March 12, 2024 by Steve Thomas Over the years since we started The Hog Sty, I’ve written several different columns about a possible new stadium for the Redskins, then the Washington Football Team, and now the Expansion Franchise in Washington that Shall Not Be Named. I’m not going to provide links to every single one of those columns here; suffice to say that getting a stadium built anywhere in the Washington DC metro area is a major challenge, one that was made exponentially worse by the mere presence of former owner Daniel Snyder. Now that Washington has a new owner, though, the hopes of the fanbase are now higher than they’ve ever been, particularly since we’re rapidly approaching the 30 year mark at the former Fed Ex Field. A couple of things beyond the change of ownership have recently happened. First, Fed Ex took its name off of the existing stadium, showing that they are no longer a partner and depriving the team of a large income stream. More importantly, a bill passed the House of Representatives that, if passed by the Senate and signed by the guy currently living in the White House, would transfer administrative control, but not fee simple ownership, of the RFK Stadium site – what the bill calls “the Campus”, which includes a total of 174 acres – to the District of Columbia for 99 years. I hadn’t read this bill when we first discussed it on The Hog Sty Podcast, but I have done so now. The bill requires that the District use the Campus for any of a number of different purposes, including (1) “[s]tadium purposes, including training facilities, offices, and other structures necessary to support a stadium”, (2) commercial and residential development, (3) “[f]acilities, open space, and public outdoor opportunities”, including cultural, educational, and recreational activities, or (4) other public purposes for which the Campus was used or approved for use prior to June 1, 1985. The bill also requires that 30 percent of the property, not including the waterways, be used as parks and/or open space. The bill places a number of obligations on the District, which are supposed to be memorialized in a memorandum of understanding between the District and the federal government, as well as in a declaration that will be recorded in the real property records. I’m not going to repeat all of the requirements placed on the District here; suffice it to say that the District will be responsible for funding any and all development at the Campus. It is also worth pointing out that the bill expressly forbids the use of any federal funding for either stadium development or related facilities or offices; essentially, anything having to do with football. The bottom line is that this is a necessary first step to football possibly returning to DC, albeit one of many, many steps. I thought that DC was the least likely possibility before this bill, and I still believe that now. First, the bill needs to pass the Senate and be signed by the guy living in the White House. Assuming that happens, the huge, massive problem is funding. For those of you who aren’t listeners of The Hog Sty Podcast, I have experience in large-scale commercial real estate development. It’s hopefully not a great revelation that this sort of development is very difficult to do, but funding is the hardest part. In today’s world, the total cost of a new stadium complex is going to be a minimum of $1B, and possibly significantly more. The District of Columbia doesn’t just have that amount of cash laying around, obviously. Typically, in order to line up stadium funding, state and local governments will do things like issue bonds or pass very specific taxes on such items as car rentals or hotels in order to raise money. Does the District have ability to raise possibly up to $2B this way? In my view, probably not. As a matter of fact, the District had to take out a private construction loan to build Nats Park, and that was a fraction of the cost of what a hypothetical new stadium for Washington will cost. I also don’t think that Josh Harris and his ownership group are going to contribute significant funding to construction of a stadium for which that they can’t own any part. And without state or federal funds to rely on . . . let’s just say that this becomes an exponentially tougher problem to solve. Even if the District government can figure out the funding, the next problem is the opposition to a stadium from the local residents. It’s true that there’s a NIMBY – Not In My Backyard – thing going on here, but the desires of the local residents are a real concern. The point is, even if this bill passes, significant hurdles remain for DC that aren’t necessarily present Maryland and Virginia. The bill doesn’t “require” that a stadium be built; it just allows it to happen. For me, I don’t have nearly the desire to see a new stadium at the RFK site that many fans have. The Redskins are long gone and aren’t going to return. Sometimes you just can’t go home again; they are never going to recreate the magic of the old team. In this case, at least, nostalgia should remain just that: nostalgia. I keep calling the current iteration of this franchise an expansion team, and while I realize that, strictly speaking, that isn’t true, for me, it’s the case. This new franchise needs to chart its own course, not try to recreate events that occurred more than 30 years ago. Therefore, my advice to ownership, for what it’s worth, is to leave the RFK site alone and go somewhere else. In terms of the Virginia and Maryland options, when we last left things, Daniel Snyder had struck out with funding in Virginia but had a purchase option on some property somewhere south of the Capital beltway. I assume that state funding is now probably back on the table, at least to some extent, now that the Harris group is in charge. As far as the property Snyder found, there’s no guarantee that the purchase option transferred over to the new ownership group. It’s safer to assume that they’ll need to find new land. The situation in the state of Maryland isn’t much clearer. At the end of Snyder’s reign, the state government had made it abundantly clear that a stadium development would be owned by the state, not team ownership, and it looked like funding availability was scarce. Granted, the situation different now that Harris and company are in charge, but the point is that they are essentially at ground zero in Maryland as well. For his part, Harris has been actively trying to get a new, large commercial development in Philadelphia done that has a new facility for the 76ers as its centerpiece, so the assumption is that he’d want to do the same thing in the DC area. That sort of thing takes years of planning and tons of financing, so it probably isn’t a project that can go from ground zero, which is where things currently stand, to done and open before the end of the 2027 season. That, of course, is when the team’s lease at the former Fed Ex Field expires. Harris could just leave the team at the existing stadium for a few more years, with some coordination with Prince George’s County, so they won’t be homeless, but that obviously isn’t ideal. In conclusion, this isn’t an emergency yet, but time is running short, and there aren’t any firm answers on the board. I expect major progress over the course of the next year. Whatever happens, you can be sure that it will be about money first, with nostalgia and fan desires a distant second. Where do you want a new stadium to be located? Let me know in the comment section below.
https://www.thehogsty.com/2024/03/11/st ... part-8538/
