Deal to Move Caps, Wizards Strikes Blow to Mayor’s Downtown Plans
By • December 14, 2023 One Comment 1215
A dueling set of press conferences on either side of the Potomac yesterday – one from Potomac Yard, Alexandria, featuring Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) with Ted Leonsis, owner of the Washington Capitals and Wizards franchises, and the other an aggrieved D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser with supportive members of the D.C Council at the Wilson building downtown – signaled not only a possible tidal change in the D.C. sports world, but a potential catastrophe for the mayor’s downtown revitalization plans.
On the Virginia side, at Potomac Yard, participants in the press event sparked with enthusiasm. The president and CEO of the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership, Stephanie Landram, teared up in her introduction of Virginia Republican governor Glen Youngkin, following her all-night efforts to work with her team to help seal the deal about to be announced. Behind her, insignias of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the City of Alexandria, JBG Smith investment trust, and Virginia Tech broadcast the partnership group behind the deal.
What deal? Ted Leonsis’s Monumental Sports & Entertainment company has preliminarily agreed, though not yet finalized, a deal to relocate the Washington Capitals NHL hockey team and the Washington Wizards NBA basketball team from downtown D.C.’s Capital One Arena in Chinatown across the river to Potomac Yard in Alexandria, as part of a $2 billion development package to create a brand-new “entertainment district” on the site’s available 70-acre parcel, adjacent to the National Landing’s recently launched Amazon HQ2 headquarters site and serviced by the new Potomac Yard Metro Station.
Team owner Ted Leonsis at a Wizards game, 2019. Wikipedia photo.
“Our job is to deliver economic development, opportunities and jobs and we have put together a pretty incredible opportunity,” Landram announced before introducing Youngkin, who would go on to say he was “not sure he’s ever been so excited.” The development package Youngkin would outline includes a new dual-use arena as well as several new facilities including (per ABC7):
- A state-of-the-art Monumental Sports Network media studio;
- A new Wizards practice facility;
- A 6,000-seat performing arts venue;
- An expanded e-sports facility;
- Global Headquarters for Monumental Sports Entertainment;
- New retail, restaurants, conference, and community gathering spaces.
“After many years of dreaming and of discussion, I am pleased to announce that right here in Alexandria’s Potomac Yard, we have a plan to unleash a brighter, more extraordinary future,” Youngkin beamed, his voice cracking. “And, as part of this amazing project, we will build a spectacular $2 billion sports and entertainment district. And this spectacular sports and entertainment district will be at the heart of the most vibrant innovation corridor in the world, a corridor that starts at Amazon HQ2 in Arlington and stretches through the Virginia Tech innovation campus and will find its anchor here in Alexandria with this amazing sports and entertainment district.”
At Potomac Yard, Alexandria, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) enthuses about Monumental Sports and Entertainment’s preliminary deal. WJLA video capture.
“…This visionary sports and entertainment development district will bring together entertainment, sports and technology like nowhere in the world,” Youngkin said. “This once-in-a-generation historic development will be the best place to live, work, raise a family, and… watch hockey and basketball. [Audience laughs] It also represents an extraordinary economic opportunity. Over the life of this project, 30,000 new jobs and an estimated $12 billion of economic activity to be generated in the Commonwealth and in the city of Alexandria.”
Turning to teams-owner Ted Leonsis, Youngkin recalled: “Ted, I remember when we sat together years ago and discussed your vision. Your vision where Monumental wouldn’t just be the owner of great teams. But, in fact, you would build… the most innovative sports and entertainment company in the world, delivering the most comprehensive and the greatest fan experience. And, Ted, that’s exactly what you are doing. Virginia will not only be the best place to watch hockey and to watch basketball, but it will be the best place to innovate and press the envelope of what we can do together.”
Youngkin’s major themes for the launch: “innovation,” “extraordinary,” and “development,” words he repeated numerous times. And the plan is to harness Virginia Tech’s new Innovation Campus to drive growth. “The most innovative sports and entertainment district will be funded by the most innovative public/private partnership,” he said. “Monumental Sports, the City of Alexandria, the Commonwealth of Virginia, will all win together. I pledged that any project like this would first and foremost be good for the Virginia taxpayer. And that’s exactly what this project represents.”
“Harnessing the financial horsepower of the future, incremental taxes and other revenues with an estimated $12 billion to the Commonwealth and the City of Alexandria over the coming decades, joining National Landing as part of Potomac Yard, this world-class entertainment district will be adjacent to our Virginia Tech Innovation Campus, opening the doors for unique partnerships between Monumental and Virginia Tech, both focused on entrepreneurship, sports analytics, immersive technologies, and innovative new businesses and media strategies. And on top of that, the economic contribution from this development will create further revenue streams to support education and transportation across the Commonwealth of Virginia. It’s crystal clear. Virginia is leading on innovation.”
