Council releases D.C. United stadium report a whole three hours before hearing

access_time personNeil deMause

As noted last week, the D.C. city council is holding a hearing today on the proposed D.C. United soccer stadium, and as of yesterday, council chair Phil Mendelson was still refusing to release the council’s report to people who might want to read it before testifying, or before listening to testimony, or to be in any way informed about what’s going on. Like, say, Washington Post development reporter Jonathan O’Connell:

It’s morning, Mendelson was reelected (along with three new councilmembers, none of whose positions on the stadium we know), and here’s the report! It’s 406 pages and the hearing starts at noon, so read fast!

 

Other Recent Posts:

Share this post:

9 comments on “Council releases D.C. United stadium report a whole three hours before hearing”

  1. The worst part of this item is that Mendelson is actually one of the BEST members of the DC Council…

  2. I’d say you couldn’t make this shit up, but if you were trying to write a story of nepotism, cronyism, lack of transparency, potential misuse of taxpayer funds, etc., this is probably just Xeroxed from every other situation where public officials wanted to avoid any transparency.

  3. It seems to me Mendelson has pretty clearly set out the process by which citizens can get information on the study to everyone. You have to be his girlfriend or her designate. So far as I know, he hasn’t specifically precluded anyone from applying for that position.

    What could be clearer than that? The line forms to the left…

  4. I think that this story got a bit overblown, delaying the debate until after the election might be the smart move because the council members will be able to make a decision without the distractions of the campaign. And this was just a first public hearing to present the results, the public will be given plenty of opportunity to comment.

    Lots of info released today and I have’t had time to read through it all but what jumped out at me was the $109 million estimated profit for the city over 32 years from an investment of $150 million. That being the case I’m not sure why they’re even bothering with meetings, no business or individual would every consider tying up that much money for that long for such a paltry return.

  5. p. 67… The estimate for annual overnight attendees is just under 63,000 or about 1 in every 7 people through the turnstiles. Does that seem high to anyone else? I can’t imagine people coming in for a DCU game are going to spend the night in a hotel, so that means the other events (concerts and USMNT/CONCACAF games) are going to have to make up the bulk of those folks. I would think kids coming in to see Phish are crashing at a friend’s place, because really, people who drop out to follow a band around all summer don’t have jobs (I keeed… mostly). As for the other games, banking on 2 USMNT games a year might be optimistic to begin with.

    Anyway, they have those overnighters spending on average $185 each with 73% of that spending in the District so works out to about $8.5M per year. That doesn’t seem realistic.

  6. That hotel number does sound high, particularly considering that the only hotel in the area is a bit of a dump (free wings with paid parking for Nats games though). Visiting MLB teams mostly stay in Virginia.

  7. That’s not to single out that number other than to say that one really jumped out. After about the first 100 pages I sorta started skimming but, outside of the property values for the land deals, I didn’t see any sourcing/methodology. So basically this thing is somewhere between garbage and conjecture. I mean you don’t even make it to page v. of the summary before they are putting down numbers for DCU revenue projections in 2046 (that’s the year 2046). My guess is they didn’t bother to model in the probability that that part of DC is underwater in 2046 from mankind’s inability to do anything to reduce atmospheric C02 levels. Of course if that’s the case than we’ve all got bigger problems than how much an underwater soccer team draws at the gate.

    Anyway, if that overnight visitors number is off by as little as, say, 30% that will eat up almost 80% of the estimated $109 made over the 32 years.

  8. There are two hotels (Courtyard at New Jersey and L and the Capitol Skyline at South Capitol and L) in the area with a third one slated for construction.

    One in 7 seems high. I’ve rarely seen an away supporters group wig more than a couple hundred and most of them are locals. Also most hotels during the MLS season are at capacity anyway since you know it’s DC. I don’t think the new stadium would have any effect on the normal tourist levels.

  9. Stadium backers (better make that boosters…) routinely multiply the actual likely “overnight/district shopper” effect many times in order to make the building seem more attractive to pols.

    Just one case in point, Glendale, where they used the ‘terrible’ likely effect on the tax revenues from Westgate should the Coyotes leave to justify a $15m direct subsidy to the hockey club owners.

    Small problem… about 600,000 people pay to attend Coyotes games in a decent year (some years it’s been closer to 450k). So if every person who went to a game also spent $100 at Westgate every time they attended a hockey game, and the TIF rate was 10% on all purchases at all businesses (both of which are highly unlikely in the real world), that would still amount to just $6m in net revenue.

    To make the subsidy a net positive for the city, you’d have to convince all the spectators to spend $200 45 times a year at Westgate, and bump that tax to 15%… and it would cover the subsidy at such a ridiculous rate (assuming none of the 600,000 stayed home), but not the arena construction bonds…

Comments are closed.