Public comment period: Redevelopment at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Campus | Closes December 19th

Binta Robinson, author of a great letter to the editor in the Washington Post, "How to fix D.C.’s crumbling sports infrastructure," suggesting that the Mubudala DC Citi Tennis Open could be shifted from its low density residential location in Rock Creek Park to the campus of a new Commanders football stadium, informs us that there is a public comment period on the redevelopment of the RFK site because the National Park Service is the underlying owner of the land.

-- Public comment period: Redevelopment at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Campus, closes at 11:59pm EST on December 19th.

The main court for the Miami Open is a temporary court constructed within the main Miami Hard Rock Stadium.

I expanded on her letter with this blog entry, "You get what you plan for: the multi-use Miami Hard Rock Stadium versus typical football stadiums | Washington Commanders," going into more depth about how the Miami Dolphins organization has planned and executed a deep program of multiple events at the stadium complex, which among other elements includes a large tennis complex and facilities for the Miami Open Tennis Tournament.

Typically, football stadiums are minimally used and have limited local economic development impact.  This is even more true in DC, which unlike most other jurisdictions, is unable to tax day-of-game income on home and visiting players.  The Dolphins demonstrate this doesn't have to be the case.

DC Streetcar as an opportunity to serve the Commanders Campus.

Construction galore before the DC streetcar even opened.

In "Streetcars: transit, economic development levers, source for discontent in local politics" I mention that the DC Streetcar could be extended into the Commanders campus, rather than be dropped:

DC's streetcar is the textbook example of poor planning, yet it has sparked more than $1 billion in new or planned development ("DC and streetcars #4: from the standpoint of stoking real estate development, the line is incredibly successful and it isn't even in service yet, and now that development is extending eastward past 15th Street," "Update/revision of H Street transit oriented real estate development table").  

Streetcars are an example of what economic development professionals call a priming device.

To me that's a success.  Even though there is an even more important planning lesson--if you build a short disconnected line rather than a streetcar network, it's not going to be very effective at transit.  That's the case with Seattle too.

Foolishly, DC is dumping the streetcar--it never committed to network creation--even though the streetcar serves the northern side of the campus for the new football team stadium ("Transformative $3.7 billion Commanders stadium deal passes D.C. Council," Washington Post). Very shortsighted.  You could pop a streetcar spur into the campus.

Extend the streetcar beyond a Commanders campus to make it even more useful.  A letter to the editor in GGW by Ward 7 resident Pat Bahn extends this point further, that such a service could be extended past the campus to the Benning Road Station, making the streetcar service much more useful than the current truncated line that exists at present.  Reprinted here:

Streetcar for the new Commanders stadium (re: “RFK isn’t big enough for a stadium with NFL-sized parking” and “Whether or not it gets a stadium, RFK needs a second Metro station”)

The stadium presents a unique opportunity for growing the Ward 7 commercial and residential neighborhoods East of the River (EOTR). GGWash has rightly pointed out that the stadium footprint is small for a car-oriented stadium and that significant investment in parking structures would only have limited revenue opportunities associated to games and concerts. GGWash has argued for the utility of a second Metro station at Oklahoma Avenue and how that could create a viable walk shed to the stadium, and GGWash has written about the tie in with the planned streetcar extension to Benning Road Station on the Blue Line.

The campus in its heyday.

What is missed out is the opportunity this really presents to bring the streetcar line back in a loop along East Capital Avenue across the Whitney Young Memorial Bridge. This loop could swing past the stadium and even along the Stadium-Armory Metro station, before returning back to the Oklahoma Avenue station. This would serve to tie potentially five Metro stations and four lines (Blue, Orange, Silver, Red) to the streetcar and create the opportunity for transit-oriented development (TOD) along East Capital Avenue, Benning Road, and Minnesota Avenue while leveraging billions in existing infrastructure.

What the Washington Commanders football team says they'll create.

An integrated intermodal streetcar could allow the Benning, Mahaning and Marshall Heights, Greenway and River Terrace [neighborhoods] to all benefit from the stadium and become a modern 21st century community. Visitors could park all across the Blue and Orange lines and metro to Minnesota Avenue to pre-game and ride the streetcar to the stadium, and the city could zone in more mixed-use development on lot 6 and 7 creating revenue, jobs, and housing the city desperately needs. For far less than the cost of parking structures, the city could build light rail passenger transit that would serve the city every day while driving investment into Ward 7.

