As the Washington Commanders consider leaving behind their Prince George’s home, local leaders are pleading for Maryland not to neglect their neighborhoods once again.
“I’m asking you to think about what was done 25 years ago with our current stadium and ensure that we don’t do it again,” Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D) told state legislators this week, pointing out that FedEx Field opened in 1997 “with no infrastructure to sustain it and no infrastructure to benefit the surrounding community.”
Wp Get the full experience.Choose your plan ArrowRight
Newly obtained documents show Prince George’s and the state have developed an expansive vision for a five-mile corridor of economic development to surround a new stadium, similar to Virginia’s “mini-city” approach. The state and county told the team in confidential documents that Prince George’s will help further team president Jason Wright’s goals for a stadium project that also advances social-justice initiatives.
Virginia’s bills to lure Commanders could offer unlimited tax dollars for ‘mini-city’
Maryland is clearly willing to spend heavily on stadiums. Lawmakers are advancing a plan to put $1.2 billion into upgrading the state’s other two major pro sports stadiums, in Baltimore. But, so far, state leaders have not introduced legislation to implement the Commanders pitch.
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
And if Prince George’s loses the Commanders and the multibillion-dollar project to build a new team stadium, the county would face an economic crater.
“I’m asking you to remember Prince George’s County,” Alsobrooks said in her first public pitch for money for the stadium proposal. “Prince George’s County residents deserve the same commitment and resources.”
A Commanders spokesman said Wednesday that the FedEx Field location, where team owner Daniel Snyder already owns more than 200 acres, is the only site the team is considering in Maryland.
The 89-page pitch, delivered to the team in May and obtained by The Washington Post this week, offers the most detailed look yet into how a government vying for the team has proposed far more than economic incentives or a publicly financed stadium.
It describes a “Stadium District” that would not only anchor acres of sports-related development — including a hotel, a convention center, shopping, homes and an on-site sportsbook — but would also funnel billions into a majority-Black jurisdiction that local leaders say has repeatedly been left behind.
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
“We believe that the prospect of a new stadium represents an opportunity for even greater long-term impacts, serving as an engine for equitable and inclusive economic development and social justice,” the pitch reads.
Yet, in the months since, Maryland leaders have not put a financial proposal up for public debate, even as Virginia legislators advanced a lucrative offer for a stadium in Northern Virginia. The team has searched for a new stadium site for years, pitting the two states and the District against one another. The Commanders are contractually obligated to play in Landover, Md., until 2027.
The Maryland proposal featured a 65,000-seat indoor stadium as the crown jewel of the development, built just east of FedEx Field and atop the current parking lots, putting the stadium a 15-to-20-minute walk from a Metro stop. The stadium-district concept is similar to those implemented with Truist Park outside Atlanta, SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., outside Los Angeles and Nationals Park in Southeast Washington, which ushered in acres of redevelopment near the D.C. waterfront.
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
In Landover, the redevelopment vision would use the stadium to anchor the five-mile corridor of investment. It would run along Central Avenue and four stops of the Blue Line, from the D.C. boundary at Capitol Heights to Largo Town Center, east of FedEx Field. The county has already started putting resources into the “Blue Line Corridor,” with the aim of turning it into an urban extension of D.C.
Over 10 years, the pitch said, the FedEx Field site would host nearly 4 million square feet of development, with pieces set aside to ensure minority-owned businesses benefited from the windfall. There would be four practice fields alongside team headquarters, plus public parks and 2,100 homes — many designated as affordable housing, to help Black families build “generational wealth,” the pitch said.
The campus would be integrated into the community, hosting a K-8 charter school, a field house for 16 basketball and volleyball courts, and a “team history and cultural museum.”
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
Pieces of the campus would be connected by a pedestrian and bike trail, part of which would be an elevated bridge. It would be dubbed the “Bobby Mitchell Greenway,” in honor of the team’s first Black player.
“It can demonstrate how corporate partnerships can innovate in equity, education, recreation and social justice initiatives,” the proposal said.
