Zoning commission approves D.C. United stadium design on grounds it could suck worse

D.C. United‘s new $300 million stadium, which will get $183 million in land acquisition costs and tax breaks from district taxpayers, finally got final approval yesterday from the D.C. Zoning Commission, after design tweaks to make it look less like a prison. And just listen to how excited zoning commission members are about the project coming to fruition!

“The responses on environmental issues and traffic issues have been adequate to make it passable, but I’m still extremely disappointed,” member Peter May said. “It just kind of barely makes it. It’s been a disappointment all the way through, so I hope it turns out better than I fear it will.”

The stadium probably won’t be a disaster of terrible traffic and empty streets on non-game days, at least not any more than all stadiums are. At least the zoning commission pushed back on some things, and got some small concessions, which is more than cities where cities where projects get final approval without anyone even discussing what the transportation plan will be. Yeah, it’s a low bar, but that’s about where we’re at with democracy these days.

Other Recent Posts:

Share this post:

5 comments on “Zoning commission approves D.C. United stadium design on grounds it could suck worse

  1. I’ve been against this project because of the public funding for a team that can’t even sell cheap seats for playoff games, but I’ll disagree that the design could suck worse. The stadium is lopsided, they hide it in the pictures. There is almost no parking in the area, it is all on the far side from the Nats ballpark. The Metro is a mile away and across a major road. Traffic getting to Nats games sucks even when the crowd is small and there are more highway exits near the ballpark.

    The best part of going to see the United is the tailgating, with this new stadium all that will be left is the soccer.

  2. That has to win some sort of award as the WORST concept art in the history of stadiums. Not only does it look like a prison but the quality of the image looks like some terrible video game background from 20 years ago. Looks like it was made out of clip art graphics.

  3. I think the transportation part of this story has been underemphasized. Walking across S. Capitol St. will be less than great.

    1. Oh, c’mon. River to the east, river to the south, military base on the west side. About a mile to walk to either of the two nearest Metro stations. Nothing but easy access!

Comments are closed.