Category: DC United

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.

For those of you who can’t get enough of D.C. United stadium renderings that look pretty much just like the old stadium renderings: new D.C. United stadium renderings!

Tell us what’s new, Washington City Paper:

Among the changes are: a retail corridor on the east side of the stadium along First Street, which will become a two-lane road with parking on each side, 14,000 square feet of retail attached to the stadium itself, and unspecified ‘additional future retail’ toward the south on First Street, according to a memo D.C. United’s lawyers sent to the zoning commission. A building along the south side of the stadium has been “reimagined and reoriented” to include 3,000 square feet or retail space, but will maintain a “bike valet” at its corner.

A public plaza planned to the stadium’s northeast will now contain a sizable park, “landscaped and terraced to create an inviting experience.”

So basically the team responded to complaints that the stadium would be a big empty box on non-game days by adding some space for stores, and some more space for possible future stores, assuming there are stores that want to open up in what will be a big empty box on non-game days. Plus a street that turns into a pedestrian plaza during games, because those are all the rage:

Which is all cool — attempts at more non-gameday activity is cool, even if it doesn’t always work out so well. But D.C. United planners do seem to be trying to respond to community gripes, at least, which is the least they can do for their $183 million in public subsidies.

The revised stadium agreement that D.C. United got D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to sign back in June (after threatening to back out of the deal and move to Virginia instead) required the city to either buy the stadium land or move to seize it by eminent domain by the end of September — and hey, look what day it is today! So what’d they end up doing?

As the courts closed at 5 p.m. the city had not filed [an eminent domain] suit, and Joaquin McPeek, a spokesman for Bowser’s deputy mayor for economic development, declined to comment.

Almost two hours later, McPeek said that the District had made an after-hours filing, electronically, but offered no explanation for the apparent last-minute scramble in the mayor’s office.

Anyway, the point is, D.C. is going to force the site’s property owners to sell, and then use the courts to set a price. Because a private soccer stadium is clearly a public good. I mean, if the Supreme Court says a vacant lot can be, why not?

The city of Washington, D.C. and D.C. United have officially agreed to a new stadium deal! Yes, they already officially agreed to one last December, but apparently they left out a few things, and then one thing led to another and suddenly team execs were lunching with development officials from Virginia, and anyway, now it’s really settled, so the stadium is happening for sure.

Along with the previously announced $183 million in public cash and tax breaks, the new, updated deal provides that:

• D.C. United will agree to pay for half of the first $20 million in any cost overruns.
• The team will also provide a $5 million escrow fund to reimburse the district for its costs if the stadium ends up not getting built for any reason.
• The district has to either reach an agreement to buy the stadium land by September 30, or begin eminent domain proceedings to seize the land from its current owners. If it fails to do so, United can seek to relocate elsewhere.

This is maybe a marginally better deal for taxpayers than the earlier one — originally United’s owners weren’t going to pay anything for cost overruns, so $10 million is better than nothing. It’s still the case, though, that the team’s costs are capped, while the public’s are not. But then, it’s not like D.C. has any experience with sports stadium projects sticking taxpayers with ballooning costs.

When last we checked in on the new D.C. United stadium last December, the D.C. council had just approved $183 million in cash and tax breaks and construction was set to begin real soon now. So that’s that, and — hoooooooooold everything!

In the past three weeks, team officials have toured sites in Loudoun County, lunched with a Loudoun supervisor in New York and hosted a meeting with Virginia economic development officials at the team’s offices at RFK Stadium.

What seems to be going on here is that while the funding for the D.C. stadium is approved, all the paperwork hasn’t been — new mayor Muriel Bowser is still negotiating a “development contract” with the team’s owners to govern such things as cost overruns. So, naturally, it’s off to Virginia, where Gov. Terry McAuliffe has built a reputation for throwing public money (and personalized phone calls) at companies to get them to relocate to his state. Loudoun County officials say they can build a stadium for less than it will cost in D.C. (which probably doesn’t matter much to D.C. United owner Erick Thohir, since he’s not paying for most of it), and get it open in less than two years (which probably does, but is also pretty implausible unless they plan to make it out of plaster).

Anyway, this is almost certainly gamesmanship by Thohir — even the Washington Post obliquely notes that “it is possible D.C. United is using the discussion to gain leverage in the final negotiations over a Washington stadium” — while McAuliffe takes the opportunity to burnish his reputation as a Guy Who Gets Things Done (With Wads Of Cash And Tax Breaks). Not that it’s impossible that the D.C. deal falls apart and Loudoun emerges as a viable suitor, but seriously, with all the years that the D.C. United stadium squabble dragged on, if Thohir really wanted to go to the distant suburbs, don’t you think we’d have heard about it way before now?