$ 6 billion in your money and Josh Harris’s team is going here. Image of Schuminweb under Creative Commons license.
At a press conference which made the headlines on Monday, April 28, 2025, the mayor Muriel Bowser and the owner of the billionaire of Washington commanders, Josh Harris, announced an agreement – in principle – to build a new stadium for the team of the RFK site. The agreement, which must be approved by the DC council, depends on a $ 1.14 billion in public money.
This total includes $ 202 million in general infrastructure costs (for public services, roads, etc. – the type of thing required for development, whether there is a stage involved or not) and 89 million dollars for a long -term planned “sports” installation. But the share of the lion of dollars of taxpayers, $ 856 million, is to subsidize the construction of a stadium ($ 500 million) and its associated parking garages ($ 356 million).
This is the second highest construction subsidy in the history of American sports.
A subsidy of $ 856 million in commanding costs would be the second highest in the history of American sport, and much higher than the average of the last decade. Image of Bradbury and Coates.
But wait! There are more … hidden costs.
$ 856 million is only the tip of the iceberg. There are additional costs that the mayor and the team will not intentionally share, for fear that the residents of the district realize that they get.
With a credit to the stadium expert, Neil Demause, who dug the term sheet, here is what boosters do not tell you.
The value of the field: $ 600 million
RFK is real estate by the water, and whatever the new housing and built companies, this will generate income for those who hold development rights; For the majority of the developmentable part of the site, it will not be the district. Rather than keeping the rights and collecting rents or renting it at a fair market price, Bowser gives Harris about 90 acres for $ 5 per year. Land values in the district amount to $ 6.6 million per acre, so we lose the about 600 million dollars that the land could otherwise seek.
Distribution of land taxes: $ 429 million
Unlike the house in which you live or in the building in which you work, the stadium and the Harris garages will be exempt from paying real taxes. The expert in tax policy Geoffrey Prophetter estimates that the district will lose around $ 429 million accordingly.
Redigated sales taxes: $ 300 million
In appearance, public investment in a stadium could return to the municipality via sales taxes taken later from tickets, concessions and goods sold during events. But according to the Bowser term sheet, the district would not even collect this. The sales tax revenues would rather be directed to a “reinvestment fund of the RFK campus”, to pay maintenance and future upgrades of the stadium in the future – so again to the team. The reinvestment fund would work similarly to the subsidy given to the Nationals last year to redirect public money to their own “ball maintenance funds”. Based on sales tax rate similar to NATS games, the district could undergo around $ 10 million per year, or $ 300 million in total.
Bond interest: $ 623 million
The district will have to borrow money to pay $ 500 million in immediate capital costs (2026-2029) and $ 175 million to buy a team parking in 2032. These payments will probably take the form of 30-year-old municipal bonds. If we use current prices, the interest rate on these obligations would be around 4.75%. Depending on the structure of the obligation – that the district regularly reimburses the principal or in a balloon payment at the end – which results in $ 42 to $ 54 million in debt payments added to our balance sheet each year for the next 30 years, a total of $ 623 to $ 962 million in interest. We will be generous and assume the lower amount.
Opportunity cost of building a stadium instead of a neighborhood: $ 3.3 billion
As we wrote last week, without a stadium and a parking lot to set up the site, the 100 hectares developed from RFK could facilitate the construction of 15,000 houses, 4,500 of which would be limited and subsidized. This could house around 30,000 residents. The mayor’s agreement with commanders includes 5,000 units, for around 10,000 residents.
It is a difference of 10,000 units or 20,000 people. And the divergence of the economic impact is massive. Between income, goods and sales taxes, we estimate that these additional 20,000 people would generate a total of $ 110 million in annual tax revenue, or $ 3.3 billion over 30 years.
All in all, the final bill comes to:
- Stadium infrastructure and parking fees: $ 850 million +
- Land value: $ 600 million +
- Reinforced the property tax: $ 429 million +
- Redirection of redirected sales taxes: $ 300 million +
- Interest on debt: $ 623 million +
- Tax receipts of the sacrificed housing: $ 3.3 billion =
- $ 6.1 billion in district residents
There is always a tweet @dril. Image of Dril.
We are stolen. It is far from the “good deal”, certain commentators, and the NFL, take place. All in all, the Bowser agreement would be the greatest subsidy of taxpayers in the country’s history, a shocking acceleration of public generosity, therefore a man worth 10 billion dollars does not have to pay his own toys. Even if the district chiefs think that a stadium is the best path to the redevelopment of the RFK, they will be played in the long term if they agree with this.
Mary’s hail we don’t need
The agreement is quite bad in its own right, but above all given the current context. The district is broke. House Republicans hold a billion dollars hostage from the city for this year simply because they can, and the largest Trump administration attack on the federal government has the office of the financial director projecting an additional $ 1 billion gap in district budgets in the coming years.
And, we are superimposed on payments to the owners of billionaire sports already. The District of Sports must soon pay its first payment of $ 515 million to Ted Leonsis to renovate Capital One Arena. Meanwhile, nationals have come required upgrades, and DC United floats an expansion of 10,000 seats and a new roof. Some elected officials can Daydream of the Touchésopolis touched dances, but the district credit card begs them for a dead time.
The district hired $ 515 million to renovate Capital One Arena last year. Image by NCPC.
Despite this, Bowser cracks his proposed document as being somehow necessary for the city to the test of future: “(o) the economy changes due to the decisions of the federal government concerning people, the head office and similar,” said Bowser. And therefore the deputy mayor Albert and me, and our team, is very focused on our economy, so we are preparing for another economy. Advice a very robust plan on how we change our economy to prepare for the future. »»
Federal sabotage is a real disease, but the remedy offered by Bowser is snake oil. As we have shown, moving the house of commanders to six miles in the district will not generate any new real economic activity. A football stadium, emptied more than 330 days a year, will not bring enough visitors to inject real money into our local economy, and DC will see about the same number of tourists if the commanders build a new stadium in Maryland instead.
The package of $ 6 billion in Bowser will buy him a little more than the most expensive boastful rights in the world.
A winning match plan
We get it. Football is fun. Do you know what is not fun? Head injuries. Cut the school budgets or watch family members and friends move because they can’t find an affordable place to live.
The RFK site is an opportunity once in generation: 174 acres close enough for transit, along the Anacostia river, with a magnificent and useful park space guaranteed. Nothing such will appear magic in the 69.3 square miles of the district. We can lock the majority of this site with a financial albatross which will never be able to reimburse or we can build for the real future: more houses, more tax revenue and a better district for all of us.
