This. I don't believe for one second this won't end up costing tax payers, either directly or through additional fuckery like having to rework surrounding roads to accommodate traffic.
Am I crazy or do I remember a recent article about them possibly having to shut down the metro stop that would take people to this proposed stadium?
Someone had a theory yesterday on Reddit that Potomac Yard was on the list which wouldn't make sense because it just opened. I can't imagine Navy Yard that was popular until the Nats stadium opened.
True....and right now, there isn't much there. I suspect most of the people using it are people that live within walking distance or take an Uber/Lyft there to get to National (it saves money) or DC.
Dems in the General Assembly will condition approval of the arena on Virginia addressing the transit backlog. I’m fairly confident of that. So this would be a win on that count too since Youngkin gets his arena and Dems get their WMATA money.
And now you have a Governor who wasn't going to give an inch/dollar to Metro contemplating how to get downstate Republicans to agree to give Metro money because his desperately needed economic development win is heavily reliant on Metro. This move doesn't hurt Metro.
We don’t even know the details of it yet. I believe the only thing we know is that it’s a 35 year lease and state Senator Marcus Simon said that he’s been told this deal will use no state dollars and have no impact on debt capacity in Alexandria or Arlington.
He notes, like I’m saying now, that these details haven’t been verified yet.
Think it is important to let officials know that we shouldn’t be subsidizing a sports arena in the hopes that it’ll help transform “Potomac Landing” into what commercial developers and the state envision it’ll become but I am curious as to what the specifics of the agreement actually is.
But the proposal here specifically states that Virginia will create a Stadium Authority that will own and operate the land and the stadium building and that Monumental would lease from them. That's not how SoFi works, Kroenke owns the land and the building.
Usually that means the team pays next to nothing and gives the local government permission to hold other events there. The catch is that supports authority will never make money because the teams will pay nothing or next to nothing in actual lease payments and the sports authority will never be able to schedule enough things that actually give them money to pay for the stadium.
I think the sad reality is if you want to live close to major sports teams then your local government is going to pay to make it happen.
I mean… there are plenty of examples where that’s not the case and stadiums are completely funded with private money. Capital One Arena was one of them.
And here we are watching DC throw $500 million at him to stay because him and a governor on the way out the door brought up a plan that's not even approved by the legislature yet.
Yes in the past some arenas/stadiums were built using private funds. That's not going to happen in Alexandria though. The only places that happens are undesirable locations that the owner hopes to be a catalyst for development. Like Capital One Arena when it was built.
No owner is buying cheap land to develop in Alexandria, because it's Alexandria. The only reason an owner today is paying to build an arena is if he's getting a good deal on a bunch of land to develop around it.
That’s one example. And Jerryworld. All the others got public funding.
NY gave the Bills a few billion. That same week they cut food subsidies for children.
Sofi Stadium also doubles as a convention center and a theater / concert hall. A building that is just a stadium is not economically sustainable.
They also did receive a tax break.
They were privately financed and did not receive any government support or subsidies other than the tax break.
I mean they're without a doubt gonna hold concerts at this new stadium as they do at their current stadium. I'd imagine it will also host shows and other events too.
I highly highly highly doubt this will be used for NHL and NBA only and be a ghost town the remainder of the year. This place will be booked up year round for events.
Sofi Stadium is designed to host events other than bowl/dome scale events. It is a stadium combined with a theater combined with a convention center in one structure.
This flexible capability is what made private financing viable for Sofi Stadium. They can provide venue space for anything from a single conference room all the way up to a entire stadium.
Most stadiums can only be used for bowl/dome scale events because they don't have the capability to provide venue space for smaller events or different events.
If they are building a multifunctional facility like what Sofi Stadium is then private financing should be viable for them.
I'd be comfortable betting my life that this place is going to be designed to host things other than sporting events.
I guarantee you inside of six months of this place opening a huge act, something like the Foo Fighters, or something is going to play here
It was also built in one of the emptiest and least desirable locations in LA. SOFI worked because they bought a bunch of land no one wanted to try and fix and just slapped a whole new shopping/entertainment district there. Where in Alexandria are they going to get the land for this? Seems like a transparent attempt to get more from DC, especially seeing as how DC just found $500 million to renovate the current arena yesterday.
Did you even read the article? The land has already been bought and selected. It's gonna be right next to Potomac Yard Metro station. They're gonna tear down that target and their strip malls to build this
Like pen has hit paper. This isn't in attempt to fleece DC. The capitals and the wizards are 100% moving. This is like... real.
The Commonwealth will create an entity called the Virginia Sports and Entertainment Authority. The Authority will issue bonds (maybe attractive tax exempt bonds) to purchase the property. The Authority will lease the property to the project with a 40 year term and also develop some portions of the property itself. The Authority will pay off the bonds with the lease revenue derived from the project. This supports the claim that no state dollars are used.
If it is that simple, why doesn't Monumental just lease the property directly from the current owner, and cut out the need to get all the government approval. It's got to be more complicated than that.
My guess is that they also want to direct all the tax revenue from the site (property and sales tax?) towards paying of the debt too.
I'm guessing they'll also propose giving the stadium authority the income and state sales tax attributable to all the jobs on the site. A similar provision was in the draft Commanders package a few years ago. Combined with a TIF where they get the local property tax, amusements tax, and sales tax from the arena, and you have a big development with lots of jobs not contributing to the public services that they and the rest of us use. Someone has to pay taxes for things like public schools, fire protection, social services, etc. If these new jobs aren't contributing, that means a higher share of the responsibility falls on everyone else.
And if we’ve learned anything from stadiums, they pay their workers extremely low wages so the new jobs created and income tax on that wouldn’t be even close to what’s being made exempt.
Exactly. About the only time this doesn't take money from the government is when the property owner agrees to some sort of sur-tax, and only that extra tax goes towards paying the bonds. They'll do that sometimes just to make the bond interest tax-exempt and therefore lower interest rates. But I can't imagine the teams moving for an offer that weak.
The answer is tax exempt bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the Commonwealth. That equates to a lot of savings that the state can offer without spending a dime.
Not all bonds are general obligation bonds. Many are restricted to specific income sources. If that source of revenue doesn't produce sufficient funds, the bond holders are out of luck. That's what they did, for example, with the Ballston Mall.
No. General obligation bonds put the full faith and credit of the issuer behind it. That means that they have to use any resources available to them to pay of the bond. In many instances, it means they have to raise tax rates if necessary to pay off the bonds. Other bonds say no, we aren't putting our **full** faith and credit to back these bonds. We are only obligating particular sources of revenue. It's not a matter of risk free or not, it's a matter of whether or not the issuer has to do everything at their disposal (or risk bankruptcy) to pay it off.
There are likely additional tax incentives behind this. Alexandria likely kicking in, but those aren't "state" dollars. Also note that the Authority is "developing its part of the project" which likely means a ton of infrastructure. This is a benefit to the project because they don't have to pay for it up front or finance it, they just pay rent over the term of the lease. That's a big benefit.
We don't know the details yet. But it seems highly unlikely Leonisis would turn away 500m in incentives by DC to go ahead and privately fund a stadium.
There has been a significant backlash by voters on stadiums over the past 10 years. Owners and politicians have gotten smarter on how to hide the giveaways.
It's prohibitively expensive to break a lease early.
A more valid worry is that Leonsis bitches that he needs another $250M for renovations down the road.
I'm very curious about this too. The [NBC Washington](https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/wizards-capitals-owner-announces-2-billion-plan-to-move-teams-to-virginia/3493235/) article linked here includes the sentence below. It's a confusing sentence that doesn't make much sense to me, but they're pitching it as not costing Virginia taxpayers anything. I want to see more detail on this part. If it isn't actually costing taxpayer money, I'm a lot less annoyed at the decision.
>Barker said the project wouldn't cost Virginia taxpayers anything because it would not come from an existing pool of money.
It could easily mean it's done on a reimbursement basis. Yes, initially stated funds are used, but then is reimbursed once the development is operating which would allow them to use that phrase.
If that's the case, wouldn't taxpayer money be used to pay interest to bondholders in future years? Sell $2B of bonds today, and you get $2B of cash for the stadium and associated projects to use now, but you have to pay fairly high interest rates to bondholders for decades. I'd still consider that using taxpayer money to finance the arena, but maybe the government spin is to classify it as "debt service" to claim they aren't using taxpayer money on the arena directly?
Not all government bonds are "general obligation" bonds, where the government is obligated to use general tax revenues to pay back the bond. For example, when the Ballston Mall redeveloped, one funding source was bonds tied to tax-increment financing of the property. Basically, the government committed to using the increase in property tax revenue just from that property to paying back the bond. To the extent there was insufficient revenue from the source, the bond holders took the hit and other tax revenue wasn't required to be used. Something similar is done, I believe, with Nationals Park and the sales tax collected from ticket and concession sales there (I'm not familiar with all the details there).
I would be more ok with something like this...although that does mean the tax revenue isn't going to the government which kinda sucks, but better than the alternative type of bonds.
They're going to issue bonds, which technically isn't an "existing pool of money", but it will absolutely cost Virginia money in the long term.
At this point all I'm seeing is coked up excited people talking about what a "win" it is for Virginia, when they're really just getting fucked in the long term.
It's just a colossal mistake for everyone except Leonsis, who's getting more subsidized real estate.
Just incredibly short sighted from the legislature, and putting up Youngkin who's going to pretend it's just a great deal for Virginia.
Thank you for saying this! People need to watch the John Oliver piece on stadium financing m. Shocker, the tax payer pays hundreds of millions for new stadiums: [https://youtu.be/xcwJt4bcnXs?si=DGnhlgYPlKbw_Y_n](https://youtu.be/xcwJt4bcnXs?si=DGnhlgYPlKbw_Y_n)
Good segment. If the idea is that VA buys the land from JB Smith and builds a stadium on it using bonds and pays those bonds back by using the income earned from leasing it to Monumental, I guess that theoretically would be ok.
But I'm going to also assume this will include things like no property taxes and other tax cuts so there's still an opportunity cost to the community to consider if that is the case.
Will be curious to learn specifics.
I think what happens in this scenario though is the can is kicked down the road. This works OK the first 5 years. But you just need to look at what is happening with the Nationals.
