Capital One Arena, Wizards and Capitals may move to Alexandria | Why not the RFK campus?

The day after I wrote that maybe the next trend in stadium and arena development is building ancillary development as a real estate play ("Suburban stadium/arena interest a function of new, younger generations of ownership or a better real estate play?"), and that often means suburban locations where adjacent land is more easily acquired and controlled by the team, it was announced that Monumental Sports is negotiating with Virginia for a Potomac Yards location ("Lawmakers vote in favor of plan to bring Capitals, Wizards to Virginia," Washington Post).

Flickr photo by Ken Lund.  After the acquisition of MCI by Verizon, the latter picked up the naming rights for the arena.

The arena and revitalization of the East End.  Even though I argued for years that the move by the teams to DC from the suburbs weren't the reason that the Downtown East End began revitalization, eventually I conceded that the move was a vote of confidence in urban living and commerce, and it helped reposition DC's image vis a vis the suburbs, just before residential choice trends began revaluing center cities after many decades of denigration ("Pollin: With Opening of MCI Center, 'I've Got Everything I've Ever Done in My Life on the Line'," Post, 1997, "Without Verizon Center, does Chinatown still thrive?," Washington Business Journal, 2016).

From the WBJ:

“I think that Chinatown will be fine even if the Verizon Center is moved,” said Ed McMahon, a senior resident fellow with the Urban Land Institute. “Why? Because downtown D.C. has come back to life. Because Chinatown has many other attractions and activity centers: the Museum of American Art, the National Building Museum, the new Georgetown University Extension and Graduate Center, dozens of restaurants, etc. Because Chinatown has a Metro stop and virtually all of the neighborhoods around Metro stops are thriving with or without a Verizon Center.”

Decline of Downtown post-covid changes the economic calculus. But these days with the decline of Downtown post covid, and WFH, plus the continued movement of federal agencies out of DC, DC is much less resilient economically than it was, and the loss of the Arena and its teams could be profound.  

In fact, I've been meaning to write a mea culpa piece about the FBI HQ moving to the suburbs, which when DC was thriving, would have been an acceptable "loss" because the redevelopment opportunities would have been better than keeping them, even if it posed agglomeration diseconomies on the FBI and Metrorail.

It doesn't help that DC planning isn't particularly forward on thinking about how to continually boost Downtown, e.g, 

-- "DC, Transformational Projects Action Planning, and the Baltimore-Washington Maglev project," 2021
-- "Boeing to move "headquarters" to Northern Virginia," 2022
-- "Could bringing premier regionally headquartered business enterprises to the Pennsylvania Avenue Corridor be key to its renewal and revitalization?," 2014
-- "Businesses moving back to the center: not a universal trend," 2015

Sports as a real estate play.  It's definitely a real estate play.  Today Post columnist Barry Svrluga has a good piece, "There are reasons for Capitals and Wizards to move. They’re all sad," about how this would harm DC.

Separately I'd been meaning to write about how Monumental Sports has asked DC for $600 million to rehabilitate the now 26 year old Capital One Arena, and apparently the Bowser Administration hasn't been fully helpful ("Monumental asking D.C. for $600M for Capital One Arena, sources say," Post. "Is Revamping Capital One Arena Worth $600 Million To D.C.?," DCist).

Maximizing community benefit from sports teams, because in most cases they'll get subsidized even in the face of opposition.  While my position is that teams and billionaires shouldn't be subsidized, that isn't the way things work, so I've come to focus my writings on how communities can maximize the benefits they receive from these deals.

-- "Framework of characteristics that support successful community development in association with the development of professional sports facilities," 2021
-- "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 

DC loses out on income tax from sports.  DC is at a disadvantage too, because unlike other jurisdictions, Congress forbids it from taxing non-residents.  That means it can't tax day of game earnings of both home and away players ("Taxation Is the Name of the Game for Professional Athletes," Bloomberg Tax).  This is worth $20 million per year off football based on a study for the Buffalo Bills, it could be more for other sports because of more events.

