The vote will be the first step in the process of building a football stadium in the District.
On August 1st, the D.C. Council will take its first vote on legislation that could clear the way to build a stadium for the National Football League’s Washington Commanders franchise. Last April, the owner of the Commanders franchise, Josh Harris, Washington D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced Harris wanted to build a $3.6 billion, 65,000-seat domed stadium at the site of RFK Stadium along with retail space, office space and residential space on land now controlled by the District. That deal was supposed to have been signed by July 15th. That deadline came and went. The council and the business reworked the April agreement. The team played at that stadium from 1961 through 1995. Just because there was an announcement, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Harris can pack up the equipment, load it onto a truck and start using the planned building in 2030.
The original deal had Harris and his Commanders business partners paying $2.7 billion for construction, while D.C. would contribute about $1.1 billion which included $500 million for construction, $356 million for parking, $89 million for a “sportsplex” and $202 million for utilities. The line from Bowser’s office is that Harris’s stadium-village will generate $4 billion in taxes. “This land has been blighted and underutilized for too long,” Bowser said. “What our deal with the Washington Commanders provides is the fastest and surest route to developing the RFK campus, and not just delivering sports and entertainment, but delivering housing, jobs, recreation and economic development.” Goodell said a new stadium would increase D.C.’s chances of hosting a Super Bowl “dramatically. There will be another DC council vote on September 17th after all of the financial details are finalized. Maryland and Virginia politicians went after Harris’s business but Washington politicians were able to win the stadium race.
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