allen's Ward has enjoyed a lot of public investment, including two stadiums that he supported, very recently, public dollars going to. But I don't want to concentrate on Charles Allen, because there’s nothing that we could say about this project that's going to satisfy him. I want to concentrate on the benefits to DC residents, and the future that we want.”
Oh, and about Allen and others asserting there’s not enough support to pass the budget with RFK 2.0 in it?
“Like so many economic development projects, there's a lot of misinformation and we're looking forward to getting people all the information that they need. But the one thing that I have to say, I heard one of the members of the council who is opposed to this project, was opposed to it before anything was presented and is opposed to having an NFL stadium there at all, say that a majority of the council members don't support it - and that is false,” Bowser said. “He and one other council member had registered that they will vote no, and all other council members are working with us and the team to get the information that they need. We've been keeping them up to date for weeks about how negotiations were going, and they're very excited for the opportunity.”
Listen to Mayor Bowser's entire surprise visit above!