DC Council creates plan to avoid Capital One Arena crisis redo with Nats Park – Washington Examiner

The Washington, D.C., City Council is hoping to shore up keeping the Washington Nationals in the district as the NBA’s Wizards and NHL’s Capitals flirt with moving across the Potomac River to Virginia.

The council held a hearing on legislation Tuesday that would help fund maintenance for Nationals Park in the Navy Yard neighborhood using sales tax collected at the ballpark and rent paid from the lease for the ballpark. The legislation would help keep the stadium up to standard, ensuring a “stable future,” as council Chairman Phil Mendelson said in a statement in January.

During the hearing, Gregory McCarthy, senior vice president for community and government engagement for the Nationals, told the council the stadium would need $350 million in upgrades over the next 14 years — when the team’s current lease ends — according to Axios.

Nationals Park opened in 2008 and was the anchor for the redevelopment of the Navy Yard neighborhood in southeast D.C.

With the prospect of two of Washington, D.C.’s professional sports teams fleeing to Alexandria in the coming years, Councilman Charles Allen also said he does not want Washington, D.C., to find itself in a situation like Atlanta, alluding to when the Braves left Atlanta for neighboring Cobb County in 2017.

“We have not been able to maintain what is a great ballpark and a great experience,” Allen said at the hearing.

While legislation to create an arena authority for the proposed Potomac Yard facility for the Wizards and Capitals has stalled in the Virginia legislature, the district is still facing the prospect of losing a key anchor for the Chinatown neighborhood in downtown D.C.

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As the city looks to keep one of its key sports franchises, it is also trying to entice another local sports team to return to the district by aiming to have the NFL’s Commanders build a new stadium in Washington, D.C.

The House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would give Washington, D.C., the authority to do what it wishes with the land encompassing the former RFK Stadium. The Commanders have played in Landover, Maryland, since 1997 before previously playing at RFK Stadium.

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