Offer the RFK campus as the real estate play for Monumental (although it's not downtown it's still DC). In 2018, I wrote a piece about the attempt to extend the RFK campus lease, but at the behest of the "Washington" NFL team, which has been based in Suburban Prince George's County for a couple decades.

-- "Yes, modify and extend the RFK Campus lease; No, don't do it for the Washington Redskins football team"

The RFK campus is on the right.  Benning Road, the extension of H Street is in the upper portion of image.

It mentioned how the RFK campus planning effort by Events DC did mention an arena, but the point never got much play.

Since 2003, when I was on the board of H Street Main Street, and advocating that the group create a housing growth strategy in its retail trade area, I suggested that the RFK parking lots, especially along Benning Road, should be converted to housing and mixed use development.  (Other areas too.)

In turn that would help to spur development of the Pepco power plant site, which stopped producing electricity in 2012, and Benning Road further east, and Minnesota Avenue.

If anything DC should offer this site to Monumental, recognizing that there are serious roadblocks in the way with renegotiating the lease with NPS and Congress, and the cost of extinguishing the easement currently limiting the site's use to recreation.

The fact is that centering development around an arena would be a much better play, because there would be so many more events -- the Capitals and Wizards to start, probably the Georgetown Hoyas still, maybe an arena football team again, and some games by the Mystics and DC Go Go (both which play at an underpowered facility in Congress Heights, but could add events in the summer when NBA and NHL seasons are over).

In return, as part of the deal Monumental should give the Capital One Arena building to DC.

But speaking of lack of political vision, "Mendelson aims to block DC from purchasing RFK stadium site," Washington Business Journal. 

Jump starting a new revitalization plan for East of the River.  Plus it could also lead to a new revitalization plan for East of the River, which I've written about over the years.

-- "Wanted: A comprehensive plan for the "Anacostia River East" corridor," 2012
-- "Waterfronts/rivers/canals as districts needing special and ongoing "zoning" and environmental review," 2022
-- "The Anacostia River and considering the bridges as a unit and as a premier element of public art and civic architecture," 2014
-- "DC has a big "Garden Festival" opportunity in the Anacostia River"," 2014
-- "A world class water/environmental education center at Poplar Point as another opportunity for Anacostia River programming (+ move the Anacostia Community Museum next door)," 2014
-- "Saving the South Capitol Bridge as an exclusive pedestrian and and bicycle bridge," 2014

-- "Social urbanism and equity planning as a way to address crime, violence, and persistent poverty: (not in) DC," 2021

-- "Ordinary versus Extraordinary Planning around the rebuilding of the United Medical Center in Southeast Washington DC: Part Two: Creating a graduate health and biotechnology research initiative on the St. Elizabeths campus," 2018

Controversially, because the Park Service has more golf courses than demand, the Langston Golf Course could be redeveloped.  Although the course is particularly important to local African[-American history and likely such a move would be opposed, and would also require approval of Congress and the Executive Branch, separate from the RFK situation, which is equally complicated.

Although Guardian articles show how minimal the use is of a typical golf course in a good day, fewer than 150 patrons ("Building houses on Britain’s vast, exclusive golf courses makes sense for everyone – even golfers," "London golf courses could provide homes for 300,000 people, study says").

Creating a separated Silver Line could serve the H Street corridor, the RFK campus/Benning Road, and other points in the city.  It could also spur transit expansion for DC, specifically my recommendations for a separated silver line Metrorail and improvements and extensions of the DC streetcar line.

-- "If DC had visionary elected officials and planners it could use the new WMATA "BOS" study to push through the development of a separated Silver Line in DC (and Northern Virginia)," 2019

(I know this is not what WMATA is recommending, see "Blue Loop? Metro eyes possible future stops in Georgetown, National Harbor," WTOP-AM).

From the entry, based on ideas expressed in the Meissner-Layman conceptual Metrorail Expansion map just for the DC portion:

4. In the vicinity of RFK Stadium, (and presuming the truncation of the Blue Line, see below) I would route the Separated Silver Line onto the Blue Line alignment from RFK Stadium to Largo Town Center.  That would put the new Oklahoma Avenue Station on the Silver Line. [Edit:  Note that the current WMATA proposal would change the routing anyway, just not on an H Street alignment.]

