The big news of the week in local politics: the bill that would grant control of the land RFK Stadium sits on back to DC is in fact included in a larger spending bill, and it is expected to be voted on and passed later this week!
So once that happens, now the race for the next Commanders stadium officially gets another possible location, and DC Mayor Muriel Bowser gave the Junkies an update on exactly what’s going down.
“This is huge. When I’ve been on with you before, I emphasized that we got to get control of the land; we’ve had a lease for many years and have 14 years left on the lease, and it's restricted, so it can only be used for sports or recreational uses,” Mayor Bowser said. “This transfer gives us complete control over the land to develop in a way that serves District residents and creates connections to the park. Thirty percent of the land will be used for a park, so this just allows DC to control our destiny as it relates to 177 acres that's now blighted in the nation's capital.”
The spending bill this language is included in is a ‘must-pass’ bill, so there’s no real chance the RFK language fails as one of the attachments, and once it passes, the real work begins of trying to convince, and find a way to entice, the Commanders to return.
“There's no site that can can compete with our site, it’s just that simple. We have the best site in the region, period,” Mayor Bowser said. “When you think about the connections, the transportation connections, the connection with the river, the views, the support from the fan base, we have the best site, it’s really just that simple. So when we are able to look at how we do the ancillary development around what might be a new stadium, we know we get housing, we get and entertainment district, we get a park, and we get more jobs for DC residents and for the entire region. So it's going to be a beautiful vision that we look forward to sharing with the community.”
Once the bill passes, the District will proceed with full demolition of the current site, and then, from there, it’s on.
“We will proceed with developing our vision, having discussions with the team, community, and our stakeholders, and we will aim to have an agreement with the team,” she said. “It’s a very big deal, and I always think we should do things yesterday, but I think they have a very significant time crunch. They have a lease and Josh Harris has stated publicly he'd like to be in the stadium by 2030, and in order for all of those things to happen, I think that we have to have an agreement in 2025.”
And for those who are worried about all that a new RFK might entail and the space to get it done, the Mayor reaffirmed that said area is larger than the Navy Yard area where Nats Park and our Audacy studios are on the other side of the Anacostia, so there’s no need to worry.
“Think about some of the large federal parcels like the Wharf, Navy Yard, Walter Reed, Saint Elizabeth's…it’s larger than that, so the answer is yes if you;re thinking about are we gonna have entertainment and restaurants,” Mayor Bowser said. “We will have more sports uses – we already have ball fields there, and we will have a DC Parks and Rec indoor sportsplex there, and a park that connects to the Anacostia River. So, like the Wharf enlivened the Potomac River and a really underutilized waterfront, that's what we know that a development of RFK can do in the Anacostia River. And we will pull it off!”