D.C. Council rushes toward early first vote on Commanders stadium deal

The D.C. Council is now expected to cast a first vote on the proposed $3.7 billion Commanders stadium deal on Aug. 1, more than a month earlier than initially expected – and only days after almost 500 people are set to weigh in on the deal at a public hearing.

The vote will be on an amended deal negotiated between the team and Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, who unveiled the changes on Thursday. He said those changes would net the city an additional $779 million over 30 years. (That’s $26 million per year.)

“We’ve been working with the Washington Commanders for several weeks and we feel we have a much-improved agreement that would bring the team back to their historical home, as well as develop the land around the RFK campus,” he said.

According to Mendelson, the new deal would direct sales taxes on merchandise and food to the city; the original deal would have let the team keep that revenue. It also imposes a parking tax on the three parking decks that will be built for an estimated 8,000 cars; the original deal exempted the team from paying the tax altogether. The city will also get to claim parking revenue from non-gameday events. The chairman also reworked some of the financing details to save $55 million, and put an actual dollar amount on the Community Benefits Agreement the team will have to sign.

The move to speed up a first vote on the stadium deal – which was unveiled by Mayor Muriel Bowser in late April, and formally sent to the council a month later – comes amidst sustained pressure from not just the mayor and team, but also Republican members of Congress and even President Donald Trump. 

But the quick turnaround on such a complex and costly deal – D.C. is expected to kick in more than $1 billion for the project – could come at the expense of input from the public and other councilmembers, who were largely left out of the negotiations between Mendelson and the team. No stadium deal in recent history has moved this quickly; the council’s review of the deal to build a stadium for D.C. United in 2014, for which the city contributed $150 million, stretched over seven months. 

While some critics of the deal have called for no stadium to be built at all, others say they don’t necessarily oppose a stadium – but they want the council to take the time to negotiate a deal they say would be more favorable to taxpayers. For weeks Mendelson was on the same page; he regularly said the council needed time to scrutinize such a large deal.

“Every step of the way, the stadium deal has been designed to pass quickly and guarantee enormous financial gains to the team. D.C. residents aren’t asking for no stadium, just a thoughtful stadium deal that has real benefits for D.C. finances and meets the needs of D.C. residents, especially those living east of the Anacostia River,” said Ebony Payne, a Ward 7 resident and leader in the No Billionaire’s Playground group, one of the groups that has organized in opposition to the current deal. “That is what we are asking the D.C. Council to take their time to do.”

In response to questions about why he reversed course and decided to speed up the vote, Mendelson said it was a means to wrest more concessions out of the team. “What we said… ‘If you want an earlier date, we want to see some changes that make the deal better for the residents,’” he said. “We will see significant revenues coming to the District.”

He also addressed criticisms that by holding a vote so soon after the public hearings set for July 29-30 (the first day for commentary from the public, the second for testimony from team and city officials) it would seem like the public’s input wouldn’t matter much to the final product. “I’m not expecting a lot of surprises,” he said about the testimony.

“Twist the truth all you want, but the bottom line is you're rushing the RFK deal 48 hrs after the RFK hearings end. This undermines public confidence that you value our voices,” responded Tazra Mitchell of the left-leaning D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute in a post on X.

Bowser and the team have argued that the deal represents a historic private investment in redeveloping the 174-acre RFK site on the east end of Capitol Hill, with the team putting up more than $2.5 billion for the stadium – which would spur residential and retail development on the rest of the campus. But before the chairman’s changes, the team was also set to receive a number of parcels of adjacent land for housing and retail development for free; enjoy exemptions from some property and sales taxes, to the tune of $1.5 billion over 30 years; and see most revenues produced from the site reinvested in the stadium itself.

Stadium boosters have also argued that time is of the essence; for the team to open the new 65,000-seat roofed stadium by 2030, construction will have to begin as soon as possible. And Bowser has regularly warned that the team could look to Maryland or Virginia as alternatives, though neither could likely stick to the timeline the team has pushed for. 

“We’re on the one-yard-line,” she told ESPN this week. “No fumbles, no interceptions – let's just get it over the line.”

But possible shortcomings in the deal were unveiled in a much-anticipated independent assessment of the stadium deal that was commissioned by the council and unveiled last week. It found that while a Commanders stadium could have “transformative potential” for the city, it also carries “notable risks” and "lacks formal constraints on public financial exposure." 

The assessment – which was produced by Robert Bobb, a respected former D.C. city administrator – said that there should be more clarity on who would be responsible for cost overruns and maintenance of the stadium and surrounding campus, more certainty that the team will face financial penalties if the stadium is delayed or the housing and retail elements aren’t completed by a set time, and better planning to deal with potential transportation and public safety challenges. 

Similar concerns about the city’s financial exposure, how people would get to and from the stadium on game days, and whether the deal included enough housing have been raised by the Committee of 100, a prominent civic organization with a long history.

Mendelson said Thursday that his changes addressed a number of those concerns, including by specifying deadlines for housing to be built and for $600 million to be directed towards making improvements to Metro near the site. (That could potentially include a new Metro station, should one be needed, at Oklahoma Avenue.) He also said the team would cover cost overruns, but those details will have to be spelled out in legislation.

Still, the Commanders will retain some significant perks, including a full exemption on property taxes for the whole site, which the CFO estimated amounts to a $1.1 billion subsidy over 30 years. Mendelson said that the tax break would help cover the construction of affordable housing at the site; it’s estimated that some 6,000 homes could be built on the site, one-third of which would have to be for middle- and low-income families. 

A second and final vote on the stadium deal is expected on Sept. 17. Mendelson said he is confident he has the votes, both for the Aug. 1 vote and in September. But will he get them?

"I believe, ultimately, a deal will be reached," tweeted Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker on Thursday evening. "But to be clear: today’s announcement is largely the chairman’s deal — that members are still digesting. Conversations among members are ongoing."