If the $3.7 billion deal to bring the Washington Commanders back to the District gets the green light from the D.C. Council, it will bring five new and distinct districts to the 180-acre RFK Stadium campus.

The districts would become housing, restaurants, retail and more, according to City Administrator Kevin Donahue.

“I think people have to get out of their minds what they see now, which is hard to do because it’s been there for generations,” Donahue told WTOP.

Among the districts is the anchor itself, the stadium, which Donahue said would have the smallest footprint, only 15% of the site, and would have a roof that lines up with the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and U.S. Capitol. He said in addition to football games, they expect some or all of the stadium to be used 200 times a year.

“Think about football games, concerts, international soccer games, and then about 100 to 150 other uses — that’ll be think convention center uses — conventiongoers coming to the stadium, activating it for private events, for public events,” Donahue said.

To the south of the stadium would be the Riverfront District, which Donahue said would convert an abandoned parking lot into residential housing, retail and restaurants close to the protected area near where the Anacostia Trail runs. But it won’t be on the water.

Behind the stadium would be the Plaza District, which Donahue said would be similar to what exists along half the street outside Nationals Park, with restaurants and entertainment spots for people to hang out before and after games. This, Donahue said, would be different from the games many remember at the old RFK, when thousands of fans would only leave the stadium and head to their car or Metrorail.

“You have people mingling in over the course of two hours before a game starts, then afterward, particularly if it’s a Thursday, Friday, Saturday game, you have people mingling and staying afterward,” he said.

Closer to Benning Road, an abandoned parking lot would become the Kingman Park District, and Donahue said the city intends to provide long-term leases to developers who put apartment style housing along Oklahoma Avenue. Of the rental properties, 30% would need to be affordable housing.

“There’ll be many affordable opportunities for people to make it their homes and make it places that they live, that they raise their children, access the local schools. And for the folks who live adjacent to RFK right now, they’ll have neighbors, and their neighbor won’t be a big parking garage,” Donahue said.

However, this district would also include two parking garages. Donahue said those will be tucked closer toward the stadium.

Next to the Kingsman District at the site currently known as the Fields at RFK, Donahue said the soccer and baseball fields would stay but what would be called the “Recreation District” would also include a state-of-the-art sportsplex, which would provide parents and athletes with a location for events such as cheerleading, gymnastics and other indoor activities.

“Think of the sportsplex as being a recreation center, except it has the recreational activities that you really can’t get at our wonderful rec centers around the city,” he said.

Also, in the Recreation District, 30% of the land would remain green space, he said.

Finally, 30 acres of land that is home to the Anacostia River Trail will not be developed.

“That won’t be touched, it’ll be restored. There will be public access, so it will not be cut off by private development,” Donahue said, referring to the nearby waterways.

Handling car and foot traffic

Planning the layout of the stadium campus is a big task, according to Donahue, because there is a lot of space to work with.

“If you live in D.C., if you’re familiar with Catholic University campus, a big campus, it’s about as large as this campus is. If you think of the Glover Park neighborhood, an entire neighborhood with a school in it, it’s about the size of this campus,” Donahue said.

Donahue said the campus would look totally different, because it would be redesigned with fewer instances of people and car traffic coming together.

“It’ll be a pedestrian-friendly design,” he said.

People could soon be crossing main streets by going over or under them, and they plan to make the stadium more accessible to people walking or biking from areas farther down the river, including Navy Yard.

“We really want to not have this be an island of development and residential housing separate from both this adjacent community,” Donahue said.

Some on the D.C. Council have been critical of the absence of funding for Metro in the plan, but Donahue said to be ready for opening day, the Metro needs are in place.

“There is a Metro station that is around the corner that people used, millions of people used, over the course of the lifetime of RFK when it was activated,” Donahue said.

He said when it comes to other transit investments — among them the needs of people who will work, live and come to the area to indulge at the retail and restaurants — that needs to be studied down the road.

“We have these unanswered questions that we need to study properly, and then we will invest. This is no question,” Donahue said.

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A common complaint about going to games and concerts at Northwest Stadium in Prince George’s County, Maryland, is getting there.

Having a new stadium with a better transportation situation than Northwest is a low bar to clear, a transportation official told News4.