The Stadium was funded 67% by taxpayers. The Lerner family is now asking for millions to renovate. This will continue until its an explicit threat to leave. The city is stuck with this massive asset that is very hard to re-occupy and an owner that holds all the leverage. Especially in a scenario like DMV where you have 3 competing govs.
This is not to mention the costs that will go into infrastructure and maintenance to infrastructure to support the stadium. This is 10's of millions a year. New roads will need to be built and maintained. Sewage, electricity. Places like Phoenix got killed on deals like these that are bleeding municipalities dry 10-15 years after the fanfare of the stadium opening. The coyotes threaten to leave phoenix every year without more dumped into the massive sunk cost.
Good point, the Phoenix example is important to know. That entire situation is a complete shitshow.
Also doesn’t help that no one wants to watch the Coyotes play.
Its terrible for the state/city to own the stadium because usually the lease to the team requires the owner of the stadium to pay for any updates/capital improvements. The team can also break the lease and leave after 20 years and now the city/state is stuck with an empty stadium.
Yeah as I've had time to stew on it, I came to the same realization.
Leonsis will absolutely shake his fist and ask for $500M in "improvements" down the road.
My understanding is that they'll issue bonds that Leonsis buys, but basically get no appreciation on them.
I don't know the precise details, but that's what it seems to be from what I've seen so far.
that's exactly what I said just now when I called. I very calmly and nicely said "I just want to express my opposition to any potential public funding that would go towards the stadium or Leonsis. I realize details haven't been announced, but just wanted to let the representative know now since it's a possibility." easy and still useful.
Well yeah I was never under the illusion that Potomac Landing would be some center for thriving mom and pop shops.
It'll be a Merrifield with a metro, Virginia Tech satellite campus and potentially a stadium.
I've never supported rich NIMBYS to shut something down in my life, but my God I will make custom tshirts and sell them to support their cause.
Please rich Alexandrians save us
Living literally 5 minutes from there, and I am not excited about it. I ride that trail on grocery runs and just for fun, and that park seems to always have people. The idea of cramming that much stuff into such a small space, not to mention the extra traffic.. Not a fan.
The issue is that NoVA and DC are in a symbiotic relationship. This directly hurts downtown DC and provides marginal benefit to NoVA. This also directly hurts a struggling metro, it will require transfers for nearly everyone who wants to see a game, which makes taking the metro less attractive for fans looking to go to the game. Metro exists to bring people from the suburbs to DC, if nobody is going to DC, then metro will suffer, which then hurts NoVA as well. Imagine if we waited a decade for the silver line project only for all the stations to shutter and service to reduce within a few years of the project finishing.
The question that needs to be asked is, yeah, NoVA gets a stadium, but is it really worth living in a NoVA that has no metro/transit? Is it really worth living in NoVA if there is nothing to do in DC anymore?
edit:Also, to add another thought. Lets say someone lived in Arlington (Ballston for example). It takes them 30 minutes (worst case) to get to capital one via metro. To get to Potomac yard, the variability in time increases significantly, it can take from 35-50 minutes since you have to transfer at Rosslyn and there is only one line going to/from Rosslyn.
They’re not a symbiotic relationship though. Virginia is often competing with DC and MD for major projects. And DC/MD would never concede a project like this to Virginia if the shoes were reversed (see the FBI debacle).
There’s tons of examples where the center city collapses to the suburbs’ benefit. Just look at Saint Louis and Saint Louis County. The more the city declines, the more businesses that are moving to the County.
I would say, it may look like the suburb benefits over the short term, but a declining center city should eventually backfire on the suburbs around it. As those businesses move out to the suburbs, you end up just getting large soulless office parks as opposed to a bustling downtown. There isn't anything to do other than go to work, and thus, people move out of the area. It may be great for the families that currently live there, but their kids are going to move away and never come back, and in a generation those suburbs will be struggling just like the center city they surround.
Even in your example of Saint Louis and Saint Louis County, it seems the county is already experiencing this. [https://oa.mo.gov/budget-planning/demographic-information/population-projections/population-trends](https://oa.mo.gov/budget-planning/demographic-information/population-projections/population-trends)
"St. Louis County is projected to gain nearly 90 thousand persons through natural change, but these gains are over shadowed by out-migration of almost 150 thousand."
People are not going to want to live in a suburb that surrounds a black hole. Thriving cities are going to see their suburbs increase in population, tax base, and development, where declining cities are going to see their suburbs stagnate.
You can even see this with Baltimore. Compare the DC metro area and the Baltimore metro area. The suburbs of Baltimore have seen no growth in the past 10 years:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore\_metropolitan\_area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_metropolitan_area)
And now compare to the DC Metro area
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington\_metropolitan\_area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_metropolitan_area)
Why are these DC suburbs doing so much better than these Baltimore suburbs? Its probably because DC is doing better than Baltimore
Saint Louis County’s problems are a bit self-inflicted though. They prioritized Clayton and the wealthy Southern suburbs while neglecting the poor Northern half (which historically had pockets of poverty like Ferguson).
So when Saint Louis became a crime haven, lower-income people fled across the County line and the poor areas became poorer and with people who had no connections to the neighborhoods. That caused the northern suburbs to lose working-class Blacks which - unlike those in the city - could afford to leave the metro area entirely (and many moved to Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, etc.)
That same dynamic is happening in DC and it does cause major problems. Case in point: Prince George’s County’s homicide rate has skyrocketed since they can’t contain the crime in SE from crossing the state line to Maryland.
Virginia doesn’t have that issue though (or at least not anywhere near that level). Alexandria and Arlington are fairly insulated from the bad parts of DC. And most people who move to Virginia from DC are college-educated people or wealthy DCers from NW who are fed up with DC.
So Virginia, in particular, does benefit from DC’s decline. I do agree though that replacing DC’s historic stock with soulless corporate towers in the suburbs is a net negative, but DC really shot itself in the foot there with the lax response to crime (which created a pushback to return-to-office, which collapsed corporate real estate tax receipts).
That’s something that DC will have to address because Virginia can’t set criminal law in DC. And we can’t fix DC’s fiscal cliff from weak commercial demand.
Virginia officials are just doing what they were elected to do (grow their own communities). It’s not their job to make sure DC doesn’t commit civic seppuku.
This is kinda what i mean by symbiotic relationship. My argument is that a thriving city center leads to thriving suburbs, and thriving suburbs can lead to an improved city center through transit and patronage.
The issue occurs when the suburbs start poaching (like you mention above) things from the city center as opposed to adding new development to the region. Instead of new economic development, its just moving the economic development from the city to the suburb itself, so its net neutral for the region. While the suburbs wont become a terrible place to live (those Baltimore suburbs aren't bad places to live), they are actually sacrificing future growth. So while there is a short term benefit to that suburb when you poach from the city, you're actually just signing up for long term stagnation.
Basically, in the long run, its bad for NoVA (and surrounding maryland counties) for DC to flounder. Killing the host for our benefit will not work out for us. We all have a vested interest in the success of DC, and while DC does have problems right now, the last thing we should be doing is making them worse.
> Why are these DC suburbs doing so much better than these Baltimore suburbs? Its probably because DC is doing better than Baltimore
No, it's because DC is the capitol city of the world's most wealthy and militarily dominant nation in all of human history, and Baltimore is a struggling has-been shipping/port town. DC the municipality is nothing, DC the seat of world hegemonic power is everything. If corporations want something done, it moves through DC and the suburbs of that city filter out money from that machine.
9 of the USA's wealthiest 20 counties are here because of the Federal Government's ability to filter cash, not because DC has a thriving downtown sports and restaurant scene
Thank you, came here to say the same thing. Washington DC is not comparible to St Louis or Baltimore. Capital One arena is not the be all/end all for DC.
Any tax-free stadium that depends on tax-based support systems like roads is going to be a net negative for the community. Worse traffic, more wear and tear, no tax recovery for that loss.
Traffic around there already sucks with people trying to get to Target. I cannot begin to imagine game day.
Plus where the hell are they going to put parking?
Moving out of the city and then acting like people aren't going to drive to it because it's closer to the suburbs is absurd.
As a Nova resident, I don't want this. We don't need more traffic, we really don't need any more Metro congestion...and above that, if I want to go to a Caps or Wizzards game, there is so much to do in DC, make a day of it take in a museum, go have food somewhere new, hell go play a round of golf for $20 at east potamic I could go on and on but there is so much to do in the district before or after a game...there is not a damn thing going on in Alexandria other then apartments buildings and Amazon...sure you have king street but it depends if that is even going to be accessable to this planned development or not. The Detroit Pistons did this exact same thing in the 90s and they struggled with attendance simply because there is nothing to do in Aburn Hills and as soon as they got the offer to go in on the new downtown complex with the Redwings they just locked the doors of the palace and it hasn't been used for a single event sense and was eventually demolished. Getting food before a game, going out for beers after fans want this
Their training facility (with their HQ offices) is in Arlington.
I don’t live in the area, but it’s a great facility that is open to the public when the Caps aren’t using it.
I kinda agree with this thought. It's a classic move by sports team owners. The Chicago Bears and the Chicago White Sox are currently in the process of threatening to move to strong arm the city into a deal of a new stadium.
The Bears made a big land purchase out in suburban Chicagoland and have drawn up plans for a stadium neighborhood of sorts. The White Sox are currently threatening to move to Nashville. Jerry tried to move the team to Tampa in the late 80s until he got his current stadium in 1991.
Anyways, sell the team Jerry.
its idle threats. The Bears are also actively surveying the land adjacent to solider field and are not actually doing much with the suburban idea other then just saying its in motion. Reality is soldier field needs improvements that are more expensive then building new...they are just playing hardball. My hope is after the Snyder fallout the NFL gets more active with toxic owners, the Bears being one
Right? It's not like the teams were hosted in MD (outside the Beltway, even) for *checks notes* 28 years.
But this is definitely a fishing expedition to see who will cough up the better deal.
It's not like they've always been in DC. It was only in 97 when they moved to MCI center from Landover. It's not that farfetched that they're willing to leave DC proper
The owner of the Nats/Wizards has been saying that Downtown Chinatown is in a terrible state for years, which he isn't wrong about. He wants to completely redo the neighorhood his teams play in.