The San Francisco MUNI system serves the Giants baseball stadium.

Giants fans leave the MUNI headed for the park. The San Francisco Giants play the Anaheim Angels in Games 5 of the World Series at Pac Bell Park in San Francisco, Ca. October 24, 2002. 

Mike Kepka/San Francisco Chronicle

The vision GGWash has elucidated in the above articles is too small a vision for a great global city, the possibilities of a river spanning development could truly make the stadium an asset for every person in the city.

An Oklahoma Avenue Metrorail Station is something I have recommended as part of a revitalization planning framework for East of the River ("Wanted: A comprehensive plan for the "Anacostia River East" corridor," 2012).

And a Separated Silver Line.  In writing about an Oklahoma Avenue Station--originally planned for but rejected by the community, which made sense at the time because it would have been an end of the line station when built, more oriented to suburban commuters driving in--I paired it with the concept of a Separated Silver Line.

This graphic appeared in the Washington Post in two articles in 2001.

-- "Coming to a Curve: Region's Subway System Begins to Show Its Age, Limits," March 25, 2001, p. A01
-- "Crowds Could Derail Decades of Progress," March 26, 2001, p. A01

This concept was originally a Separated Blue Line, devised by WMATA to add platforms at the heavily congested Rosslyn Station, continuing on with a station alignment into DC through Georgetown and east of the main Metrorail lines Downtown.  

It would have further connected to Union Station, adding an additional subway line there to support rail passenger expansion, and would have continued onto H Street with a couple stations, probably ending at Minnesota Avenue Station.  But that concept was dropped when WMATA had budget problems.

-- "Metro's Expansion Creaks to a Halt: Soft Economy, Changes in Political Priorities Cancel Projects, Prompt Job Cuts," July 12, 2003, p. A01

This graphic was courteously produced by David Alpert illustrated some Metrorail expansion concepts I wrote about in the 2010s.  It doesn't show separation of the Silver Line on Rte. 50.

Later I suggested it could be a Separated Silver Line instead, providing additional stations in Virginia on Route 50, and in DC with a spur up Bladensburg Road into Prince George's County, but continuing on Benning Road to the Oklahoma Avenue Station and picking up the Blue Line alignment ("More on Redundancy, engineered resilience, and subway systems: Metrorail failures will increase without adding capacity in the core." 2016), making the Blue Line a truncated line only serving Virginia.

It could be extended further south to Fort Belvoir and Quantico ("A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for the Metrorail Blue Line," 2020)

After the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opened, stakeholders realized that while they had a good subway system, they needed better surface transit and began the creation of a tram network to serve the Guggenheim and other tourist destinations. 

Conclusion.  The streetcar and Metrorail expansion proposals build on my concept of Transformational Projects Action Planning ("Why can't the "Bilbao Effect" be reproduced? | Bilbao as an example of Transformational Projects Action Planning," 2017), which harnesses anchor infrastructure projects to further spread complementary improvements to civic and transportation asset networks in a region.

In this case, that would be the football stadium in DC, with plans to improve (1) East of the River revitalization efforts, (2) Metrorail expansion and intensification and additional stations within DC and Virginia, and (3) renewed efforts to build a more useful streetcar line and network.

=====

Also see:

-- "Another example of RFPs versus plans and letting developers set the agenda: stadium projects in Chicago," 2025
-- "Sports facilities and the reproduction of retail space often doesn't work for the locals," 2025
-- "Framework of characteristics that support successful community development in association with the development of professional sports facilities," 2021
-- "Suburban stadium/arena interest a function of new, younger generations of ownership or a better real estate play?," 2023

-- "Capital One Arena, Wizards and Capitals may move to Alexandria | Why not the RFK campus," 2023
-- "Good quote on arenas and stadiums as "performing arts centers" attractions for cities," 2024
-- "Revisiting "Framework of characteristics that support successful community development in association with the development of professional sports facilities" and the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team + Phoenix Coyotes hockey," 2022
-- "Yes, modify and extend the RFK Campus lease; No, don't do it for the Washington Redskins football team," 2018