A stadium-village will be built by the Commanders ownership.
For Josh Harris, the owner of the National Football League’s Washington Commanders franchise, he has won the Super Bowl in September. Harris and his partners will be able to build a stadium and develop land in Washington D. C. Harris and his partners will build a stadium on the land of the Washington football team’s past D. C. home, the RFK Stadium site. The D.C. Council voted 11-2 to approve a deal. The agreement has Harris and his partners putting up $2.7 billion and District taxpayers kicking in an additional one billion dollars to build a stadium-village. Harris and his Washington Commanders partners will act as real estate agents and will be responsible for developing land around the stadium.
The new development will be anchored by a 65,000-seat domed stadium. The team played at that stadium site from 1961 through 1995. Washington offered a better stadium deal than Maryland and Virginia. What happens to the Commanders’ old home in Landover, Maryland? Harris has promised to redevelop that property. D. C. or RFK stadium held a place in America’s civil rights movement history. Washington owner George Preston Marshall refused to hire a Negro player for his team. The federal government built a multi-purpose stadium in Washington. But Marshall had a white-only policy. President John F. Kennedy’s Interior Department played a major role in changing Marshall’s stance. Kennedy’s Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall told Marshall there was a law that prohibited discrimination in federal facilities. D. C. Stadium was a federal facility. Udall gave Marshall an ultimatum, hire Negro players or find somewhere else to play. Cleveland traded Bobby Mitchell to Washington. Cleveland got the NFL rights to Syracuse University running back Ernie Davis. Marshall got a 30-year lease only after selecting Davis and making the Mitchell deal.
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