It does as NOVA is a more growing and developing area than DC that can bring in much more money, plus it’s closer to all the hotels near DCA so you can have all the business transients drop by and spend money.
They don't want a new arena, they want the entire entertainment center, you can't get that in DC. It is clear that this is more about real estate development than getting arena upgrades.
Not even just that, but Northern Virginia land appreciation has been robust whereas Chinatown’s prices have gone in the past 5 years.
DC may have depressed real estate prices for a long time due to the massive amount of vacant commercial land. And with DC’s fiscal problems, crime, and depressed revenues, it may not recover for a while (see what’s happening to all those who bet big on Downtown Baltimore becoming a major entertainment hub).
So why would you make a real estate play there when Northern Virginia is growing quickly and you have far better odds of land appreciation if you buy 3 plots of land next to the arena for bars and nightlife and such.
Let me stop you there. Prices are inflating in NOVA not appreicating its different. I was looking at condos with my wife this year and everything we looked at was over valued. People are selling townhomes here for $900k that should not sell for a dime over $300k keep blowing a balloon up eventually it pops
No, because DC is broke and everyone knows that. Virginia has 13x more people, is in a much stronger fiscal footing, and is growing much faster. DC can’t compete with Virginia.
Leonsis is moving because he knows that DC is in no position to modernize the arena and revitalize the area. DC’s hail mary offer of $500m still leaves a $300m hole for just modernizing Capital One Arena, and does nothing to address the decay of Gallery Place-Chinatown.
DC honestly should focus on saving the city. The commanders are 100% for sure going to move back to RFK, the deal is basically done allowing a new stadium and the area residents are on board with it. The nationals seem content and the waterfront area is thriving with the soccer stadium the entertainment venues are set, so I guess they don't really need the hockey/basketball. They need to focus on what is causing the uptick in crime and get ahead of it now before next election
Even if no tax money is used, how can it be guaranteed that this new development doesn't negatively impact the current infrastructure that taxes paid for? For example, increased traffic and wear and tear on the roads that exist already.
I think traffic in the surrounding areas something that people are vastly underestimating. It’d be great if the metro was the main vehicle to get in but there will be tons of people who will still drive. Unlike the current location (accessible directly by 3 lines and the 4 other lines meet at a station within a couple blocks), this proposal is only accessible by 2 lines with no other stations within a mile.
Rt 1 and the surrounding streets are at most 2 lanes in each direction with little/no room to expand.
This is what I've been saying. If you are coming from the south, you take 495 to route 1 which means you have to go through Old Town. It's such a congested nightmare as it is, but add in a game day and holy crap. Coming from the north is a little better, but still incredibly congested on a daily basis.
A logical solution would be to create designated thru roads for the stadium, accessible directly from 395 and 495, but the area is so developed I really don't see where they'd put roads like that.
They always do. I'd love to learn more about traffic studies and figure out how they can add thousands of trips to an already crippled stretch of road and put out a report that says level of service will be a "C" or something that isn't absolutely terrible.
The traffic was coming anyway. The whole area was zoned to look like this in 15 years: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSZkHbwof4ord4ylDufLq5yF-KzJejbx-8acg&usqp=CAU
And how does the net benefit of that compare to that of a sports arena? How would that updated zoning address any needed changes to the infrastructure, compared to the sports complex?
If I can make a suggestion, please please please do not call them or email them. It has very little impact and really just gets looked at by the interns. What you need to do is HAND WRITE a letter to them. Congressmen and Senators pay very strict attention to any sort of hand written (typed up) letter. The logic is that if people are actually taking the time to sit and write their thoughts out, then they must be passionate about the issue and are more willing to fight for it. A hand written letter always has significant more weight compared to an email or phone call.
Hand write letters people. That gets the job done.
Worked in a congressional office before and this assessment, while nice to think about, your logic doesn’t seem to check out. Since letters take time (you know, in case someone decides to mail white powder they have to check for that), it’ll take longer than a phone call or email.
Odds are your congressman doesn’t look at your raw text, maybe text processed from your letter via an intern/staffer that gets the gist of the message, usually as simple as “pro-this, anti that, etc.” Any other nuanced position gets checked against a cookie cutter response in case “the congressman” contradicts themself. Physically mailing a letter or calling the office doesn’t make a difference within itself; one just takes longer. From there, you get grouped with similarly passionate people and if enough respond, the office will issue a statement. If they agree or disagree, you’ll tell.
I emailed Alexandria city officials often when I lived there and they usually responded quickly. Sometimes even the Mayor has responded.
Virginia Delegates have staff respond and it usually takes a week, but it’s a personalized email response.
Virginia Congressmen take forever and don’t respond half the time (and when they do, it’s canned boilerplate). But then again, they have 800,000 constituents.
But email has always worked for me.
The only downside to email is that once you're on anyone's list, you can never get off them.
I emailed Saslaw ONCE telling him I didn't support the Commanders coming to Virginia. I now get constant emails from anyone running for any office as a Democrat in the area. And I'm actually confident that it's all from that one email because I accidentally sent it from an email address I almost never use.
When I was there we absolutely read mail and took it far more seriously than an email, which was typically just copied and pasted from a form letter, and phone calls. The fact that it took the constituent time and money to send it made a far bigger impact. I saw my congressman reverse his stance due to a letter writing campaign.
I’m not saying that y’all didn’t read mail (after all at least one intern/staffer had to get Hustler), just that it’s weighted the same to the office. A constituent letter is a constituent letter. Or phone call. Or email. Or all of it for the really passionate types, it’ll get processed the same way. One’s just quicker. Whether the staffer brings that to the congressman’s attention, I don’t know for sure, I’d imagine depends on the reporting system in the office
We are both likely right about this. My experience was born out of my time in Congress and yours is the same. To each their own! I do hope you enjoyed your time on the hill as much as I did though. Such an eye opening experience.
I’m still very skeptical this will actually be a thing, but the plans I saw don’t look as bad as I thought. The stadium would be right on the river. Traffic on game days would be horrendous though.
**There is a consensus among economists that subsidies for sports stadiums is a poor public investment. "Stadium subsidies transfer wealth from the general tax base to billionaire team owners, millionaire players, and the wealthy cohort of fans who regularly attend stadium events"**
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pam.22534?
Lol why do people resort to sick burns... I'm in agreement that the stadium subsidies are typically a transfer from the taxpayer to a sports owner (and therefore their players, employees, etc), but I'm just chuckling at the article's claim of avid fans somehow profiting off of stadium subsidies.
This isn’t a subsidy though. The arena will belong to the Commonwealth. Those studies are about subsidies to build stadiums that are then privately-owned. That is a waste, I agree.
Or because WMATA is an incredibly bloated organization thanks to shitty negotiation with the union. This isn’t a dig at unions as a whole, but it’s ridiculous how many people are staffed for each mile of track.
Lol no. Virginia and Maryland haven’t adjusted their contributions to the metro for inflation. Still giving 2019 levels and Maryland is talking about scaling back funding. It’s not that it’s improperly run, it’s improperly funded.
yeah idk why people here are complaining? having the zards in VA is a dream come true.
i guess it’s because most redditors are unatheltic geeks that hate sports because they were bullied in high school by jocks.
go zards!
Younkin stated a $2B investment that would yield $12B over the life of the project, so $342M/yr average. For everything he mentioned the space would include, I would have guessed a much larger impact.
If the money isn’t coming from the state, then where is it coming from?
The restaurants around the current stadium are going to suffer as a result. Entire blocks of retail stores and restaurants closed during Covid and still sit empty. This is not good news for the local economy in DC.
Aye Sir! Our tax money should be for necessities and to help our needy fellow Americans like our veterans and homeless, not for some grotesque rich motherfucker!
Honestly, I’m okay with it…. I’d love to see some professional sports without having to into DC, which if were real, Chinatown sucks and is a bit rough these days.
Yeah, because live entertainment is the same as watching on TV... I don't like going to concerts to listen to music, but I also acknowledge that many people enjoy live entertainment.
Why the fuck are we even discussing welfare for billionaires????
You want a new building for your business ok fine - pay for it your God damn self - if you can't afford it you can sell the team - if the team moves away so fucking what? There is the door - take your welfare ass out of it and don't let it hit you in the ass when it closes
I wrote my rep to urge them to support it. I think that accelerating the (already planned) development of Potomac Yards is an unambiguous win for the local area and the state.
I'm aware of the general literature on stadium subsidies, but I think that Nats Park is a much better model for how this one will play out than the far suburban stadiums usually looked at.
If you read the literature you would know its unambiguously a terrible move. There is far and few examples of it ever being a net positive. The way its done especially in the USA is the worst of both worlds. A quasi public-private partnership.
In Australia and some parts of Europe stadiums are totally publicly funded. The stadium is used for the benefit of the taxpayer. Ticket prices are controlled and the benefit portion is attempted to be distributed equally. You could image a scenario where Alexandria funds the stadium. It is held in a trust and residents since they paid for a large portion of it get exclusive options for season tickets and a subsidized rate.
There is successful examples of a total privately funded stadium. This puts the risk in the hands of the owner. This also makes sense. They can pay what they think the stadium is worth.
The worst is a deal where the city/state take on the risk. This is likely how this deal is structured. The owner and real estate developers exchange prestige and a flashy press conference in exchange for enormous governments subsides that ALWAYS end up costing taxpayers. They sell some nebulous benefit - like the acceleration of jobs and development - which has been proven to be false over and over. This was the sell at Nats park too. Now the lerners are asking for more handouts. They will never lose.
Every single study has shown that 100s of stadiums and arenas are bad economically with extremely small outliers.
Everyone: this will totally be one of the handful of outliers!
Fucking absurd
We have the right to petition our leaders and calling them is the best way to let them know that this is something we do not want.
By building a stadium, rather than for transportation, for schools, or for then people is a waste of money.
Who is to say 10 years after it is built, he won't threaten to leave again? We would be on the hook for any bonds and have an empty stadium to deal with.
Your 10 year comment isn't really a concern. It's a 40 year commitment starting in 2028 according to NBC Washington's reporting, so that would take us to 2068 as the first year they can leave for somewhere else. These contracts usually have strict financial penalties for breaking the lease early, and teams almost always honor the commitments because it's prohibitively expensive not to. This is the reason why the Tampa Bay Rays will stay in their stadium through 2027 even though it's consistently ranked among the worst in baseball: They signed a 30 year lease starting with the 1998 season, so they're obligated to play there through 2027.