Preliminary site development plans at Potomac Yard. Courtesy Arlington County.
Later in the day, Mayor Bowser’s press conference across the Potomac at the Wilson building, struck a very different tone. While the mayor offered reassurances that Virginia’s offers had not been finalized and might yet “hit a snag,” she appeared to suggest that the offers she and the D.C. Council had put “on the table” to Leonsis were “final.”
Looking somewhat shell-shocked and perturbed by the morning’s developments – after all, the city’s loss of two major Washington sports franchises could spell economic disaster for downtown D.C., still struggling to recover from the pandemic, as well as political disaster for the mayor’s legacy – Mayor Bowser began her press conference in a somewhat defensive tone. “I want to give you an update on what we heard this morning from Ted Leonsis and the announcement regarding Virginia’s plans to build a sports and entertainment complex in Alexandria,” she said. “I want to be clear about something: that we have been in serious talks with Monumental about staying in downtown Washington, staying in Chinatown, and over the last several days, you have seen the unanimous support of the D.C. Council. We have been responsive to Monumental throughout our process and we have negotiated in good faith with them over the last several months. We have presented them with a series of offers that range from offers of 25 years, and hundreds of millions of dollars, to land deals, until the one we shared with you — our last and best, final offer — an all-cash deal over 3 years, totaling $500 million.”
“We were grateful to be able to put that kind of cash on the table,” Bowser said. “Because of the careful way that we have managed our finances and our CFO recently re-financing our bonds, they gave us more debt capacity. We know that our deal is the best. We think it’s the best for Monumental, quite frankly. We know it’s the best for our fans. We know it’s the best for the city. And quite frankly, we think it’s the best for the entire DMV.”
But the mayor couldn’t resist a dose of snark. “We are very committed that Washington D.C. teams should play in Washington D.C. ‘National Landing Wizards’ doesn’t quite have the same ring.”
Shockingly, the mayor soon after pivoted away from discussions of ongoing negotiations with Leonsis to naming a new Task Force on the Future of Gallery Place, Chinatown. Looks like the writing’s on the wall.
Meanwhile, in Georgetown, the Georgetown Business Improvement District took to Instagram yesterday to post, in solidarity with other city BIDs: “The Georgetown BID fully endorses the Mayor’s and Council’s proposal to keep Monumental Sports, and the Capitals, and Wizards, in the center of Washington DC. It’s important to all the neighborhoods of the city and the entire region that the teams stay in DC and continue to anchor a revitalized Downtown.”
Many of the online commenters to the BID’s Instagram post derided the high crime in the neighborhoods surrounding Capital One Arena, echoing sentiments expressed on X by Virginia’s conservative Republican Attorney General, Jason Miyares (R ): “As D.C. politicians pretend they don’t have a public safety issue… and carjackings, violent crime, and robberies worsen, Virginia residents are less likely to spend their time (and their money) in the District,” he wrote. “We welcome the [Capitals], [Wizards], Monumental Sports & Entertainment, and this tremendous development to a safer Virginia.”
Ward 2 Council member Brooke Pinto, who represents Georgetown as well as the neighborhood around Capital One Arena, said, “I’ve been taking this threat seriously for months, if not years,” according DCist.
On the question of D.C.’s high crime rates affecting Leonsis’s decision to move his teams to the Virginia side of the river, Bowser said Leonsis did not give crime as the reason for the move. “I would characterize what they said to us – and I happen to agree with it – that our experience with crime is a kind of blip. It’s a phenomenon and we can look back over the last several years and see a lot of contributing factors.”
Still, Bowser couldn’t resist another dig a Leonsis’s choice to move his teams to Alexandria. “Now, In our view, there’s a difference between being committed to an urban arena and being interested in a suburban arena. We obviously think that urban arenas are more interesting, more fun, there are more opportunities for additional activities, and we think our fan base also, from coming around the region, likes that,” she said.
Though Leonsis’s team issued a statement that Capital One Arena will still be the home of the WNBA Washington Mystics women’s basketball team and will continue as an entertainment complex, the mayor did not commit to funding refurbishment for the site if Leonsis’s Monumental Sports Entertainment follows through on moving to Potomac Yard.
Well, what do you expect Madam Mayor? Increase the Police and Lower the Taxes and then you can win for us.