A deal between the Washington Commanders and the D.C. City Council to build a new stadium at the old RFK site is gaining momentum, with a potential final Council vote next week, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the discussions.
The framework of a deal is coming into focus. The Council is looking to claw back potential revenues of the stadium project from the Commanders, a key goal of D.C. Council chairman Phil Mendelson, after the team reached an initial agreement with D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser in late April on a proposed $3.7 billion development that would build a 65,000-seat stadium on the RFK site.
The Commanders would put $2.5 billion toward the stadium and development of the surrounding areas, including two large land parcels the team would control and upon which it would build multiple mixed-use projects, including hotels, restaurants and retail, with the city contributing a little more than $1 billion.
Sources briefed on the discussions say a vote of the Council may come as soon as Aug. 1. Two days of public hearings — one for public witness testimony, one for Commanders’ officials — have already been scheduled for early next week.
“We are nearing the goal line. We’re in the red zone,” at-large councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, the chair pro tempore of the Council, said in a phone interview Wednesday. “And I’m optimistic that we’re going to have a vote, and approval of this deal, soon. But, certainly, before the Commanders take the field on Sept. 7 and give us our first win of the season.”
Washington’s stadium has been located in Landover, Md., since it was last on the RFK site in 1996. (Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)
Under the terms of the initial agreement between the mayor and the Commanders, the team would get revenue from parking, even though the city would contribute more than $350 million in direct payments and through bonds toward the construction of 8,000 spaces surrounding the stadium. Nor would the city get any direct tax revenues from the project, though sales taxes generated from ticket sales and other streams at the stadium would go into a fund designed to pay off the bonds used to finance the stadium’s construction, and for future maintenance of the facility. There was also no set timeframe for when the 5,000 to 6,000 housing units that are supposed to be in the project would be completed.
Mendelson has been adamant that the city needed to get more revenues from the Commanders before he would sign off on any deal. Negotiations between the team and the Council have proceeded from there, with Bowser pressing the Council to pass the bill by a July 15 deadline, during which time the District maintained exclusive negotiating rights with the team to make a deal. The team wants to open the new stadium by 2030, allowing it and the District to potentially bid on the 2031 FIFA Women’s World Cup. A roofed stadium would also give Washington a chance at large-scale concerts and events such as NCAA Final Fours.
City officials said when unveiling the plan in April that the new stadium would create 2,000 permanent full-time and part-time jobs, as well as 14,000 construction jobs. The stadium is projected to generate an estimated $4 billion in total tax revenue over 30 years. Critics of the plan maintain that the RFK project, in line with other publicly funded stadiums and arenas in recent years, will not raise anything near the amounts cited by the mayor and the Commanders. But the concessions from the team and additional potential revenues for the city appear to be carrying the day.
“It’s going to be transformational in its economic impact for the city,” McDuffie said. “This land was transferred to the District, and had parameters that allowed for a mixed-use economic project — with a stadium in mind. The stadium is the anchor for a broader, comprehensive economic project. I never thought of the 180 acres and thought, ‘Just build a stadium.’ … This final agreement that will be presented, folks will see a better deal across the board. More revenues for the city. More good-paying jobs for D.C. residents. And greater opportunities for D.C.-based small businesses.”
Mendelson said Tuesday in an interview with 106.7 FM The Fan that he believed a majority of the current 12-member council “want to get to yes” on the stadium deal.
“I’ve thought that for a while, and I think that’s still true,” Mendelson said in the interview. “And when I hear comments, which I have heard from some other folks, not on the council, about how the council wants to blow up this deal, that’s just not correct.”
NBC4 in Washington first reported the significant progress toward a deal Wednesday morning.
The stadium deal received national attention over the weekend when President Donald Trump said he wanted the Commanders to change their name back to “Redskins,” the team’s name from the time the franchise moved from Boston in 1937 until 2020, when then-owner Dan Snyder acquiesced to public and corporate pressure and announced the team would change its name. After two seasons as the Washington Football Team, it was announced in 2022 that they would become the Commanders.
Trump threatened that he would hold up the proposed deal until the Commanders reverted to the name. But the team’s majority owner, Josh Harris, has said on multiple occasions over the last year-plus that the Commanders have no intention of returning to the old name after decades of complaints from Native American groups and a large segment of the fan base that it was racist.
While a large segment of the fan base wants to go back to the old nickname, an increasing number of fans are now comfortable with “Commanders” following the team’s unexpected run to the NFC Championship Game last season.
The City Council and the team have proceeded apace, however, toward finalizing the finances of the deal.
“In terms of the president, our focus, since we got this deal from the mayor, has been squarely on a deal that works for D.C. residents,” McDuffie said.
A report commissioned for the Council, and released last week, indicated that while the initial agreement “is a unique opportunity to create a transformational impact for the District of Columbia,” the city faced significant risks and exposures that the report recommends be alleviated. Among those included “uncertainty” about whether the city or the team would be responsible for maintenance costs after construction is completed, potential losses of revenue if there are construction delays and language reverting control of the land upon which the housing units are to be built back to the city if the team fails to complete building the housing units by a certain time.
While the current housing market is not ideal, Mendelson and the Council needed assurances that the housing would be completed as soon as possible. Public housing construction is a frequent feature of modern public-private stadium partnerships, but the track record for them getting finished — or, serving the communities that need the housing most — is spotty at best.
Mendelson said in the radio interview on Tuesday that D.C. and the Commanders “were very far down the road” in negotiations.
“I think if we can improve the financial terms, that we get at least some of the tax revenues from the site, I think that would be a good thing,” Mendelson said. “And if we can have some assurances that the promises of the mixed-use development will occur within timelines that have been suggested, if we can have assurances of that, I think that’s a good thing.”
(Top photo: Tom Brenner / Getty Images)
