‘A win-win’: D.C. politicians celebrate city control of RFK Stadium site

It’s been a joyful few days for D.C. politicians who have spent years trying to lure NFL football back to the nation’s capital.

“As a city, we have worked for years toward the opportunity to transform a vacant, blighted sea of asphalt in the heart of DC and to put the RFK campus back to productive use. …” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement. “And the potential is great.”

The mayor has long said the city should control the 174-acre federally owned site, which has been unused since 2017. A new home for the Washington Commanders, who left to play in suburban Maryland in 1996, tops the mayor’s wish list, but the site could also be used for retail and housing developments.

“The RFK Stadium bill is a win-win for the federal and D.C. governments,” Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s nonvoting representative, said in a statement. “As the Department of the Interior testified, it would allow D.C. to transform the crumbling, long-vacant campus from ‘acres of asphalt to a complex focused on community sports, recreation, park space and cultural amenities.”

Under the proposed legislation, city officials would have to maintain 30% of the stadium’s campus for parks and open space. The deal also prohibits any construction directly on the Anacostia River waterfront.

“With this transfer of land at RFK Stadium back to the District, we reclaim our ability to focus on creating spaces for our residents,” Brooke Pinto, councilmember for Ward 2, wrote on X. “The opportunities are wide-ranging — with housing, recreation space, transit, and yes, our teams! Thank you, Congress — the future is boundless!”

Control of the stadium site was a necessary step toward bringing the Commanders back to the District, but the team hasn’t committed to the move. Team owner Josh Harris has said he expects to open a new stadium by 2030, but the franchise has repeatedly said it’s considering sites in D.C., Maryland and Virginia.