A bill that would lease the RFK Stadium site to the District passed through a congressional committee on Tuesday. The House Natural Resources Committee approved the bill that would give D.C. officials a 99-year lease of the location.
The measure passed through the committee on a voice vote.
Under the updated bill, the National Park Service could choose to lease the site to the District. City officials would then develop the area as they see fit, as long as construction does not adversely impact the environment.
The proposal had stagnated since September, when the House Oversight Committee approved it. Now, the legislation will have to pass a floor vote in the House before advancing to the Senate.
“We are one step closer to a transformed RFK campus,” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement. “One step closer to sports and entertainment, green spaces and recreational facilities, much-needed housing and jobs — a mix of uses that will benefit the community, fuel our comeback, and put underutilized land to productive use in the Nation’s Capital for our residents and the millions of Americans who visit each year.”
The demolition process has already begun at the old RFK Memorial Stadium. Contractors finished the first phase of demolition in October, Events DC said.
The structure itself cannot be demolished without approval from the National Park Service. Officials noted that demolition will begin once compliance work is finished.
Bowser has been vocal in her desire to bring the NFL back to the District; the Commanders have played at FedEx Field in Maryland since 1997. Before that, the NFL franchise spent 36 seasons at RFK Stadium.
“The Washington Commanders belong in Washington. Let’s get back to winning,” Bowser wrote on X. “Let’s get back to RFK.”
The Washington Commanders’ lease at FedEx Field expires in 2027. Officials from the District, Maryland and Virginia are all vying to host the team’s home games in the future.
“We have long said that we believe DC should be in a position to have authority over the land at RFK, and this is another step to making that happen,” a Commanders spokesperson told The Washington Times. “We are pleased to have multiple jurisdictions that want to be home to the Commanders.”
The mayor has said she would want the revitalized RFK Stadium site to be different from some modern arenas that are encircled by parking lots.
“I’ve said long and frequently that [our goal] is not to have a stadium surrounded by asphalt, but to have a mix of uses that serve the District of Columbia,” Bowser told residents at an October meeting. “We, the taxpayers, are going to develop the infrastructure for the housing, the parks … It will require the District to invest in the infrastructure. I expect that will be the case at RFK Stadium.”
In an October survey, area residents expressed apprehension about the project.
“The survey results reveal a strong sentiment that the pursuit of a new NFL stadium should not come against the wishes of D.C. residents and at the expense of D.C. taxpayers,” RFK future, a neighborhood group, wrote in a report. “Use of tax dollars to fund the stadium was a common reason cited for stadium opposition.”
Bowser has said that D.C. has the tax dollars to support public initiatives and a new stadium.
“Should we be building a stadium for billionaires when we have schools and the like? And the answer was, we’re a big city, we have to do both,” the mayor said. “I don’t know many people who don’t think we shouldn’t have the Washington Nationals in Washington. And guess what, in the same amount of time, we’ve built a lot of schools. We’ve invested in public services.”
• Liam Griffin can be reached at lgriffin@washingtontimes.com.
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