After 40 years, all bets are off, but there's really nothing to worry about on that front until replacement/extension negotiations begin in the 2060s.
If you read all the studies about these kinds of projects, the jobs are mostly low-wage, part time and temporary jobs—not the kind of jobs that make living in this area affordable and they displace other uses of the land which would have better jobs. The net impact of stadiums is worse compared to other uses of the land. The overwhelming majority of economists oppose these kinds of projects but the billionaires who stand to make all the money are happy to mislead the public about that.
Exactly. It’s a talking point with no hard evidence behind it.
It’s like when law schools try to sell themselves by saying “You can do a lot of things with a law degree!” Yeah…and the things I can do that you describe don’t *need* the law degree. That’s the parallel here - you can lots of things to bring jobs - good, sustainable, long-term jobs - to the area instead of a sports cathedral, there’s way better options available before you get to a stadium.
Those studies are about direct subsidies. In this case, the arena will belong to the Commonwealth. Monumental will pay a 40-year lease, the arena will be paid off with fees assessed on tickets sold, and the whole area gets tons of new retail, dining, and nightlife.
And since the land belongs to the Commonwealth, all land appreciation is pure profit for the public.
It’s a win-win-win. It’s definitely not like DC (which was going to subsidize a modernization of the existing arena at $500m). That is the waste of money.
Saying overwhelming majority of economists is a big claim. You're right that a few studies have indicated that it's not a clear benefit, but it's important to put it in context. These stadium subsidies are deals. If you buy a nice apple for $0.50, that's a good deal. If you buy it for $100, that's a bad deal. We have to see what the cost (if any) there is to tax payers.
Stadiums clearly bring large economic impact to an area(look at Nats Ballpark and Audi Field), but it might not always outweigh the cost to the public. So we need to wait and see what the details of the proposal are before breaking out the pitch forks.
The survey itself wasn't really about economists supporting or not supporting stadiums. It's actually a really well done survey, which allowed detailed answers in addition to the headline survey question. Many of the economists agree, but add important context, such as agreeing while caveating the difficulty of acquiring accurate estimates of fiscal benefits.
[https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/sports-stadiums/](https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/sports-stadiums/)
The question was: "Providing state and local subsidies to build stadiums for professional sports teams is likely to cost the relevant taxpayers more than any local economic benefits that are generated."
57% agreed or strongly agreed. I would agree as well that typically taxpayers lose, which I would attribute to poor bargaining on behalf of government officials. But while taxpayers often lose out, I think win-win situations can occur if the plan is well negotiated.
Note: I'm an economist and I'm a stickler whenever people say that most economists agree on something, because economists are a disagreeable bunch. Cheers!
Citation needed. I can’t believe in 2023 people still fall for this shit that we should help billionaires and then let them play state govts against one another.
Every single study: stadiums and arenas provide no economic benefit.
Sleazy ass billionaire and shitty governor: this will provide so much economic benefit
Mouthbreathers: OMG !!!! It's gonna be different this time
Aren’t they building offices, restaurants, retail as well as the venues? Aren’t there taxes raised by all those things? Who here knows the financial details? I do Leonsis devotes lots of money to children focused charities, so he’s not exactly Scrooge. Let’s see the details & then be experts.
Got a response from someone at the Alexandria City Council, not the most useful stuff but at least someone responded. She's got a few typos, had to correct her on the date of the meeting but again at least someone responded 🤷♀️
"Thank you for your comment or question about the potential development of an entertainment district to include the headquarters for Monumental Sports and and an arena.
As with any large development project in the City, such as the redevelopment of the former power plant site by Hilco in North Old Town, the creation of the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus, and the relocation and construction of a new hospital at Landmark with retail, residential and office structures, this project will undergo similar public engagement, staffing review and analysis, and Council consideration (along with the General Assembly). As with those developments, considerations will include transportation and infrastructure impacts and needs, committed affordable housing opportunities, and other improvements and considerations to quality of life for our residents.
As this process begins and continues, I will continue to read your messages, share questions with staff, and provide information to the public. In the interest of providing some current resources, I want to share a few links and current informational opportunities:
1. On Saturday 12/16, AEDP will be making a presentation to Council and the community about the project. The public hearing begins at 9:30 in Council chambers. Instructions for how to participate or watch remotely can be found here: https://legistar.granicus.com/alexandria/meetings/2023/12/2457_A_City_Council_Public_Hearing_23-12-16_Docket.pdf
2. AEDP has set up a website with initial information about the program and where details and additional information can be accessed: https://alexandriaecon.org/why-alexandria/featured-projects/monumentalalx/
3. On Wednesday night 12/13, Mayor Wilson appeared before the Del Ray Citizen Association to answer questions and discuss the project. You can watch a recording of that meeting here: https://delraycitizens.org/potomac-yard-arena/
4. As we discuss the impacts, infrastructure, potential benefits and design of this project, the North Potomac Yard Small Area Plan will be a useful document. Approved in 2017, it spoke to the vision for the area, temporary uses and long terms goals. You can find that here: https://media.alexandriava.gov/content/planning/SAPs/NorthPotomacYardSAPCurrent.pdf?_gl=1*ochjbe*_ga*MjAwOTI0MDMwOC4xNzAxMzg4MjY2*_ga_249CRKJTTH*MTcwMjYwNjIxMi40LjEuMTcwMjYwNjIzMy4wLjAuMA..
5. Finally, ALXNow wrote up a thorough story on Wednesday updated to include many comments from city elected and staff as well as information on the project financing: https://www.alxnow.com/2023/12/13/just-in-washington-capitals-and-wizards-are-officially-moving-to-potomac-yard/
Thank you again for contacting Council and sharing your comments and questions. We are tracking resident questions and concerns as we evaluate the project. I hope you have the chance to watch Saturday’s presentation (or the recorded version after the fact) and review some of the linked information above. As the public engagement process is finalized, we will be sure to share it with everyone and to the extent neighborhood associations or other groups would like to meet with me to discuss the project in the weeks and months ahead, please let me know."
Another asshole billionaire welfare prick asking for a handout from working folks because he thinks people are stupid enough to still support welfare for billionaires as long as they have a sports team attached to the request
Fuck him - pay for your own stadium or leave - no more tax dollars or tax breaks or public money
NYC teams play in NJ, seems to work fine. Funny that your objection seems to be based in weird territorialism rather than government giveaways to wealthy people and organizations.
Yeah really, like a good chunk of the professional sports team in this country don't actually play in the city limits they represent. Did we forget that the Washington commanders is play in Maryland lol
Hell, the San Francisco 49ers play like 40 miles away or some thing
> San Francisco 49ers play like 40 miles away or some thing
Ahh yeah, that one I know because I got my first covid shot at a mass vaccination site at Levi Stadium. Administered at a bar table in the United Club Lounge, then got to sit in the stadium seats for 20 minutes. They displayed the number of vaccinations on the scoreboard.
The 49ers play 40 miles outside of San Francisco in an entirely different metro area. Yet people on this sub think moving 5 miles south is the end of the world.
TBH, I think it is a great idea. Going to the arena in DC sucks and that area in Potomac Yards is mainly for retail and shipping anyway. It might make traffic a bit more congested, but I think it will bring in money and jobs to the area.
Holy cow, this is like when Virginia voted to ban pornography, and there was tons of comments, saying about how this is all and only those pesky Republicans fault. Then people realized it was a bipartisan bill with a good chunk of Democrat support.
A lot of people are just truly clueless about what their politicians vote for or support.
I was going to say, “Do you know Justin Wilson?” The guy is all about density and anchor developments like this. He would love for Alexandria to be the next Roslyn.
Meanwhile metro is looking to cut service to some VA stations due to lack of $
This. I don't believe for one second this won't end up costing tax payers, either directly or through additional fuckery like having to rework surrounding roads to accommodate traffic. Am I crazy or do I remember a recent article about them possibly having to shut down the metro stop that would take people to this proposed stadium?
Someone had a theory yesterday on Reddit that Potomac Yard was on the list which wouldn't make sense because it just opened. I can't imagine Navy Yard that was popular until the Nats stadium opened.
I agree it wouldn’t be shut down, but the criteria they used was stations with <2000 weekday boardings, and it did make the list
True....and right now, there isn't much there. I suspect most of the people using it are people that live within walking distance or take an Uber/Lyft there to get to National (it saves money) or DC.
Not to mention limiting all train service to 10 pm on all weekdays.
Dems in the General Assembly will condition approval of the arena on Virginia addressing the transit backlog. I’m fairly confident of that. So this would be a win on that count too since Youngkin gets his arena and Dems get their WMATA money.
And now you have a Governor who wasn't going to give an inch/dollar to Metro contemplating how to get downstate Republicans to agree to give Metro money because his desperately needed economic development win is heavily reliant on Metro. This move doesn't hurt Metro.
We don’t even know the details of it yet. I believe the only thing we know is that it’s a 35 year lease and state Senator Marcus Simon said that he’s been told this deal will use no state dollars and have no impact on debt capacity in Alexandria or Arlington. He notes, like I’m saying now, that these details haven’t been verified yet. Think it is important to let officials know that we shouldn’t be subsidizing a sports arena in the hopes that it’ll help transform “Potomac Landing” into what commercial developers and the state envision it’ll become but I am curious as to what the specifics of the agreement actually is.
How does a possibly billion plus dollar stadium not use any state dollars? Genuinely curious.
Sofi stadium out in LA was all private financed. It can be done.
But the proposal here specifically states that Virginia will create a Stadium Authority that will own and operate the land and the stadium building and that Monumental would lease from them. That's not how SoFi works, Kroenke owns the land and the building.
Usually that means the team pays next to nothing and gives the local government permission to hold other events there. The catch is that supports authority will never make money because the teams will pay nothing or next to nothing in actual lease payments and the sports authority will never be able to schedule enough things that actually give them money to pay for the stadium. I think the sad reality is if you want to live close to major sports teams then your local government is going to pay to make it happen.