5. At RFK, (presuming the truncation of the Blue Line) the Orange Line alignment would remain the same from Vienna to New Carrollton. But by crossing the Silver Line at this point, this would be a transfer point between the two lines, just as it is currently.

The Oklahoma Avenue station, at the western edge of the RFK site, was the only station in the original plan that ended up not being built, in face of neighborhood opposition fearing the station would be the equivalent of a "park and ride."

Rather than the aerial alignment from RFK Station to Minnesota Avenue for the Orange Line, it would be replaced by a tunnelized alignment. 

The cost would be justified economically by the ability to enable superior redevelopment of the RFK Stadium site.

6. Not indicated on the Meissner-Layman map, an infill Orange Line station could be built at the old Pepco generating site, providing additional service for the RFK area on the northeast.  This would be a 10th station for DC deriving from a "Separated Silver Line"."

7. The proposed separate intra-city Silver Line leg along Bladensburg Road from H Street to New York Avenue and Fort Lincoln could be extended further into Prince George's County if Maryland is interested.

This would provide Metrorail service to the New York Avenue corridor, if somewhat circuitous, and could also connect to a new infill New York Avenue station on the MARC passenger rail system ("One big idea: Getting MARC and Metrorail to integrate fares, stations, and marketing systems, using London Overground as an example," 2015). 

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

Streetcar expansion too.  The streetcar currently reaches not quite to the edge of the RFK campus.  

It should be extended on the east to the Benning Road station, and as a further inducement to development a loop serving the exterior of a redeveloped RFK campus could be created, not unlike the original configuration of the Portland Streetcar linking the Pearl District (old railyard that was redeveloped to Downtown and the Portland State University campus (or the way that the Cincinnati, Kansas City, and Oklahoma City, and Tempe streetcars work in their communities)..

It should also be extended on the west at least as far as Georgetown-Rosslyn.

Proposed Gatineau light rail loop to Ottawa to serve museums and the Byward Public Market is another model for intra-district transportation.

Arguably this would be duplicative, if a separated Silver Line is created, but the Silver Line couldn't provide intra-district transportation within the RFK campus ("Brief follow up to intra-district transit proposal for Tysons: Toyama City Compact City initiative (Japan)," 2020) and has already been proven to stoke economic development in significant ways, even if the service isn't particularly robust ("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," 2015, 

Conclusion.  Not happy about subsidizing the billionaires, but this could still be a good deal for DC, as the benefits from the ancillary development, the ability to refocus to East of the River revitalization, the ability to push the separated Silver Line concept, at least in DC, and the ability to have the werewithal to extend the streetcar both east and west, would be profound.

Sometimes subsidy makes sense, as I have argued with the Sacramento Kings (which touched off my new approach to discussing sports team subsidies) and the Amazon HQ2, given the pre-covid massive economic return experienced by Seattle.

Note that the Events DC "planning" for the RFK campus didn't include the DC planning office, as it was set up as a kind of bag job by Council separate from normal planning.  Events DC didn't really do a plan, more a vision.  And they were constrained by not wanting to anger NPS, so they had to focus on recreation only.

A new planning effort would be required, and it should be led by the Office of Planning. Even though they're not so great either.

One more point.  With regard to the concept of the real estate play and suburban locations having more land, it's not always true, like with the RFK campus in DC, or Oakland's waterfront although rejected by the A's, how the Golden State Warriors move to the Mission Bay district of SF jump started development there, and similarly the placement of the Washington Nationals stadium in Southeast DC's Navy Yard development--definitely has stoked the area, but for food and drink, not retail.

So it depends.  A lot of "old" center cities still have the space.  Even if sports-related redevelopment initiatives remain controversial.

Plus the constant redevelopment of Las Vegas means tearing down stuff to build stadiums and arenas is not a big deal either.