Commanders’ efforts to build new stadium hitting roadblocks over financing, sexual harassment investigation
Money for Baltimore stadiums, but not Commanders
Though the proposal bore the signatures of Alsobrooks and Gov. Larry Hogan (R), Alsobrooks’s appeal in Annapolis on Tuesday signaled that the plan has yet to secure widespread local approval like Virginia’s. Hogan on Tuesday publicly rebuffed the idea that the state would build a stadium for a team, even though he backs investing in those of the Orioles and Ravens.
Story continues below advertisement
In the May proposal to the Commanders, Maryland highlighted the Maryland Stadium Authority’s decades of experience with professional sports venues, presumably to contrast with Virginia, which would need to create a football stadium authority during the commonwealth’s upcoming special session.
Hogan spokesman Michael Ricci downplayed the significance of the governor’s signature on the May pitch, calling it a “marketing document” that “largely consists of pro forma information and boilerplate language regarding the capabilities of state agencies to assist the team in developing facilities.”
Ricci added, however, that Maryland “will continue to provide support and expertise to the county in its discussions with the team.”
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
A bill considered Tuesday in Annapolis would let the Maryland Stadium Authority pump $600 million into upgrading the Orioles’ Camden Yards and another $600 million into the Ravens’ M&T Bank Stadium. But efforts to amend the bill to include the Commanders have not advanced, prompting Alsobrooks’s public plea.
The Prince George’s proposal suggests the team could, as in the Virginia plan, get a cut of taxes generated at the new development — a feature that has not been publicly discussed. Neither had the county’s pitch to possibly extend tax incentives to lower costs and attract other development around the stadium, including the team’s corporate headquarters and practice facilities
Eager to compete, Maryland developing multimillion-dollar deal for Washington Commanders
In an analysis, the proposal touted the FedEx Field site’s viability while pointing out flaws in the alternative sites the team had once considered, such as Landover Mall (“relatively small site with high acquisition costs”), Oxon Cove (“large site, but not near Metrorail” and “environmental constraints limit development potential”) and Greenbelt (“limited space on site” and “would be in competition with the proposed FBI headquarters”).
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
The Commanders spokesman said that, after working with the county executive’s office, the team decided to narrow its focus in Maryland to the FedEx site.
Regional competition revs up
Competition in the D.C. region to host the Commanders has been spirited — and complicated by the team’s off-field scandals.
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) on Wednesday introduced plans to build a $60 million indoor track-and-field stadium on the RFK Stadium campus as part of an effort to demonstrate a commitment to build a sports entertainment district and lure the team back there. “I think world-class cities have their football team within their city limits,” Bowser told reporters.
Story continues below advertisement
In Virginia, Wright, the team president, met Tuesday with Loudoun County officials to go over the team’s concept for a new stadium and commercial complex, probably near a quarry off the northeast corner of Dulles International Airport, Loudoun officials said.
Advertisement
Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large), chair of the county board, called the meeting introductory, saying, “They walked through a very high-level idea of what they want to propose, if they were going to propose something.”
If the Commanders were to settle on Loudoun over two other possible sites in nearby Prince William County, Randall said, she would want the team to be more transparent about its problems with sexual assault allegations, which are under congressional investigation.
“I don’t particularly care who you are, what entity or what individual you are — I will always stand on the side of listening to and supporting women,” she said.
Prince William officials said they had not yet met with the Commanders.
While the jurisdictions are seeking the financial windfall the a project would bring, Maryland’s leaders seek also to stave off the economic devastation that would be left behind if FedEx Field were abandoned.
Advertisement
“I have thousands of constituents who live within a mile radius, whose property values will plummet if they have an empty stadium in their backyard,” said Del. Jazz Lewis (D-Prince George’s), chair of the House Democratic Caucus, whose district includes FedEx Field.
“We’re just looking for parity,” Lewis said, referring to the state’s willingness to invest $1.2 billion into retaining Baltimore stadiums.
Whether or not the county keeps the team, Alsobrooks said funneling resources to the Blue Line Corridor is a chief goal of her administration.
“It’s our next opportunity,” she said. It’s also, she said, the “best opportunity for the Commanders to realize their vision for long-term economic sustainability.”
Antonio Olivo and Julie Zauzmer Weil contributed to this report.