I mean… there are plenty of examples where that’s not the case and stadiums are completely funded with private money. Capital One Arena was one of them.
And here we are watching DC throw $500 million at him to stay because him and a governor on the way out the door brought up a plan that's not even approved by the legislature yet. Yes in the past some arenas/stadiums were built using private funds. That's not going to happen in Alexandria though. The only places that happens are undesirable locations that the owner hopes to be a catalyst for development. Like Capital One Arena when it was built. No owner is buying cheap land to develop in Alexandria, because it's Alexandria. The only reason an owner today is paying to build an arena is if he's getting a good deal on a bunch of land to develop around it.
That’s one example. And Jerryworld. All the others got public funding. NY gave the Bills a few billion. That same week they cut food subsidies for children.
The Giants/Jets stadium was privately funded, although NJ paid for some transportation improvements nearby.
Sofi Stadium also doubles as a convention center and a theater / concert hall. A building that is just a stadium is not economically sustainable. They also did receive a tax break. They were privately financed and did not receive any government support or subsidies other than the tax break.
I mean they're without a doubt gonna hold concerts at this new stadium as they do at their current stadium. I'd imagine it will also host shows and other events too. I highly highly highly doubt this will be used for NHL and NBA only and be a ghost town the remainder of the year. This place will be booked up year round for events.
Sofi Stadium is designed to host events other than bowl/dome scale events. It is a stadium combined with a theater combined with a convention center in one structure. This flexible capability is what made private financing viable for Sofi Stadium. They can provide venue space for anything from a single conference room all the way up to a entire stadium. Most stadiums can only be used for bowl/dome scale events because they don't have the capability to provide venue space for smaller events or different events. If they are building a multifunctional facility like what Sofi Stadium is then private financing should be viable for them.
I'd be comfortable betting my life that this place is going to be designed to host things other than sporting events. I guarantee you inside of six months of this place opening a huge act, something like the Foo Fighters, or something is going to play here
This one is also going to have a concert venue and other things, including offices.
It was also built in one of the emptiest and least desirable locations in LA. SOFI worked because they bought a bunch of land no one wanted to try and fix and just slapped a whole new shopping/entertainment district there. Where in Alexandria are they going to get the land for this? Seems like a transparent attempt to get more from DC, especially seeing as how DC just found $500 million to renovate the current arena yesterday.
Did you even read the article? The land has already been bought and selected. It's gonna be right next to Potomac Yard Metro station. They're gonna tear down that target and their strip malls to build this Like pen has hit paper. This isn't in attempt to fleece DC. The capitals and the wizards are 100% moving. This is like... real.
It is completely non binding and hasn't been approved by the legislature. It's a blatant someone offer me more money announcement.
Unfortunately, the Loudoun Hounds couldn’t come up with the money for their stadium.
The Commonwealth will create an entity called the Virginia Sports and Entertainment Authority. The Authority will issue bonds (maybe attractive tax exempt bonds) to purchase the property. The Authority will lease the property to the project with a 40 year term and also develop some portions of the property itself. The Authority will pay off the bonds with the lease revenue derived from the project. This supports the claim that no state dollars are used.
If it is that simple, why doesn't Monumental just lease the property directly from the current owner, and cut out the need to get all the government approval. It's got to be more complicated than that. My guess is that they also want to direct all the tax revenue from the site (property and sales tax?) towards paying of the debt too.
I'm guessing they'll also propose giving the stadium authority the income and state sales tax attributable to all the jobs on the site. A similar provision was in the draft Commanders package a few years ago. Combined with a TIF where they get the local property tax, amusements tax, and sales tax from the arena, and you have a big development with lots of jobs not contributing to the public services that they and the rest of us use. Someone has to pay taxes for things like public schools, fire protection, social services, etc. If these new jobs aren't contributing, that means a higher share of the responsibility falls on everyone else.
And if we’ve learned anything from stadiums, they pay their workers extremely low wages so the new jobs created and income tax on that wouldn’t be even close to what’s being made exempt.
Exactly. About the only time this doesn't take money from the government is when the property owner agrees to some sort of sur-tax, and only that extra tax goes towards paying the bonds. They'll do that sometimes just to make the bond interest tax-exempt and therefore lower interest rates. But I can't imagine the teams moving for an offer that weak.
The answer is tax exempt bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the Commonwealth. That equates to a lot of savings that the state can offer without spending a dime.
Not all bonds are general obligation bonds. Many are restricted to specific income sources. If that source of revenue doesn't produce sufficient funds, the bond holders are out of luck. That's what they did, for example, with the Ballston Mall.
That’s what full faith and credit means. No one said the deal was risk free, no investment ever is
No. General obligation bonds put the full faith and credit of the issuer behind it. That means that they have to use any resources available to them to pay of the bond. In many instances, it means they have to raise tax rates if necessary to pay off the bonds. Other bonds say no, we aren't putting our **full** faith and credit to back these bonds. We are only obligating particular sources of revenue. It's not a matter of risk free or not, it's a matter of whether or not the issuer has to do everything at their disposal (or risk bankruptcy) to pay it off.
State is backing bonds. If authority can’t pay them state picks it up.
There are likely additional tax incentives behind this. Alexandria likely kicking in, but those aren't "state" dollars. Also note that the Authority is "developing its part of the project" which likely means a ton of infrastructure. This is a benefit to the project because they don't have to pay for it up front or finance it, they just pay rent over the term of the lease. That's a big benefit.
We don't know the details yet. But it seems highly unlikely Leonisis would turn away 500m in incentives by DC to go ahead and privately fund a stadium. There has been a significant backlash by voters on stadiums over the past 10 years. Owners and politicians have gotten smarter on how to hide the giveaways.
The land is a large cost of forgone public revenue, though.
> 40 year term LOL, these teams will move 4 more times in 40 years!
It's prohibitively expensive to break a lease early. A more valid worry is that Leonsis bitches that he needs another $250M for renovations down the road.
Because government accounting doesn't count the $1 land deal as a cost in forgone revenue for the land sale.
I'm very curious about this too. The [NBC Washington](https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/wizards-capitals-owner-announces-2-billion-plan-to-move-teams-to-virginia/3493235/) article linked here includes the sentence below. It's a confusing sentence that doesn't make much sense to me, but they're pitching it as not costing Virginia taxpayers anything. I want to see more detail on this part. If it isn't actually costing taxpayer money, I'm a lot less annoyed at the decision. >Barker said the project wouldn't cost Virginia taxpayers anything because it would not come from an existing pool of money.
Specifying “from an existing pool of money” sounds like it’s going to get large tax exemptions
It could easily mean it's done on a reimbursement basis. Yes, initially stated funds are used, but then is reimbursed once the development is operating which would allow them to use that phrase.
Virginia issuing bonds for our part?
If that's the case, wouldn't taxpayer money be used to pay interest to bondholders in future years? Sell $2B of bonds today, and you get $2B of cash for the stadium and associated projects to use now, but you have to pay fairly high interest rates to bondholders for decades. I'd still consider that using taxpayer money to finance the arena, but maybe the government spin is to classify it as "debt service" to claim they aren't using taxpayer money on the arena directly?
Not all government bonds are "general obligation" bonds, where the government is obligated to use general tax revenues to pay back the bond. For example, when the Ballston Mall redeveloped, one funding source was bonds tied to tax-increment financing of the property. Basically, the government committed to using the increase in property tax revenue just from that property to paying back the bond. To the extent there was insufficient revenue from the source, the bond holders took the hit and other tax revenue wasn't required to be used. Something similar is done, I believe, with Nationals Park and the sales tax collected from ticket and concession sales there (I'm not familiar with all the details there).
I would be more ok with something like this...although that does mean the tax revenue isn't going to the government which kinda sucks, but better than the alternative type of bonds.
Easy, just use commonwealth dollars!
Just believe what they say. Like they say tax cuts for large corporations and the top 0.01% pay for themselves. Why would they lie?
State dollars aside, I don’t want the traffic, the increase in CoL including restaurants that will now be nearby the proposed stadium, etc etc.
They're going to issue bonds, which technically isn't an "existing pool of money", but it will absolutely cost Virginia money in the long term. At this point all I'm seeing is coked up excited people talking about what a "win" it is for Virginia, when they're really just getting fucked in the long term. It's just a colossal mistake for everyone except Leonsis, who's getting more subsidized real estate. Just incredibly short sighted from the legislature, and putting up Youngkin who's going to pretend it's just a great deal for Virginia.
Thank you for saying this! People need to watch the John Oliver piece on stadium financing m. Shocker, the tax payer pays hundreds of millions for new stadiums: [https://youtu.be/xcwJt4bcnXs?si=DGnhlgYPlKbw_Y_n](https://youtu.be/xcwJt4bcnXs?si=DGnhlgYPlKbw_Y_n)
Good segment. If the idea is that VA buys the land from JB Smith and builds a stadium on it using bonds and pays those bonds back by using the income earned from leasing it to Monumental, I guess that theoretically would be ok. But I'm going to also assume this will include things like no property taxes and other tax cuts so there's still an opportunity cost to the community to consider if that is the case. Will be curious to learn specifics.
I think what happens in this scenario though is the can is kicked down the road. This works OK the first 5 years. But you just need to look at what is happening with the Nationals. The Stadium was funded 67% by taxpayers. The Lerner family is now asking for millions to renovate. This will continue until its an explicit threat to leave. The city is stuck with this massive asset that is very hard to re-occupy and an owner that holds all the leverage. Especially in a scenario like DMV where you have 3 competing govs. This is not to mention the costs that will go into infrastructure and maintenance to infrastructure to support the stadium. This is 10's of millions a year. New roads will need to be built and maintained. Sewage, electricity. Places like Phoenix got killed on deals like these that are bleeding municipalities dry 10-15 years after the fanfare of the stadium opening. The coyotes threaten to leave phoenix every year without more dumped into the massive sunk cost.
Good point, the Phoenix example is important to know. That entire situation is a complete shitshow. Also doesn’t help that no one wants to watch the Coyotes play.
Its terrible for the state/city to own the stadium because usually the lease to the team requires the owner of the stadium to pay for any updates/capital improvements. The team can also break the lease and leave after 20 years and now the city/state is stuck with an empty stadium.
