A new football stadium for the Washington "Commanders" | Virginia versus Maryland (and hopefully not DC)

 "Framework of characteristics that support successful community development in association with the development of professional sports facilities" and "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" are reactions to the reality that despite advocacy against public funding for sports stadiums and arenas, with rare exceptions (California, Seattle) public funding is almost always provided as a matter of course.  

Therefore, instead of fighting funding--which admittedly is still the preferred course of action--instead we should be focusing on getting the best possible array of benefits in return for the public funding, including a kind of virtual ownership interest, to share in the value added to the team from its stadium/arena as platform.

Washington Commanders jerseys are displayed at an event to unveil the NFL football team's new identity, Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022, in Landover, Md. The new name comes 18 months after the once-storied franchise dropped its old moniker following decades of criticism that it was offensive to Native Americans. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

This comes up again, because the woefully dreadful Washington football team, recently renamed the Commanders ("Washington selects Commanders as new NFL team name after two-season process," ESPN) want a new stadium.

Right now Virginia especially, but also Maryland, are vying for the privilege of raining money on the team, even though the team is incredibly unsuccessful on the field and is a lackluster "partner" to the community that hosts it, and the state that funded the stadium.

-- "Been to Largo lately? Sports teams often aren't very good partners...,"2019
-- "Stadiums and arenas redux: Mayor Bowser still wants the area NFL team to relocate to DC," 2019

Currently the football team plays at a stadium located in a desolate part of Prince George's County, about 1.5 miles from the Largo Metrorail Station, with a lease that ends in 2027.  That stadium was built by the Maryland Stadium Authority, with limited benefits for the locality and zero ancillary development.

Parking lots aren't good generators of economic activity.

FedEx Stadium

It replaced a since demolished stadium in DC, the RFK Stadium, and because of the team's one time success there, there is still a strong drumbeat of support especially amongst elected officials like DC's Mayor Bowser, to "bring the team back."

The RFK Stadium in DC has since been demolished.

It too was not great for ancillary development, 

because of its non-central location and parking lots.

The big thing in stadium and arena proposals these days is creating an active development around the facility.  

The latest example is the district being built up around the new SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California (Los Angeles County), which was just home to the recent Super Bowl.

-- LASED - LA Stadium & Entertainment District at Hollywood Park
-- "Inside Inglewood stadium's massive model," Los Angeles Times

The stadium opened last summer, and the area around it is beginning to be built out ("The Lot at Hollywood Park near SoFi Stadium will host drive-in concerts and movies," Daily Breeze).

SoFi Stadium.  

Photo by Mark Holtzman, West Coast Aerial Photography, Inc.

But my belief is that for the most part, such stadiums won't work well as destinations outside of football (spillover benefits), because professional football has so few regular games in the home stadium, 8-9, and maybe a few concerts, unless they are programmed super well.  The LA Stadium might be an exception, but we'll see.

Professor Frank Guridy of Columbia writes about how Inglewood is choosing to be all in on professional sports as economic development, which may have limited benefits for the city's predominately majority minority population ("A home Super Bowl is good for the Rams. But is SoFi Stadium good for Inglewood?," also see "The Rams might be winners, but two communities know what has been lost," Post).

Note that arenas home to basketball and/or hockey have a better chance at successful ancillary development because they are smaller, tend to be centrally located, and have many more events.  

The District Detroit development, home to the Detroit Red Wings and Pistons teams, and near to the baseball and football stadiums, is perhaps the premier example for arenas.  And Ballpark Village adjacent to the St. Louis Cardinals baseball stadium for that sport.

This is especially the case for facilities far from the core of the central city.  The sites proposed in Virginia are at least 27 miles from DC ("Commanders eye three possible sites in Virginia for new stadium, entertainment complex" and "Virginia’s bills to lure Commanders could offer unlimited tax dollars for ‘mini-city’," Washington Post).  (The Atlanta Braves stadium is an exception, but it was inserted into an already thriving edge city.  The strong real estate development conditions there exist independent of the baseball stadium.)

The Washington Nationals stadium is an element in the redevelopment of the Navy Yard.  But interestingly, the ancillary business from patrons is almost exclusively for food and drink, making it almost impossible for retail establishments to succeed.  And that's at a center city location.

Decades ago, a close in stadium was proposed for Potomac Yard in Alexandria/Arlington.  And interestingly, now that area is being developed just fine without a stadium ("Crystal City Arlington as Amazon one-half of HQ2").  Even before Amazon.

The current Virginia proposals are for sites in Prince William and Loudoun Counties.  One of the three sites is proximate to the Loudoun Gateway Silver Line Metrorail station, although legislators state the Metrorail system could be extended to the stadium if service doesn't exist.  

(We already know that hasn't happened for PG County's National Harbor, which has been open for 14 years.  See "Backwardness of transportation and land use planning: National Harbor, Prince George's County, Maryland | Why isn't high capacity transit access required from the outset?.")

Although Maryland wants to remain in the race for the new stadium location ("Eager to compete, Maryland developing multimillion-dollar deal for Washington Commanders," Post).  Note that despite the success of the Baltimore Ravens, the football stadium there hasn't been particularly noteworthy in terms of spurring center city economic revitalization.  Nor will the city's renovated Pimlico horse racing track, where hundreds of millions of state dollars were spent on renovation ("More sports and revitalization: Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore").

Despite the fact that Prince George's County is renaming the Metrorail station Downtown Largo ("Downtown is not a word without meaning: renaming the Largo Town Center to Downtown Largo is without meaning" and "Despite survey results, Largo Town Center Metro Station will become Downtown Largo Station," ), there is no there there, even though the stadium has been there for 25+ years.

Why would a new stadium be any different?  Why would you expect a football team owner who hasn't evinced any success at running the team to be good at real estate development?  

Although the team can hire a top notch developer, but then they'll have to share the proceeds.  (The LA Rams and SoFi Stadium are owned by a real estate developer--he married into the Walton family, and he had a sweetheart deal to develop shopping center developments around Walmart stores).

Why should a community gift the football team owners with the wealth coming from such a development?  Especially in a city like DC, which has the capacity to do a development at that location independent of a stadium and especially football.

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End tax breaks for stadium municipal bonds.  Separately, something I've argued for years, there is legislation proposed in Congress to eliminate the use of tax free bonds for stadium funding ("Lawmakers seek to end lucrative tax breaks for pro stadium construction," Post).

But like how fighting public financing of stadiums and arenas is a losing game, teams are owned by billionaires with good connections to elected officials, plus lobbyists, plus the teams can organize their fans also to lobby Congress against bills that the teams disfavor.

The legislation is justified in part because of lost federal tax revenues.  But at about $200 million/year, that's not very much.

So I don't see this going anywhere.