Courtesy Washington Commanders/HKS

Credit HKS

Courtesy Washington Commanders/HKS

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The National Capital Planning Commission voted unanimously Thursday to approve preliminary site and building plans for the new Washington Commanders stadium at the former RFK Stadium site in D.C.

But members raised questions and concerns about the redevelopment project’s two planned parking garages.

“The stadium looks beautiful right now, but as I’ve said previously at NCPC meetings, I have rarely have ever seen a beautiful parking facility,” NCPC Chair William Scharf said. “So I think understanding how that affects the overall project plan and what the stadium will actually look like to people once it’s complete, I think, it’s really important.”

The overall project includes as many as 8,000 parking spaces, with 75% of them in the garages and 25% in surface lots as of the stadium’s opening day.

At 11 stories high, the two garages could be nearly two-thirds as tall as the stadium itself. A map of the site shown at the Thursday meeting indicated the structures could also be as large or larger than the nearby D.C. Armory.

In renderings presented at the meeting, the garages are pictured in a few of the images, but are not the focus. In one image, the garage is transparent to better show off the stadium’s east side. In another stadium view, a garage fades into the background.

Commission staff member Laura Shipman said the parking garages will be developed independently from the stadium and will be separately submitted for commission approval.

One commissioner questioned the garages’ omission from the preliminary stadium site plan, but still voted to approve it.

“Help me understand why we’re not seeing the development of those (garages) with the stadium package,” said Tammy Stidham, an NCPC commissioner and National Park Service lands and planning director. “They don’t have independent utility. They would not be there if you were not building a stadium.”

NCPC staff also recommended that “alternative orientations” and lower garage heights be considered to reduce visual impacts of views to the stadium, from Kingman Park and from other adjacent neighborhoods.

“I appreciate the sincere interest each one of you all have shown in this garage problem, because it is truly a problem and it throws off the scale,” said Kingman Park resident Frazer Walton.

Walton spoke on behalf of the Friends of Kingman Park Civic Association, which he said supports the stadium redevelopment project, but opposes the construction of a parking garage next to the neighborhood for health and traffic reasons.

“The alternative would be that you not build these massive parking garages, multilevel garages, and that we focus on increasing the size of the Stadium-Armory Metro site,” Walton said. “We also suggest that we build a new subway stop at Oklahoma and Benning Road within the next five to seven years.”

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In March, The Washington State Legislature enacted HB 2548, expanding state oversight of healthcare ownership transactions and requiring new disclosures when hospitals and provider organizations change hands.

Washington already requires hospitals, hospital systems, and provider organizations to give the Attorney General at least 60 days’ notice before certain transactions that result in a material change, so the Attorney General can evaluate whether an antitrust investigation is warranted.

HB 2548 broadens those notice triggers to include:

• changes in majority ownership or control of a hospital, hospital system, or provider organization;
• acquisitions, sales, or transfers of a majority of an entity’s assets, including real estate sale-leaseback transactions; and
• conversions of nonprofit healthcare entities into for-profit corporations or unincorporated entities.

The bill also adds ownership disclosures, filing fees scaled to the transaction’s value, post-transaction notification within 30 days of a deal being completed, and quarterly public notice of pending and completed transactions on the Attorney General’s website. It also requires transactions to pause until 30 days after the parties certify substantial compliance with any request for additional information from the Attorney General.

The law does not expand the Attorney General’s authority to block or unwind transactions beyond existing antitrust law, but instead strengthens notice, disclosure, and investigatory capacity.

Private equity in Washington

The legislation comes amid growing concern about consolidation and investment activity in Washington’s healthcare sector.

In its December 2025 annual report, the Washington Health Care Cost Transparency Board stated that when healthcare organizations are acquired, merged, or affiliated with private equity, patient prices and healthcare spending go up, driven by increases in provider fees, hospital prices, drug prices, and insurance premiums. The board also noted that consolidation leads to fewer patient choices and decreased or unchanged quality of care, slower wage growth and worse working conditions for healthcare workers, and hospital closures linked to delays in care and increased mortality.

On private equity specifically, the board flagged Washington’s substantial growth in private equity ownership over the past decade and noted that private equity firms often acquire additional nearby practices after an initial acquisition, laying the groundwork for further consolidation

A January 2026 report from the Washington Office of the Insurance Commissioner documented 551 healthcare acquisitions in Washington since 2015, with deal values peaking at $11.3 billion in 2023 and transaction volume peaking at 111 deals in 2021. Nationally, private equity investors spent more than $200 billion on healthcare acquisitions in 2021 alone and $1 trillion over the past decade. The most heavily targeted sectors in Washington by deal count were veterinary, dental, mental health, dermatology, musculoskeletal, vision, and gastroenterology, while veterinary care dominated by total deal value.

Earlier efforts at oversight

HB 2548 comes after earlier legislative proposals in Washington to establish more comprehensive oversight of healthcare transactions.

In 2025, Washington legislators introduced HB 1881, the Keep Our Care Act, which would have amended state law to prohibit any merger, acquisition, or contracting affiliation among hospitals, hospital systems, or provider organizations that would “detrimentally affect the continued existence of accessible, affordable health care in Washington state for at least five years after the transaction occurs.”

The Washington Health Care Authority would have had authority to conduct a formal review of each covered transaction – including at least one public hearing – and submit a report and recommendation to the Attorney General, who would have authority to approve, conditionally approve, or disapprove the deal outright. The bill was referred to the Committee on Civil Rights & Judiciary, where it did not advance.

While comprehensive transaction oversight stalled last year, the legislature did take a step toward greater transparency. Last April, the governor signed HB 1686 into law, requiring the Department of Health to develop a plan for a complete interactive registry of Washington’s healthcare landscape, including the ownership, investment, and governance structures of healthcare entities. DOH must deliver a progress update by December 31, 2027, and a final report with implementation recommendations by November 1, 2028.

A step towards more transparency

HB 2548 expands Washington’s healthcare transaction notification framework to include a wider range of ownership changes, asset transfers, and organizational conversions, while increasing disclosure requirements and public reporting.

The law does not alter the Attorney General’s underlying authority to review or challenge transactions, but gives regulators access to more information under existing legal standards.

The changes in HB 2548 give regulators earlier notice and more detailed information about consolidation activity across the state’s healthcare system, positioning Washington to more effectively monitor consolidation trends, including activity by private equity and other profit-driven actors.

You can read about Washington’s first practice of spring 2026 here. But I also wanted to pass along some video footage of what I saw on Tuesday afternoon — from positional drills to some interview clips — beginning with a quick trip up to the Quad.

— Christian Caple, On Montlake

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