Neither Jack Evans nor Vincent Gray said anything about having the public contribute to the new stadium that would be a necessary part of luring the Redskins back into town, but that's pretty much implied any time a politician is talking about getting a professional team to relocate.
Five council members told DCist that they are opposed to public money going to a new Redskins stadium in D.C., and six refused to comment-so any stadium project faces an uphill, but not insurmountable, climb.
Then-owner Jack Kent Cooke, whose name graced the stadium when it first opened, put up the $180 million to build it, with Maryland taxpayers kicking in about $70 million for infrastructure improvements around the suburban D.C. site.
A 2010 proposal to replace RFK Stadium on the east side of D.C. with a retractable roofed football stadium had a prospective price tag of $2 billion.
Bowser and other Washington officials are clearly swayed by the chance to bring the Redskins back into the city after their 1997 exodus to Maryland-and they might be motivated by the chance to replace the rusting hulk of RFK Stadium, now empty since the D.C. soccer team moved into a brand new, taxpayer-funded stadium along the waterfront.
Of course, local officials shouldn't need to dislike a team owner's politics to deny public funding for a new stadium.
Even though the stadium helped touch off explosive redevelopment in the Navy Yard neighborhood, it still probably wasn't worth the cost because the city is on the hook for $20 million in debt service payments every year for the next few decades.
http://reason.com/blog/2018/09/09/will-dc-be-the-next-city-suckered-into-p
Five council members told DCist that they are opposed to public money going to a new Redskins stadium in D.C., and six refused to comment-so any stadium project faces an uphill, but not insurmountable, climb.
Then-owner Jack Kent Cooke, whose name graced the stadium when it first opened, put up the $180 million to build it, with Maryland taxpayers kicking in about $70 million for infrastructure improvements around the suburban D.C. site.
A 2010 proposal to replace RFK Stadium on the east side of D.C. with a retractable roofed football stadium had a prospective price tag of $2 billion.
Bowser and other Washington officials are clearly swayed by the chance to bring the Redskins back into the city after their 1997 exodus to Maryland-and they might be motivated by the chance to replace the rusting hulk of RFK Stadium, now empty since the D.C. soccer team moved into a brand new, taxpayer-funded stadium along the waterfront.
Of course, local officials shouldn't need to dislike a team owner's politics to deny public funding for a new stadium.
Even though the stadium helped touch off explosive redevelopment in the Navy Yard neighborhood, it still probably wasn't worth the cost because the city is on the hook for $20 million in debt service payments every year for the next few decades.
http://reason.com/blog/2018/09/09/will-dc-be-the-next-city-suckered-into-p
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