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D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson announced Thursday that the council will vote on Aug. 1 on an altered agreement to redevelop the RFK Stadium site.
The announcement came after Mendelson and other members of the council worked with the Washington Commanders to revise Mayor Muriel Bowser’s original deal with the team. That deal promised $1 billion in funds from the District toward stadium infrastructure and parking garages.
“We feel we have a much-improved agreement that would bring the team back to their historical home, as well as develop the land around the RFK campus,” Mendelson said in a post on X.
Details released by Mendelson outline $414 million in revenue for D.C. over a period of 30 years, and another $260 million to the nation’s capital from revenue collected via non-stadium event day parking.
A transportation improvement fund to the tune of $20 million per year was also noted as part of the deal. These funds are expected to fund any “Metro and highway enhancements” for the stadium site. Mendelson said the funds could go toward a second Metro station in the neighborhood to address future capacity issues.
The new stadium is projected to cost $3.7 billion, including the development of 6,000 housing units — of which 1,800 will be designated as affordable housing — and retail space and parkland across the 174-acre RFK campus.
The Commanders currently play at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland, but aim to open a new venue in 2030.
During the council meeting, Mendelson said the revised agreement would provide as much as $949 million in benefits to the city over the term of the lease for taxes on parking, merchandise and food that would go toward the city’s general fund. The team would retain taxes on ticket sales that would go toward maintenance for the stadium.
Additionally, the Commanders will provide $50 million for community development, including youth sports programs and retail.
Mendelson added that a second council vote will take place on Sept. 17, and to expect further details to be hashed out in the legislation over the coming days.
Council: How the vote could go
Mendelson said it is important to hear from the public, and he doesn’t expect testimonies ahead of the vote to lead to financial changes in the deal.
“I expect that a lot of the testimony is going to be very simple. We think it’s great the Commanders are coming back, and we want you to vote yes. … I think we will also hear from some folks that they think that any kind of subsidy is unacceptable to them,” Mendelson said.
Council member Kenyan McDuffie, who worked alongside Mendelson to negotiate a deal the council would support, agreed it will be important to hear from the community next week, but he said residents have already been weighing in.
“This isn’t the first opportunity for folks to weigh in on this process. We have gotten a number of emails, phone calls and outreach from social media from residents across the District of Columbia, both raising concerns and urging us to act,” McDuffie said.
McDuffie joined fellow Council member Wendell Felder, and Brooke Pinto at Mendelson’s announcement after the council was briefed on the deal. Mendelson said eight council members showed up to the meeting, and they have the votes to get the deal passed.
Pinto said she has been hearing from the community on what a deal such as this should look like before the land transfer even took place. She said this negotiated deal meets many of those requests.
“You can look at the revenue that we are now going to earn through parking revenue, through sales taxes. Those weren’t part of the initial deal, and those are now going to continue to fund really important city values, to support our young people,” Pinto said.
When asked about why he believes the council was able to get these changes that were not in the mayor’s originally negotiated deal, Mendelson said the team’s desire to move forward quickly helped.
“Time was on our side, in terms of the team willing to make the deal more attractive,” Mendelson said.
‘Bring our team home’
Mayor Bowser held a pep rally on Thursday afternoon outside the John A. Wilson Building in Northwest D.C., celebrating the announcement and touting the new neighborhood, jobs, and tax revenue from the stadium.
“The time is now to bring our team home,” Bowser said.
In a statement, the Washington Commanders thanked the mayor and the council for the development and said they believed in the “transformative power” of the project.
“The opportunity to bring the team back to its spiritual home and revitalize a critical part of the nation’s capital is now one step closer,” said Mark Clouse, president of the team.
The council’s review of the original deal pushed past a July 15 deadline established by the agreement, as officials reviewed the deal’s terms and worked with the Commanders to tweak them.
NBC Washington first reported on the parties reaching an altered agreement on Wednesday but few details emerged, as the Commanders remained hush about the changes but noted that the discussion was constructive.
While the council’s new financial agreement resolves one large hurdle of the new stadium, several challenges remain, including a threat from President Donald Trump to disrupt the deal if the team doesn’t revert to its former name.
Mendelson said threats by Trump and the House Oversight Committee to intervene have been a “distraction.”
“I think everyone has been perplexed by the president’s comments, and in that sense they haven’t been helpful,” Mendelson said.
The stadium also faces neighborhood opposition, as the group “Homes Not Stadiums” is pushing to establish a ballot initiative that aims to restrict the mayor from leasing or licensing the RFK Stadium land.
WTOP’s Mike Murillo contributed to this report.
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