The most obvious question about getting to a new stadium is, can Metro handle it? Metro General Manager Randy Clarke is optimistic about the Stadium-Armory station, which serviced the old RFK Stadium.

“Now we have three lines going through there – it used to only be two – and we can run up to eight-car train sets, which we never had the ability to do before,” he said.

The Blue, Silver and Orange lines now travel through Stadium-Armory.

Part of the plan for a new stadium will analyze what, if any, transit improvements will be needed. Clarke said there is an older study that looked at a potential new station at nearby Oklahoma Avenue on the northern side of the stadium site. But he stressed it is very early to be talking about that.

“That could be part of the analysis as well,” he said. “We don’t know if a station is fully needed there or not. If it is, how much it would cost? How long it would take to build?”

Another potential transportation winner is D.C.’s streetcar system, which does stop at Oklahoma Avenue near the stadium and connects to Union Station. The streetcar is currently free to ride.

Mayor Muriel Bowser touted the transportation options already in place.

“It is served by Metro. It’s served by the highway. It’s served by an expansive bus system,” she said.

Bowser stressed new parking will be built, but it won’t be a sea of parking like what exists at RFK now. In total, 8,000 parking spaces are expected to be available.

Team owner Josh Harris noted trail connections along the Anacostia River.

“You can actually ride your bike from Nationals Park,” he said. “It’s a 15-minute bike ride.”

An important thing to point out is serious parking restrictions in the neighborhoods around this stadium likely would be put in place on game and event days, much like what happens around Nats Park on gamedays.

Elmina, recently launched in Washington DC, and the debut bricks-and-mortar venture of Ghanaian-American chef Eric Adjepong, is a restaurant that celebrates modern Africa while acknowledging the complexities of its past. Its name carries weight, referencing the port that became the site of sub-Saharan Africa’s first European slave-trading post. ‘This restaurant has been a dream of mine since I was a child,’ says Adjepong, who made his name on Food Network TV series Top Chef.

Trade route: Elmina, Washington DC

Designed by local studio Drummond Projects, the 3,720 sq ft, three-storey space intricately weaves historical West African references into its aesthetic, with the restaurant’s six main areas subtly nodding to the prized commodities of transatlantic colonial trade. ‘We wanted to respond to Eric’s vision with a design proposal that would tell the story of migration, resilience and transformation,’ says studio founder and principal Jimmie Drummond.

The journey begins in the cocktail lounge, where a warm interior palette, set against rich leather finishes, Venetian plaster and marble counters, evokes the appearance of tobacco, while the main dining room is wrapped in curved partitions, with textured white wallpaper symbolising cotton. Upstairs, a second dining room, featuring deep indigo tones, plush seating and gold accents, leads out onto an enclosed terrace, its lush green hues and natural elements referencing sugarcane. The lower level’s wood-themed washrooms and staff areas, meanwhile, allude to the timber used to build the transatlantic trade ships.

At the heart of the restaurant, a dramatic curvilinear stairwell, finished in a plaster-like texture, connects the various sections, its sculptural elegance enhanced by a series of striking pendants. Furnishings and accessories come from Crate & Barrel, CB2 and West Elm, while lighting has been sourced from Scout & Nimble, Lightology, Diode LED and Ferguson. Personal touches, such as the handwoven Kente cloth from Ghana gifted by Adjepong’s mother, add charm, as do the custom-made decking, bespoke artwork by Charles Jean-Pierre, wallcoverings by Belarte Studio and artisan-crafted Sailrite fabrics.

The food itself is deeply rooted in tradition. ‘The menu is a love letter to the ancestors and recipes I grew up with,’ says Adjepong. ‘Although the focus is on Ghana, we recognise the entire African continent and the diaspora at large.’ Experiences on offer span a five-course tasting menu, a chop bar selection and a hearty brunch, with standout dishes including the comfortingly smoky jollof duck pot.

‘Jollof is one of the most popular dishes in West and Central Africa. We’re cooking the duck’s leg, breast and eggs in a way I haven’t seen in this country.’

Elmina is located at 2208 14th St NW, Washington, DC 20009, United States; elminarestaurant.com

A version of this article appears in the May 2025 Design Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.