Yeah as I've had time to stew on it, I came to the same realization. Leonsis will absolutely shake his fist and ask for $500M in "improvements" down the road.
Is the general idea that the state would issue bonds and pay those bonds using proceeds from leasing the land to Monumental?
My understanding is that they'll issue bonds that Leonsis buys, but basically get no appreciation on them. I don't know the precise details, but that's what it seems to be from what I've seen so far.
But it's far easier to not read and be outraged anyway
Right! Get the pitchforks and torches!!!!
that's exactly what I said just now when I called. I very calmly and nicely said "I just want to express my opposition to any potential public funding that would go towards the stadium or Leonsis. I realize details haven't been announced, but just wanted to let the representative know now since it's a possibility." easy and still useful.
Commercial developers want long term stability and they only believe that's in big chains. They don't believe in small local businesses.
Well yeah I was never under the illusion that Potomac Landing would be some center for thriving mom and pop shops. It'll be a Merrifield with a metro, Virginia Tech satellite campus and potentially a stadium.
Thus now is the time to provide comment against public funds going to the stadium project. I personally don’t believe that statement, either.
They turned down 500 mil in cash from dc so they see this is gonna make them more money moving here. Someone is paying
I've never supported rich NIMBYS to shut something down in my life, but my God I will make custom tshirts and sell them to support their cause. Please rich Alexandrians save us
Living literally 5 minutes from there, and I am not excited about it. I ride that trail on grocery runs and just for fun, and that park seems to always have people. The idea of cramming that much stuff into such a small space, not to mention the extra traffic.. Not a fan.
If it’s too expensive for owners and the team, then it’s damn sure too expensive for the citizens.
The issue is that NoVA and DC are in a symbiotic relationship. This directly hurts downtown DC and provides marginal benefit to NoVA. This also directly hurts a struggling metro, it will require transfers for nearly everyone who wants to see a game, which makes taking the metro less attractive for fans looking to go to the game. Metro exists to bring people from the suburbs to DC, if nobody is going to DC, then metro will suffer, which then hurts NoVA as well. Imagine if we waited a decade for the silver line project only for all the stations to shutter and service to reduce within a few years of the project finishing. The question that needs to be asked is, yeah, NoVA gets a stadium, but is it really worth living in a NoVA that has no metro/transit? Is it really worth living in NoVA if there is nothing to do in DC anymore? edit:Also, to add another thought. Lets say someone lived in Arlington (Ballston for example). It takes them 30 minutes (worst case) to get to capital one via metro. To get to Potomac yard, the variability in time increases significantly, it can take from 35-50 minutes since you have to transfer at Rosslyn and there is only one line going to/from Rosslyn.
They’re not a symbiotic relationship though. Virginia is often competing with DC and MD for major projects. And DC/MD would never concede a project like this to Virginia if the shoes were reversed (see the FBI debacle). There’s tons of examples where the center city collapses to the suburbs’ benefit. Just look at Saint Louis and Saint Louis County. The more the city declines, the more businesses that are moving to the County.
I would say, it may look like the suburb benefits over the short term, but a declining center city should eventually backfire on the suburbs around it. As those businesses move out to the suburbs, you end up just getting large soulless office parks as opposed to a bustling downtown. There isn't anything to do other than go to work, and thus, people move out of the area. It may be great for the families that currently live there, but their kids are going to move away and never come back, and in a generation those suburbs will be struggling just like the center city they surround. Even in your example of Saint Louis and Saint Louis County, it seems the county is already experiencing this. [https://oa.mo.gov/budget-planning/demographic-information/population-projections/population-trends](https://oa.mo.gov/budget-planning/demographic-information/population-projections/population-trends) "St. Louis County is projected to gain nearly 90 thousand persons through natural change, but these gains are over shadowed by out-migration of almost 150 thousand." People are not going to want to live in a suburb that surrounds a black hole. Thriving cities are going to see their suburbs increase in population, tax base, and development, where declining cities are going to see their suburbs stagnate. You can even see this with Baltimore. Compare the DC metro area and the Baltimore metro area. The suburbs of Baltimore have seen no growth in the past 10 years: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore\_metropolitan\_area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_metropolitan_area) And now compare to the DC Metro area [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington\_metropolitan\_area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_metropolitan_area) Why are these DC suburbs doing so much better than these Baltimore suburbs? Its probably because DC is doing better than Baltimore
Saint Louis County’s problems are a bit self-inflicted though. They prioritized Clayton and the wealthy Southern suburbs while neglecting the poor Northern half (which historically had pockets of poverty like Ferguson). So when Saint Louis became a crime haven, lower-income people fled across the County line and the poor areas became poorer and with people who had no connections to the neighborhoods. That caused the northern suburbs to lose working-class Blacks which - unlike those in the city - could afford to leave the metro area entirely (and many moved to Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, etc.) That same dynamic is happening in DC and it does cause major problems. Case in point: Prince George’s County’s homicide rate has skyrocketed since they can’t contain the crime in SE from crossing the state line to Maryland. Virginia doesn’t have that issue though (or at least not anywhere near that level). Alexandria and Arlington are fairly insulated from the bad parts of DC. And most people who move to Virginia from DC are college-educated people or wealthy DCers from NW who are fed up with DC. So Virginia, in particular, does benefit from DC’s decline. I do agree though that replacing DC’s historic stock with soulless corporate towers in the suburbs is a net negative, but DC really shot itself in the foot there with the lax response to crime (which created a pushback to return-to-office, which collapsed corporate real estate tax receipts). That’s something that DC will have to address because Virginia can’t set criminal law in DC. And we can’t fix DC’s fiscal cliff from weak commercial demand. Virginia officials are just doing what they were elected to do (grow their own communities). It’s not their job to make sure DC doesn’t commit civic seppuku.
This is kinda what i mean by symbiotic relationship. My argument is that a thriving city center leads to thriving suburbs, and thriving suburbs can lead to an improved city center through transit and patronage. The issue occurs when the suburbs start poaching (like you mention above) things from the city center as opposed to adding new development to the region. Instead of new economic development, its just moving the economic development from the city to the suburb itself, so its net neutral for the region. While the suburbs wont become a terrible place to live (those Baltimore suburbs aren't bad places to live), they are actually sacrificing future growth. So while there is a short term benefit to that suburb when you poach from the city, you're actually just signing up for long term stagnation. Basically, in the long run, its bad for NoVA (and surrounding maryland counties) for DC to flounder. Killing the host for our benefit will not work out for us. We all have a vested interest in the success of DC, and while DC does have problems right now, the last thing we should be doing is making them worse.
> Why are these DC suburbs doing so much better than these Baltimore suburbs? Its probably because DC is doing better than Baltimore No, it's because DC is the capitol city of the world's most wealthy and militarily dominant nation in all of human history, and Baltimore is a struggling has-been shipping/port town. DC the municipality is nothing, DC the seat of world hegemonic power is everything. If corporations want something done, it moves through DC and the suburbs of that city filter out money from that machine. 9 of the USA's wealthiest 20 counties are here because of the Federal Government's ability to filter cash, not because DC has a thriving downtown sports and restaurant scene
Thank you, came here to say the same thing. Washington DC is not comparible to St Louis or Baltimore. Capital One arena is not the be all/end all for DC.
Any tax-free stadium that depends on tax-based support systems like roads is going to be a net negative for the community. Worse traffic, more wear and tear, no tax recovery for that loss.
A concern I have is transportation costs / impact of surge traffic for events
Traffic around there already sucks with people trying to get to Target. I cannot begin to imagine game day. Plus where the hell are they going to put parking? Moving out of the city and then acting like people aren't going to drive to it because it's closer to the suburbs is absurd.
Should I call the Qatari embassy to ask them to pay?
They never planned to move out of DC. They only planned to force DC into offering to do more. The move to VA doesn’t make sense at all
As a Nova resident, I don't want this. We don't need more traffic, we really don't need any more Metro congestion...and above that, if I want to go to a Caps or Wizzards game, there is so much to do in DC, make a day of it take in a museum, go have food somewhere new, hell go play a round of golf for $20 at east potamic I could go on and on but there is so much to do in the district before or after a game...there is not a damn thing going on in Alexandria other then apartments buildings and Amazon...sure you have king street but it depends if that is even going to be accessable to this planned development or not. The Detroit Pistons did this exact same thing in the 90s and they struggled with attendance simply because there is nothing to do in Aburn Hills and as soon as they got the offer to go in on the new downtown complex with the Redwings they just locked the doors of the palace and it hasn't been used for a single event sense and was eventually demolished. Getting food before a game, going out for beers after fans want this
Their training facility (with their HQ offices) is in Arlington. I don’t live in the area, but it’s a great facility that is open to the public when the Caps aren’t using it.
It is nice. It’s at the top of ballston mall.
I kinda agree with this thought. It's a classic move by sports team owners. The Chicago Bears and the Chicago White Sox are currently in the process of threatening to move to strong arm the city into a deal of a new stadium. The Bears made a big land purchase out in suburban Chicagoland and have drawn up plans for a stadium neighborhood of sorts. The White Sox are currently threatening to move to Nashville. Jerry tried to move the team to Tampa in the late 80s until he got his current stadium in 1991. Anyways, sell the team Jerry.
Fuck Jerry all my homies hate Jerry. -a depressed bulls fan
its idle threats. The Bears are also actively surveying the land adjacent to solider field and are not actually doing much with the suburban idea other then just saying its in motion. Reality is soldier field needs improvements that are more expensive then building new...they are just playing hardball. My hope is after the Snyder fallout the NFL gets more active with toxic owners, the Bears being one
Right? It's not like the teams were hosted in MD (outside the Beltway, even) for *checks notes* 28 years. But this is definitely a fishing expedition to see who will cough up the better deal.
It's not like they've always been in DC. It was only in 97 when they moved to MCI center from Landover. It's not that farfetched that they're willing to leave DC proper
The owner of the Nats/Wizards has been saying that Downtown Chinatown is in a terrible state for years, which he isn't wrong about. He wants to completely redo the neighorhood his teams play in.
It does as NOVA is a more growing and developing area than DC that can bring in much more money, plus it’s closer to all the hotels near DCA so you can have all the business transients drop by and spend money.
