The contest between Virginia and Washington over two professional sports franchises — the Wizards in basketball and Capitals in hockey — is not quite over, but Virginia is well ahead in the fourth quarter. The commonwealth’s General Assembly and Alexandria’s city council still have to sign off on a new arena in Potomac Yard, but if they do, and if other present trends continue, the city will soon lose NBA and NHL franchises that began playing downtown 27 years ago.
Washington, D.C
Opinion | D.C. shouldn’t give up its arena fight — but must prepare for a post-Wiz world
We wish the teams would stay. The current location is in the heart of the region just a few blocks from the White House. The arena anchors a downtown neighborhood of residents, offices, bars and restaurants hugging Seventh Street NW, and it sits on top of a Metro hub that’s easily accessible to residents from all corners of the region. Losing these teams will be a blow to an increasingly hollowed-out downtown Washington. Ideally, the teams’ owner, Ted Leonsis, would reconsider the city’s generous final offer to stay in a downtown he helped to succeed for many years.
But Mr. Leonsis and his company, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, appear ready to leave. Unlike the space in Potomac Yard, the teams’ current arena has little room to expand. D.C. is struggling to combat a violent crime surge, and the city did too little to address years of complaints about nuisances and declining safety in the arena’s neighborhood. More importantly, the city failed to get its best offer to Mr. Leonsis in time once he indicated he was serious about moving. If Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) had submitted her final proposal — an $800 million arena renovation, with $500 million paid for by the city — months ago, Mr. Leonsis might have accepted it. In the meantime, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) offered Mr. Leonsis a $2 billion development with a massive new arena surrounded by the sorts of things that are harder to build in downtown Washington: team practice facilities, offices for Mr. Leonsis’s company, a hotel, an additional concert venue, a Virginia Tech campus, housing, shops and restaurants.
The two proposals side by side
$2 billion (plus $200 million for transportation upgrades)
What
Monumental
Sports pays
$400 million upfront plus $400 million in lease payments over time
$400 million plus ongoing lease payments
How the
rest of the
project is
financed
Initial offer: About $200 million. Final offer: $500 million bond paid back by D.C. taxpayers.
$1.1 billion in bonds paid back by tax revenue generated in new arena area. Plus $100 million from Alexandria
Suburban. Served by two Metro lines.
Urban. Served by all six Metro lines.
Development
around
the arena
Twelve-acre development with new practice facilities, hotel, a concert venue, retail, offices and residences. It will be art of a 70-acre plan for Potomac Yard.
The D.C. arena is 5 acres in the heart of the city near the White House, hotels and businesses. Practice facilities are elsewhere.
JBG Smith and a pension fund own the land
D.C. government owns land
The two proposals side by side
$2 billion (plus $200 million for transportation upgrades)
What
Monumental
Sports pays
$400 million upfront plus $400 million in lease payments over time
$400 million plus ongoing lease payments
How the rest
of the project
is financed
$1.1 billion in bonds paid back by tax revenue generated in new arena area. Plus $100 million from Alexandria
Initial offer: About $200 million. Final offer: $500 million bond paid back by D.C. taxpayers.
Urban. Served by all six Metro lines.
Suburban. Served by two Metro lines.
Development
around
the arena
Twelve-acre development with new practice facilities, hotel, a concert venue, retail, offices and residences. It will be art of a 70-acre plan for Potomac Yard.
The D.C. arena is 5 acres in the heart of the city near the White House, hotels and businesses. Practice facilities are elsewhere.
JBG Smith and a pension fund own the land
D.C. government owns land
The two proposals side by side
$2 billion (plus $200 million for transportation upgrades)
What Monumental
Sports pays
$400 million upfront plus $400 million in lease payments over time
$400 million plus ongoing lease payments
How the rest of the
project is financed
Initial offer: About $200 million. Final offer: $500 million bond paid back by D.C. taxpayers.
$1.1 billion in bonds paid back by tax revenue generated in new arena area. Plus $100 million from Alexandria
Suburban. Served by two Metro lines.
Urban. Served by all six Metro lines.
Development around
the arena
The D.C. arena is 5 acres in the heart of the city near the White House, hotels and businesses. Practice facilities are elsewhere.
Twelve-acre development with new practice facilities, hotel, a concert venue, retail, offices and residences. It will be art of a 70-acre plan for Potomac Yard.
