Will the Nats be the next team to flee across the river?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This thread proves that none of you doom posters know what you're talking about. The MLB would NEVER allow the Os to move, please shut up.

Nats aren't leaving either. You all really wanna see DC fail, why is that.

Because it's full of black people

DC used to be full of black people. It’s no longer a majority black city. Also, I don’t think anyone wants to see DC fail. I think most hope it will get better.

DC is a one trick economic pony. The District won’t get better until workers return at a significant level. That won’t happen as WFH is here to stay. Its fortunes are very bleak.

I agree that most hope it will get better, but there are a few posters on DCUM who are very prolific and who really, really, really want to see it fail.^^^

PP is not hoping DC will fail but rather simply pointing out facts. The road to recovery for DC rests in large part on getting offices filled again. That won’t happen.

Make a compelling case for how and why the offices will be filled again? The work is getting done. So why does someone want to commute 45 minutes in and 45 minutes out (because it's too expensive to live in dc) and why would they want to spend $17 dollars to go out and get a mediocre sandwich or salad that should cost a lot less than that amount (but again a lot of that is driven by rent demanded of restaurants and retail). If you want a return to downtown offices et cetera then one of the big things that needs to happen is that rent and real estate need to come down in price. Rents for businesses downtown need to come down, rents and housing costs throughout the city needs to come down.

No one in this thread said they wanted RTO but simply said that without it, DC’s economic future is not good. I agree there’s zero point to returning to the office, especially if it is just to prop up the city.
The only people calling for it really are the DC politicians because they see the writing on the wall. Oh and Zients called for it as well but that was just to shut up Bowser.

[Anonymous]

Listen up... the only way you're going to get people to want to come back downtown is to a.) get the crime under control and b.) get the damn rents and costs down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Listen up... the only way you're going to get people to want to come back downtown is to a.) get the crime under control and b.) get the damn rents and costs down.

And what happens as commercial real estate values go down because of WFH and the shuttering of office space as well as the service industries that catered to those who used to work downtown? It’s a vicious spiral.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Has anyone here actually been to Navy Yard recently?

I don't think the Nats are likely to leave unless the crime makes a serious turn and the area starts bleeding retail, which has not happened. The abrupt closure of the Lululemon indicates that location had other issues, unrelated to crime -- it is not typical for a chain store like that to leave after a single crime incident. Chains generally have a formula to help the evaluate locations and I would bet that after the recent incident, they looked at overall sales and other factors and decided it didn't make sense anymore.

There continues to be a ton of new development in the area. I work in real estate and recently toured two huge new buildings down there, one mostly completed and another still under construction. High end units with views of the river and incredible amenities. While there we walked around and there are so many new places even since the last time I was there. The retail near the stadium is mostly full with mid and high end retail and restaurants. Even in midwinter with baseball out of season, coffee shops and restaurants were busy. The established apartment buildings in the neighborhood are at high capacity, and when you look at what is vacant in them, it's mostly the very high end units that are very hard to lease anyway (like penthouses with views that lease for upwards of 6k a month). The parks were busy even with bad weather, with people out with dogs and exercising.

I get there are crime issues, but unless there is a major exodus of tenants, I can't imagine the Nationals thinking they can do better elsewhere. That neighborhood was nothing 10 years ago. It grew up around the stadium and now it's one of the most lively neighborhoods in the city in terms of the retail/restaurant scene. Only the Wharf beats it on this front and the Wharf is still much smaller (and also has crime issues).

I think in the next 5 years we're going to see a concerted effort by development groups to force the city to address the issues with crime and infrastructure. We just need a receptive and competent mayor (Bowser is receptive but incompetent, she needs to go). The council honestly doesn't matter much -- they are relatively toothless and I actually think many of them will lose their jobs in the next election because they are also, mostly, terrible at politics.

Things aren't as dire as people act like they are. Absolutely some stuff has to change. Getting a new mayor will be huge. 15 years is a long time and I really doubt things will look worse at that point than they do now, especially in Navy Yard. There's too much money invested, and too much potential upside. This city is full of rich people and overall trends are toward people moving into cities, not out.

You have an extremely dated view of the back to the city movement that was driven by the bulge in millennials. The growth in urban areas peaked in the early 2010s.

No, the trend continues to be for the young to move to cities, and priorities for young people include walkability and lively nightlife (including sports). The primary drawback of city living for young people is affordability, but this has driven interest in micro apartments and communal living.

The idea that 24 year olds are eagerly moving to small towns, rural areas, or quiet suburbs is just wrong. That's an old person's skewed perception based on their own shifting priorities-- YOU got older and moved to the suburbs or exurbs, so now you think this is what everyone wants.

People in their 20’s in their first entry level professional jobs aren’t earning sufficient income yet to make them a backbone of the income tax base. They’re renting, so they aren’t paying property taxes, they don’t have cars so they aren’t paying registration fees, getting tickets or paying fuel taxes. They aren’t spending money on their homes or filing remodeling or building permits. They have very little financial contribution to city govt beyond income taxes.

Agree that 20 somethings aren’t moving into suburbs or small town though. But 30-50 somethings moving into those places contribute a LOT more to local govt revenue intake than 20-somethings in urban areas.

30-50 somethings moving into those places are a net loss for local government revenue, if they have kids in public school. Cars are also a net loss for local government revenue.

And remember that renters pay property tax through their rent.

DC needs to attract and retain more upper income taxpayers, preferably multi millionaires. They pay the bills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread proves that none of you doom posters know what you're talking about. The MLB would NEVER allow the Os to move, please shut up.

Nats aren't leaving either. You all really wanna see DC fail, why is that.

People enjoy speaking about stuff they No absolutely nothing about in order to make themselves feel smart

MLB would never let the Orioles move to Nashville.

The media markets are similar sizes, Nashville is an up and coming city, Baltimore is slowly dying. If the Os don't get the development deal they want (the current lease bought the city time, but changed nothing), they will leave for a city that will give them a better deal be it Nashville or elsewhere.

MLB has to approve it, and right now it's more likely the White Sox will head there, which makes more sense anyway since Chicago has two teams. There are media market reasons why it's important to the MLB to keep both the Nats and Os where they are. Nashville is an up and coming market but it's only about 2 million people (city and environs), whereas the DC-Baltimore region is 10 million and continues to grow (and whether that growth is urban or suburban is irrelevant as long as people watch baseball games, which is more important to the MLB than people attending them, sadly).

MLB could also do an expansion team in Nashville if the numbers made sense. The owners don't like to share revenues with another team, but if the deal was structured that it made the pie enough bigger, they'd vote for it. But they aren't going to agree to send profitable teams in established markets to a much smaller market. You'd also get pushback from Braves ownership because they "own" the south and have a very strong brand and will view any additional teams in the region as encroachment. It's a ridiculous argument as an outsider, but team owners have a lot of power. I mean look at the deal Angelos was able to squeeze out of the MLB in order to "allow" the Expos to move to DC.

[Anonymous]

Let's get this thread back on track...where do the Nats go if they leave DC but stay in the DMV (let's just pretend they are for a minute)?

Roosevelt Island? Pimmit Hills? Arlington Cemetery? Come on folks, let's get creative!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's get this thread back on track...where do the Nats go if they leave DC but stay in the DMV (let's just pretend they are for a minute)?

Roosevelt Island? Pimmit Hills? Arlington Cemetery? Come on folks, let's get creative!

Right over next to the Boeing HQ where the parks and ball fields are right now.