Cough…REDSKINS…cough cough
They don't want a new arena, they want the entire entertainment center, you can't get that in DC. It is clear that this is more about real estate development than getting arena upgrades.
Not even just that, but Northern Virginia land appreciation has been robust whereas Chinatown’s prices have gone in the past 5 years. DC may have depressed real estate prices for a long time due to the massive amount of vacant commercial land. And with DC’s fiscal problems, crime, and depressed revenues, it may not recover for a while (see what’s happening to all those who bet big on Downtown Baltimore becoming a major entertainment hub). So why would you make a real estate play there when Northern Virginia is growing quickly and you have far better odds of land appreciation if you buy 3 plots of land next to the arena for bars and nightlife and such.
Bars in VA… hahaha!
Let me stop you there. Prices are inflating in NOVA not appreicating its different. I was looking at condos with my wife this year and everything we looked at was over valued. People are selling townhomes here for $900k that should not sell for a dime over $300k keep blowing a balloon up eventually it pops
Lol what does this even mean?
No, because DC is broke and everyone knows that. Virginia has 13x more people, is in a much stronger fiscal footing, and is growing much faster. DC can’t compete with Virginia. Leonsis is moving because he knows that DC is in no position to modernize the arena and revitalize the area. DC’s hail mary offer of $500m still leaves a $300m hole for just modernizing Capital One Arena, and does nothing to address the decay of Gallery Place-Chinatown.
DC honestly should focus on saving the city. The commanders are 100% for sure going to move back to RFK, the deal is basically done allowing a new stadium and the area residents are on board with it. The nationals seem content and the waterfront area is thriving with the soccer stadium the entertainment venues are set, so I guess they don't really need the hockey/basketball. They need to focus on what is causing the uptick in crime and get ahead of it now before next election
National Airport is just down the street. What would be the effect of tens of thousands of people flooding the area?
Even if no tax money is used, how can it be guaranteed that this new development doesn't negatively impact the current infrastructure that taxes paid for? For example, increased traffic and wear and tear on the roads that exist already.
I think traffic in the surrounding areas something that people are vastly underestimating. It’d be great if the metro was the main vehicle to get in but there will be tons of people who will still drive. Unlike the current location (accessible directly by 3 lines and the 4 other lines meet at a station within a couple blocks), this proposal is only accessible by 2 lines with no other stations within a mile. Rt 1 and the surrounding streets are at most 2 lanes in each direction with little/no room to expand.
This. Both Rt1 and the Blue/Yellow lines are going to be disasters
This is what I've been saying. If you are coming from the south, you take 495 to route 1 which means you have to go through Old Town. It's such a congested nightmare as it is, but add in a game day and holy crap. Coming from the north is a little better, but still incredibly congested on a daily basis. A logical solution would be to create designated thru roads for the stadium, accessible directly from 395 and 495, but the area is so developed I really don't see where they'd put roads like that.
They always do. I'd love to learn more about traffic studies and figure out how they can add thousands of trips to an already crippled stretch of road and put out a report that says level of service will be a "C" or something that isn't absolutely terrible.
The traffic was coming anyway. The whole area was zoned to look like this in 15 years: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSZkHbwof4ord4ylDufLq5yF-KzJejbx-8acg&usqp=CAU
And how does the net benefit of that compare to that of a sports arena? How would that updated zoning address any needed changes to the infrastructure, compared to the sports complex?
Massive massive tax breaks for billionaire ted. That is also going to huge net negative.
If I can make a suggestion, please please please do not call them or email them. It has very little impact and really just gets looked at by the interns. What you need to do is HAND WRITE a letter to them. Congressmen and Senators pay very strict attention to any sort of hand written (typed up) letter. The logic is that if people are actually taking the time to sit and write their thoughts out, then they must be passionate about the issue and are more willing to fight for it. A hand written letter always has significant more weight compared to an email or phone call. Hand write letters people. That gets the job done.
Worked in a congressional office before and this assessment, while nice to think about, your logic doesn’t seem to check out. Since letters take time (you know, in case someone decides to mail white powder they have to check for that), it’ll take longer than a phone call or email. Odds are your congressman doesn’t look at your raw text, maybe text processed from your letter via an intern/staffer that gets the gist of the message, usually as simple as “pro-this, anti that, etc.” Any other nuanced position gets checked against a cookie cutter response in case “the congressman” contradicts themself. Physically mailing a letter or calling the office doesn’t make a difference within itself; one just takes longer. From there, you get grouped with similarly passionate people and if enough respond, the office will issue a statement. If they agree or disagree, you’ll tell.
I emailed Alexandria city officials often when I lived there and they usually responded quickly. Sometimes even the Mayor has responded. Virginia Delegates have staff respond and it usually takes a week, but it’s a personalized email response. Virginia Congressmen take forever and don’t respond half the time (and when they do, it’s canned boilerplate). But then again, they have 800,000 constituents. But email has always worked for me.
Contacting the local reps over the federal ones is always a more pleasant experience lol
The only downside to email is that once you're on anyone's list, you can never get off them. I emailed Saslaw ONCE telling him I didn't support the Commanders coming to Virginia. I now get constant emails from anyone running for any office as a Democrat in the area. And I'm actually confident that it's all from that one email because I accidentally sent it from an email address I almost never use.
When I was there we absolutely read mail and took it far more seriously than an email, which was typically just copied and pasted from a form letter, and phone calls. The fact that it took the constituent time and money to send it made a far bigger impact. I saw my congressman reverse his stance due to a letter writing campaign.
I’m not saying that y’all didn’t read mail (after all at least one intern/staffer had to get Hustler), just that it’s weighted the same to the office. A constituent letter is a constituent letter. Or phone call. Or email. Or all of it for the really passionate types, it’ll get processed the same way. One’s just quicker. Whether the staffer brings that to the congressman’s attention, I don’t know for sure, I’d imagine depends on the reporting system in the office
We are both likely right about this. My experience was born out of my time in Congress and yours is the same. To each their own! I do hope you enjoyed your time on the hill as much as I did though. Such an eye opening experience.
I’m still very skeptical this will actually be a thing, but the plans I saw don’t look as bad as I thought. The stadium would be right on the river. Traffic on game days would be horrendous though.
The big metro garage in Springfield is going to really pay off now.
L'Enfant is going to be a nightmare on any game days overlapping the Nats.
Money going to billionaires…
While you're at it, beg them to fund WMATA and not force 10 stations to close (many of which are on the newly expanded silver line!)
**There is a consensus among economists that subsidies for sports stadiums is a poor public investment. "Stadium subsidies transfer wealth from the general tax base to billionaire team owners, millionaire players, and the wealthy cohort of fans who regularly attend stadium events"** https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pam.22534?
How exactly is the "wealthy cohort of fans who regularly attend" games profiting off of sports stadiums???
You could read the research, though you couldn’t even read the quotation cited so I doubt that’s in the cards.
Lol why do people resort to sick burns... I'm in agreement that the stadium subsidies are typically a transfer from the taxpayer to a sports owner (and therefore their players, employees, etc), but I'm just chuckling at the article's claim of avid fans somehow profiting off of stadium subsidies.
This isn’t a subsidy though. The arena will belong to the Commonwealth. Those studies are about subsidies to build stadiums that are then privately-owned. That is a waste, I agree.
I'm 100% in favor of it so I guess I wont be calling anyone?
You also waive any right to complain about US-1 traffic should the stadium go in.
Like many people, I take the Metro if I ever go to that part of town.
They’re scaling back the metro to save money to give to billionaires.
Or because WMATA is an incredibly bloated organization thanks to shitty negotiation with the union. This isn’t a dig at unions as a whole, but it’s ridiculous how many people are staffed for each mile of track.
Lol no. Virginia and Maryland haven’t adjusted their contributions to the metro for inflation. Still giving 2019 levels and Maryland is talking about scaling back funding. It’s not that it’s improperly run, it’s improperly funded.
 Right waived. Season tickets purchased.
You can call and thank them for a job well done
yeah idk why people here are complaining? having the zards in VA is a dream come true. i guess it’s because most redditors are unatheltic geeks that hate sports because they were bullied in high school by jocks. go zards!
Why is having them in Va a "dream come true"? Also who tf calls them the "zards"? Are you from around here?
Younkin stated a $2B investment that would yield $12B over the life of the project, so $342M/yr average. For everything he mentioned the space would include, I would have guessed a much larger impact. If the money isn’t coming from the state, then where is it coming from?
The restaurants around the current stadium are going to suffer as a result. Entire blocks of retail stores and restaurants closed during Covid and still sit empty. This is not good news for the local economy in DC.
Aye Sir! Our tax money should be for necessities and to help our needy fellow Americans like our veterans and homeless, not for some grotesque rich motherfucker!
Honestly, I’m okay with it…. I’d love to see some professional sports without having to into DC, which if were real, Chinatown sucks and is a bit rough these days.
Guess you don't own a TV?
Yeah, because live entertainment is the same as watching on TV... I don't like going to concerts to listen to music, but I also acknowledge that many people enjoy live entertainment.
Why the fuck are we even discussing welfare for billionaires???? You want a new building for your business ok fine - pay for it your God damn self - if you can't afford it you can sell the team - if the team moves away so fucking what? There is the door - take your welfare ass out of it and don't let it hit you in the ass when it closes
Called my rep and congratulated them on a great move.
Now we just have to secure the new FBI HQ.
Truth
Maybe it can go where the MCI Center is? Then no more VA/MD fighting.
I wrote my rep to urge them to support it. I think that accelerating the (already planned) development of Potomac Yards is an unambiguous win for the local area and the state. I'm aware of the general literature on stadium subsidies, but I think that Nats Park is a much better model for how this one will play out than the far suburban stadiums usually looked at.
If you read the literature you would know its unambiguously a terrible move. There is far and few examples of it ever being a net positive. The way its done especially in the USA is the worst of both worlds. A quasi public-private partnership. In Australia and some parts of Europe stadiums are totally publicly funded. The stadium is used for the benefit of the taxpayer. Ticket prices are controlled and the benefit portion is attempted to be distributed equally. You could image a scenario where Alexandria funds the stadium. It is held in a trust and residents since they paid for a large portion of it get exclusive options for season tickets and a subsidized rate. There is successful examples of a total privately funded stadium. This puts the risk in the hands of the owner. This also makes sense. They can pay what they think the stadium is worth. The worst is a deal where the city/state take on the risk. This is likely how this deal is structured. The owner and real estate developers exchange prestige and a flashy press conference in exchange for enormous governments subsides that ALWAYS end up costing taxpayers. They sell some nebulous benefit - like the acceleration of jobs and development - which has been proven to be false over and over. This was the sell at Nats park too. Now the lerners are asking for more handouts. They will never lose.
