There’s a long history across many cities of “ballpark district” developments failing to come to fruition, or at least taking way longer than initially planned, and the Washington Nationals stadium environs were no exception. Though construction has picked up in recent years, there’s still 46,000 square feet of commercial and retail space that Events D.C. promised to build that hasn’t happened, and now the District is apparently threatening not to renew the stadium’s certificate of occupancy when it expires at the end of the month if Events D.C. doesn’t agree to follow through on its promises:
Instead of the original development, Events DC has proposed to finish a considerably smaller, 17,000-square-foot structure that’s already attached to the ballpark at First Street SE and Potomac Avenue SE as retail-only space…
The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, in a maneuver upping the pressure on Events DC to follow through on its promised development, has said it will not renew the temporary certificate of occupancy the ballpark has used to operate since Opening Day in March 2008.
That certificate is set to expire Sept. 30, according to the Washington Business Journal, which first reported the snafu. The Nationals’ final home game of the season is scheduled for Oct. 2.
This is unusual not just in that it’s a rare example of a city government playing hardball with a developer, but of just who the developer is: Events D.C. is the District’s own quasi-public development arm, which owns and operates Nationals Park, in part to get the team owners off the hook from construction and property tax costs. One arm of government going toe-to-toe with another in a dispute over failed promises is about three steps beyond “unusual,” but here we are.
Whether this is seriously a threat that the Nats will have to go play their final home games of the year in the street (or just forfeit, they’re going to lose them anyway) depends on which newspaper you read: The Washington Post says the DCRA is “effectively threatening to shut down the stadium,” while the Washington Business Journal, which first reported on this kerfuffle on Thursday, indicates that it’s more Events D.C. using brinksmanship to renegotiate its deal, asking for a last-second rework of its development plan in order to get a permanent C of O in place by the end of the month. Events D.C.’s lawyer wrote in the company’s zoning application that DCRA “has indicated it is unwilling to issue another temporary certificate of occupancy while the Applicant continues to identify ways to satisfy the Order,” but that’s less an overt eviction threat than a developer threatening that it will be forced to shutter its building if not allowed to back out on its commitments — so if somebody’s playing hardball here, it’s probably not the city government.
As for the Nationals owners, they didn’t respond to the Post’s request for comment, but they did reply to the WBJ, saying in an emailed statement: “We are confident that as Events D.C. and the D.C. Zoning Commission work out the final terms of a permanent certificate of occupancy, we will continue to operate without restrictions as we always have.” All of which seems likely, since the District has no particular reason to want to padlock the stadium, even if it also has no reason to want to approve Events D.C. building a building one-third the size of what it promised. The D.C. Zoning Commission has a hearing scheduled on this whole mess for Sept. 29, one day before the certificate of occupancy expires — if nothing else, this should provide more last-second drama than watching a Nationals game.
Time to fire up the Tractor!
Events DC better watch out…. it is well within the power of the district (presumably) to fire all the members and then reappoint each one at a later date…