CM Charles Allen Reacts to Commanders Sale and What It Means for RFK

CM Charles Allen at his community office hours this morning at The Roost.

CM Charles Allen Reacts to Commanders Sale and What It Means for RFK

By Larry Janezich

Posted July 21, 2023

With the sale of the Washington Commanders to the Josh Harris group, a top priority for the new owners will be a new stadium.  It appears that the selection of a new stadium site is wide open with executives going back to the drawing board to on the site selection process. 

RFK is one of some six options, but the site is owned by the federal government and the lease to DC includes restriction on how the land can be used.   

The RFK site is in Ward 7 since redistricting in 2012 (an earlier version of this post said January of this year).   Since January, Ward 7 encompasses Hill East east of 15th Street, thus theneighborhoods lying closest to RFK border on Ward 6 and will feel the effects of any new development on the RFK site.  CM Charles Allen was a strong opponent of a new stadium at RFK when the site was part of Ward 6 and has not changed his opposition. 

At his regularly scheduled community office hours this morning at The Roost, CHC asked Allen for his reaction to the sale and how it might affect the chances for a new Commanders Stadium at the RFK site in Hill East. 

Allen said, “Everybody is pretty excited to see Dan Snyder go, but outside of that I think it provides an opportunity for the whole franchise to kind of reboot for a team that DC has a lot of excitement and nostalgia about.  That still doesn’t mean to me that a NFL stadium at RFK is a good idea.  It is proven and shown that an NFL stadium is not a good development tool; it doesn’t matter how many pretty pictures they are going to show you of buildings and parks and development – it is not an effective tool.  So I still don’t support an NFL stadium at RFK just because you have a better billionaire.  It would require a massive, massive subsidy of your taxpayer dollars that we frankly don’t have.”

Asked for his preference for developing the RFK site, Allen said, “Housing, parks, businesses, retail – it’s right on top of Metro.  I would rather use that kind of Metro where you can get transit oriented development to be an everyday type of use and build more city – build more housing – than something that’s going to be used eight days a year.” 

Asked if he foresaw action within the DC government either to promote or oppose using the RFK site for a new stadium, Allen said:  “Not right now.  I think what you’re going to see is an absolute epic bidding war between Virginia – who has surplus revenue and a Republican governor who would love to yield whatever the NFL wants and I think you’ve got Maryland which already has a stadium and a really compelling story about how to redevelop that entire site in a different vision – and some people in DC who want to throw the bank at it as well.  So I think you’re going to see really big bidding war and that usually isn’t good for the taxpayer.   

Asked what he thought would happen next within the DC government, Allen said:  The first step think you’re go to see and – what I hear will be introduced later today – is that James Comer (Rep. James Comer, Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability) will introduce legislation providing that DC will have a 99 year lease on the site and that is a good thing – in that DC should have control of that land – we want that.  It is my understanding that he is including language which would allow for an NFL stadium.  And that’s not what I want to see there and not what a lot of other people want to see at that site.  I just don’t think that’s the best decision for the city.  But of course, we do and should want control of that land so we can build the type of expanded services and housing that the city really needs.“  (Comer’s bill would reportedly extend DC’s lease for the RFK site for 99 years and allow for construction of a stadium or mixed use development, but would not include a land sale.)

Most residents in Hill East, including those in Ward 7 ANC single member districts west of the Anacostia River, oppose developing a new stadium at the RFK site.  The rest of Ward 7 lying east of the river appear to be more supportive of a new stadium at the site, in part for nostalgic reasons, in part for what is seen as the potential economic benefits for Ward 7.