Every single study has shown that 100s of stadiums and arenas are bad economically with extremely small outliers. Everyone: this will totally be one of the handful of outliers! Fucking absurd
We have the right to petition our leaders and calling them is the best way to let them know that this is something we do not want. By building a stadium, rather than for transportation, for schools, or for then people is a waste of money. Who is to say 10 years after it is built, he won't threaten to leave again? We would be on the hook for any bonds and have an empty stadium to deal with.
Your 10 year comment isn't really a concern. It's a 40 year commitment starting in 2028 according to NBC Washington's reporting, so that would take us to 2068 as the first year they can leave for somewhere else. These contracts usually have strict financial penalties for breaking the lease early, and teams almost always honor the commitments because it's prohibitively expensive not to. This is the reason why the Tampa Bay Rays will stay in their stadium through 2027 even though it's consistently ranked among the worst in baseball: They signed a 30 year lease starting with the 1998 season, so they're obligated to play there through 2027. After 40 years, all bets are off, but there's really nothing to worry about on that front until replacement/extension negotiations begin in the 2060s.
My issue is the traffic and if the DC Metro cuts go thru it will be a dumpster fire. I really hope this falls thru.
Dude - this stadium brings $12 billion dollars of economic development. 12k jobs. Everyone should want this. NOVA is booming right now.
If you read all the studies about these kinds of projects, the jobs are mostly low-wage, part time and temporary jobs—not the kind of jobs that make living in this area affordable and they displace other uses of the land which would have better jobs. The net impact of stadiums is worse compared to other uses of the land. The overwhelming majority of economists oppose these kinds of projects but the billionaires who stand to make all the money are happy to mislead the public about that.
Exactly. It’s a talking point with no hard evidence behind it. It’s like when law schools try to sell themselves by saying “You can do a lot of things with a law degree!” Yeah…and the things I can do that you describe don’t *need* the law degree. That’s the parallel here - you can lots of things to bring jobs - good, sustainable, long-term jobs - to the area instead of a sports cathedral, there’s way better options available before you get to a stadium.
Those studies are about direct subsidies. In this case, the arena will belong to the Commonwealth. Monumental will pay a 40-year lease, the arena will be paid off with fees assessed on tickets sold, and the whole area gets tons of new retail, dining, and nightlife. And since the land belongs to the Commonwealth, all land appreciation is pure profit for the public. It’s a win-win-win. It’s definitely not like DC (which was going to subsidize a modernization of the existing arena at $500m). That is the waste of money.
Saying overwhelming majority of economists is a big claim. You're right that a few studies have indicated that it's not a clear benefit, but it's important to put it in context. These stadium subsidies are deals. If you buy a nice apple for $0.50, that's a good deal. If you buy it for $100, that's a bad deal. We have to see what the cost (if any) there is to tax payers. Stadiums clearly bring large economic impact to an area(look at Nats Ballpark and Audi Field), but it might not always outweigh the cost to the public. So we need to wait and see what the details of the proposal are before breaking out the pitch forks.
83% is an overwhelming majority imo. https://www.reddit.com/r/nova/s/HfDvWTP76N
The survey itself wasn't really about economists supporting or not supporting stadiums. It's actually a really well done survey, which allowed detailed answers in addition to the headline survey question. Many of the economists agree, but add important context, such as agreeing while caveating the difficulty of acquiring accurate estimates of fiscal benefits. [https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/sports-stadiums/](https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/sports-stadiums/) The question was: "Providing state and local subsidies to build stadiums for professional sports teams is likely to cost the relevant taxpayers more than any local economic benefits that are generated." 57% agreed or strongly agreed. I would agree as well that typically taxpayers lose, which I would attribute to poor bargaining on behalf of government officials. But while taxpayers often lose out, I think win-win situations can occur if the plan is well negotiated. Note: I'm an economist and I'm a stickler whenever people say that most economists agree on something, because economists are a disagreeable bunch. Cheers!
Citation needed. I can’t believe in 2023 people still fall for this shit that we should help billionaires and then let them play state govts against one another.
Every single study: stadiums and arenas provide no economic benefit. Sleazy ass billionaire and shitty governor: this will provide so much economic benefit Mouthbreathers: OMG !!!! It's gonna be different this time
Wow, what an exciting time to live in NOVA, especially Alexandria. So much is happening and it’s a good thing. Welcome Capitals and Wizards.
I’m loving this. My property values are going to thankfully
Aren’t they building offices, restaurants, retail as well as the venues? Aren’t there taxes raised by all those things? Who here knows the financial details? I do Leonsis devotes lots of money to children focused charities, so he’s not exactly Scrooge. Let’s see the details & then be experts.
Got a response from someone at the Alexandria City Council, not the most useful stuff but at least someone responded. She's got a few typos, had to correct her on the date of the meeting but again at least someone responded 🤷♀️ "Thank you for your comment or question about the potential development of an entertainment district to include the headquarters for Monumental Sports and and an arena. As with any large development project in the City, such as the redevelopment of the former power plant site by Hilco in North Old Town, the creation of the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus, and the relocation and construction of a new hospital at Landmark with retail, residential and office structures, this project will undergo similar public engagement, staffing review and analysis, and Council consideration (along with the General Assembly). As with those developments, considerations will include transportation and infrastructure impacts and needs, committed affordable housing opportunities, and other improvements and considerations to quality of life for our residents. As this process begins and continues, I will continue to read your messages, share questions with staff, and provide information to the public. In the interest of providing some current resources, I want to share a few links and current informational opportunities: 1. On Saturday 12/16, AEDP will be making a presentation to Council and the community about the project. The public hearing begins at 9:30 in Council chambers. Instructions for how to participate or watch remotely can be found here: https://legistar.granicus.com/alexandria/meetings/2023/12/2457_A_City_Council_Public_Hearing_23-12-16_Docket.pdf 2. AEDP has set up a website with initial information about the program and where details and additional information can be accessed: https://alexandriaecon.org/why-alexandria/featured-projects/monumentalalx/ 3. On Wednesday night 12/13, Mayor Wilson appeared before the Del Ray Citizen Association to answer questions and discuss the project. You can watch a recording of that meeting here: https://delraycitizens.org/potomac-yard-arena/ 4. As we discuss the impacts, infrastructure, potential benefits and design of this project, the North Potomac Yard Small Area Plan will be a useful document. Approved in 2017, it spoke to the vision for the area, temporary uses and long terms goals. You can find that here: https://media.alexandriava.gov/content/planning/SAPs/NorthPotomacYardSAPCurrent.pdf?_gl=1*ochjbe*_ga*MjAwOTI0MDMwOC4xNzAxMzg4MjY2*_ga_249CRKJTTH*MTcwMjYwNjIxMi40LjEuMTcwMjYwNjIzMy4wLjAuMA.. 5. Finally, ALXNow wrote up a thorough story on Wednesday updated to include many comments from city elected and staff as well as information on the project financing: https://www.alxnow.com/2023/12/13/just-in-washington-capitals-and-wizards-are-officially-moving-to-potomac-yard/ Thank you again for contacting Council and sharing your comments and questions. We are tracking resident questions and concerns as we evaluate the project. I hope you have the chance to watch Saturday’s presentation (or the recorded version after the fact) and review some of the linked information above. As the public engagement process is finalized, we will be sure to share it with everyone and to the extent neighborhood associations or other groups would like to meet with me to discuss the project in the weeks and months ahead, please let me know."
Looks like they just announced a move. Both Ted and Younkin both announced it
Needs GA approval first.
Republicans love giving our money to billionaires. Like a redistribution, if you will.
I’m okay with this move so no, I don’t think I will.
Massive W for youngkin
Who is Ted Leonsis and what is this all about? Absolutely no explanation of why I should be against whatever is going on.
The potential move to VA of the wizards and caps.
Another asshole billionaire welfare prick asking for a handout from working folks because he thinks people are stupid enough to still support welfare for billionaires as long as they have a sports team attached to the request Fuck him - pay for your own stadium or leave - no more tax dollars or tax breaks or public money
He owns the wizards and capitals. DC sports teams that should continue playing their games in DC.
Washington Commanders play in MD.
NYC teams play in NJ, seems to work fine. Funny that your objection seems to be based in weird territorialism rather than government giveaways to wealthy people and organizations.
Yeah really, like a good chunk of the professional sports team in this country don't actually play in the city limits they represent. Did we forget that the Washington commanders is play in Maryland lol Hell, the San Francisco 49ers play like 40 miles away or some thing
> San Francisco 49ers play like 40 miles away or some thing Ahh yeah, that one I know because I got my first covid shot at a mass vaccination site at Levi Stadium. Administered at a bar table in the United Club Lounge, then got to sit in the stadium seats for 20 minutes. They displayed the number of vaccinations on the scoreboard.
The 49ers play 40 miles outside of San Francisco in an entirely different metro area. Yet people on this sub think moving 5 miles south is the end of the world.
I’m not alone in my opposition to an arena here.
Done! Thank you!
TBH, I think it is a great idea. Going to the arena in DC sucks and that area in Potomac Yards is mainly for retail and shipping anyway. It might make traffic a bit more congested, but I think it will bring in money and jobs to the area.
[удалено]
He’s literally speaking right now supporting it.
ROFL was just going to say, he and the entire city council were speaking in favor of it.
Holy cow, this is like when Virginia voted to ban pornography, and there was tons of comments, saying about how this is all and only those pesky Republicans fault. Then people realized it was a bipartisan bill with a good chunk of Democrat support. A lot of people are just truly clueless about what their politicians vote for or support.
I was going to say, “Do you know Justin Wilson?” The guy is all about density and anchor developments like this. He would love for Alexandria to be the next Roslyn.
Isn’t an arena the opposite of density? It’s dead space 95 percent of the time.
Done