December 05, 2005
D.C. stadium cost to top $700 million?
Well, ain't this a fine kettle of fish: D.C.'s NBC4 reports that city CFO Natwar Gandhi has revised his estimate of how much a new Washington Nationals stadium would cost. The new number? How about a cool $700 million? It's unclear as yet exactly where the additional costs come from (NBC45 says "$661 million plus more than $40 million in interest," which makes no sense if you're talking about present value), but this clearly busts the $535 million budget set by the D.C. council last fall, setting the stage for a showdown with MLB over the stadium deal.
That showdown could begin as early as tomorrow, with councilmember David Catania having announced he'll introduce two new stadium bills tomorrow, one reaffirming the hard cap of $535 million in city stadium spending, the other preventing the city from moving stadium costs to other budget lines.
And to think that just this morning, council chair Linda Cropp was saying the stadium plan had cleared "huge hurdles" and could soon be resolved. Though Cropp was smart enough to add: "I hope that there are no other issues." Lady, in stadium deals there are always other issues.
I just saw this article within the last twelve
minutes from Washington's NBC news page. $700 million plus?? Holy buckets!!
If the Washington ballpark really is approaching
$700 million, it is not too far behind what a new
baseball or football stadium in New York City or
its suburbs would cost.
I was more thinking that if a Washington ballpark is up to $700 million, then a New York one is likely to cost close to $1 billion. But we'll know more once Gandhi releases his figures, maybe.
Posted by: Neil on December 5, 2005 08:54 PM
When the Mets, Yankees, Giants and Jets reached
agreements earlier in 2005 for new stadiums (with
the Jets and Giants sharing a new stadium), at
least one or two of the stadiums were predicted
to cost $800 million easily. Higher costs for
those stadiums would not surprise me, especially
not in the New York area.
And still no mention of the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative proposed tunnel connecting I-295 and I-395 which would run directly alongside or beneath the stadium.
Clearly those pushing the stadium, an even many that oppose the stadium, do not care about such matters of long term infrastructure- or the public good.