JBG Smith and a pension fund own the land
D.C. government owns land
For Mr. Leonsis to consider staying, D.C. would likely have to show progress on combating crime and a vision for revitalizing the neighborhood. The iconic Gallery Place mall and office complex adjacent to the arena is hemorrhaging tenants and seeking a new owner. It’s worth Ms. Bowser making a final pitch for the teams. Washington needs them more than Virginia does, and city officials shouldn’t give up until the relocation deal is final. Even if they fail, committing to some of the things that would make D.C. a more attractive place for Mr. Leonsis would make it a better place for others to do business, too.
Nevertheless, Mr. Leonsis is probably going to move the teams. While Mr. Youngkin and other Virginia leaders would no doubt rejoice, there are risks on their side of the Potomac. The new arena project’s $2 billion price tag is hefty. Mr. Leonsis would pay $400 million up front and then another $400 million over time to rent the arena. The city of Alexandria would kick in about $100 million. The remainder — roughly $1.1 billion — would come from bonds that are repaid by taxes collected within the 12-acre site. That means all the sales taxes, parking revenue, income taxes, corporate taxes and a ticket tax would go to repay the bonds.
Mr. Youngkin says that no Virginia taxpayer money would fund the project. Even modest crowds would likely generate enough revenue to pay back the bonds. But if those crowds fail to materialize, Virginia taxpayers would be on the hook for up to $577 million, since the state is backstopping part of the loan. Alexandria residents would be responsible for another $577 million in the worst-case situation. Virginia lawmakers should ask about scenarios in which there is another pandemic and 220 events a year don’t happen. State leaders should also make ironclad Mr. Leonsis’s promise to keep the teams at the Potomac Yard site until 2064 or pay back the loan balances. Many cities — ask St. Louis and Oakland — have been stuck paying bills after sports teams left.
Washington sports
The Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals play at Capital One Arena in D.C.
Transportation is the Virginia site’s biggest drawback. The arena could hold 20,000 fans. But the current Potomac Yard Metro station is small. The highways around Potomac Yard are already jammed, and there’s no Amtrak or Virginia Railway Express stop there. Mr. Youngkin’s team says the state will invest $200 million to help, but they haven’t said where that money will come from. Mr. Youngkin has also yet to promise any more funding to help keep Metro going in 2025 or beyond. State lawmakers need to ensure shoring up Metro is part of any arena funding package. Also still unknown is who will pay for extra policing in the area, and how to ensure that a new Virginia Sports and Entertainment Authority, which would oversee the new arena district, has to account for all the money and contracts it will handle. A lack of transparency with similar authorities in Chicago caused massive problems.
As Virginia sorts out these crucial details, D.C. needs to prepare for a post-Wizards world. Ms. Bowser has launched a task force to generate new ideas for the Gallery Place-Chinatown neighborhood. There’s early talk of a concert venue and a welcoming public space in the area. (Cleveland’s downtown Public Square is a good model, with a cafe, a splash pad for kids and green space for relaxing.) If the city doesn’t have to give Mr. Leonsis $500 million, it could use the money for other needs.
But no amount of money will make up for failing to get the basics right: ensuring public safety and cultivating a business-friendly climate. D.C. can no longer assume that people and businesses want to locate in urban centers; the city and its leaders must compete for them. Even if it loses this round, Washington can rally for the next.
Washington, D.C
Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week
4 things to know about the weather:
- Chances of rain in the morning
- Gusty Sunday
- Chilly Monday
- Temps will rise again through the work week
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.
The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.
Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.
However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.
QuickCast
SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s
MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s
Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.
Washington, D.C
‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington
The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.
In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.
“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”
Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.
Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.
“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.
“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”
Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”
A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.
Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.
Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.
But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.
“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”
At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.
The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.
Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.
For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.
“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.
“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”
For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.
In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.
Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.
“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”
Washington, D.C
Rosselli opens in DC, serving classic Italian flavors from chef Carlos
Washington, D.C. (7News) — Rosselli is the newest restaurant to open in DC.
Bringing in classic Italian flavors, Chef Carlos explained how he hopes his food is a unique addition to the Italian food scene in the DMV.
Chef also demoed a signature dish with Brian and Megan.
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You can learn more and book your table here.
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