DEBORAH SIMMONS: D.C. soccer stadium and its endgame

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Did you read the news the other day? The D.C. United soccer team is going to stay in the District because the city — i.e. taxpayers and other stakeholders — are going to foot the bill.

Now read the headline you were kept in the dark about: The soccer deal isn’t about soccer or soccer fans.

There’s more than a stadium involved.

The D.C. soccer deal is about the prime, Grade-A, homogenized real estate that comes with the package.

RFK Stadium, where D.C. United currently plays, and the RFK parking lots, where fans park, aren’t aging well. They are old and riddled with structural problems.

The D.C. Armory, which has hosted presidential inaugural balls since Harry Truman, serves as the D.C. National Guard’s headquarters and training facilities. Top-drawer entertainers from Frank Sinatra and Ethel Merman to Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald have crossed its threshold. “American Idol” has even used the venue for tryouts.

D.C. General Hospital, a former hospital-turned homeless shelter, has become a hot spot for careless parenting, pill-pushing and rancid living. Members of Congress and like-minded officials try to make a point about how families cannot live on food stamp stipends. They should spend the night at D.C. General and then take the next day off. They’d deserve it, because between the two-legged folks and the four-legged rodents they’d be too scared to shut their eyes.

There’s Congressional Cemetery, the historic graveyard that opened in 1807, but these days is frequented more by adults and their four-pawed companions then by people burying their departed loved ones.

The D.C. Jail complex, where inmates are held, serve time and receive substance-abuse treatment, is an RFK neighbor as well. Opened in 1976, the jail is one of those aging government facilities that generally don’t show up on official radar screens unless and until something happens inside its walls. On Thursday morning, that something happened to be the release of a new report that essentially said the buildings are in need of a major renovation.

Bring in HGTV’s “Property Brothers.” Jonathan could make sure the toilets aren’t backed up and the glass-enclosed cells for perverts and other sexually charged offenders are no shoddy do-overs, while Drew could size up the real estate market.

That’s the point, you know.

RFK and its neighborhoods are stuck between a rock — the beautiful and historic grounds of Langston Golf Course to the north — and three very hard places to the west and east — middle-class and historically black neighborhoods, while bounded in part by several waterways, including Kingman Lake and the Anacostia River.

Downstream along the Anacostia, the new home for D.C. United is slated to pop up at Buzzard Point, not far from Nationals Park and still with the draw of the ambient waterfront.

Now that the soccer is deal is mostly done, let’s return to the RFK site and sight lines.

Again, that is prime real estate.

It’s the only place the Washington Redskins could possibly return to in, well, Washington if Dan Snyder’s calling the shots. Another NFL football team could relocate, but they may not be named Redskins.

The shelter at D.C. General is going to close, and something’s got to be done with the land.

St. Coletta of Greater Washington, at 19th St. and Independence SE, works miracles for and with children and young adults with special needs — so the city should leave them alone.

The jail complex is going to be renovated. Mayor Muriel Bowser visited the jail earlier this year, and she wasn’t there to visit the knuckleheads, hoodlums and goodfellas filling up the jail.

So, no — the endgame of the RFK-hospital-jail game is a real estate plan. The plan took 14th and U Street off the table for the soccer deal, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be leveraged in another deal.

Waterfront property as the city continues to rip up the Wharf.

Waterfront property as the city decides whether to rebuild the jail or relocate the jail.

Waterfront property whose ring of institutional facilities include an armory whose crowds used to be entertained by the Rat Pack.

Waterfront property as the city decides how to get the best bang for its buck in inner-city D.C.

Waterfront property whose chief Metro station is Stadium-Armory, served by the Blue and Yellow lines.

A change in scenery and signage is coming.

That is the endgame.

• Deborah Simmons can be reached at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.