Wizards and Caps could be moving to Potomac Yard

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those blaming Charles Allen, I refer you to this August 1, 2023 op-ed where he specifically calls for support of the Downtown arena

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/01/dc-stadium-deal-capital-one-arena-rfk-stadium/

The Council then agreed to a low ball offer that signaled weakness to Governor Younkin who swooped right in and got it done. We had a Council made up of 13 “community activists” with exactly zero private sector experience against a single, seasoned deal maker. DC not only didn’t stand a chance, they didn’t even know the game was on. Elections have consequences. We’ll probably still get more bike lanes though which we can use to go to Mystics games.

But it will be oh, so equitable and inclusive.

Biking to a WNBA game is peak Bowser era DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In retrospect, that $1M the mayor just spent repainting the BLM street could have been better used elsewhere…

In the end, the BLM street sign will be her greatest accomplishment.

Crime up. Murders at a two decade high. More than a 1000 carjackings. Rampant truancy in DC public schools.

Absolute garbage mayor. Now losing the major sports teams and all that revenue. Downtown will become a wasteland.

But yeah, spend a million to repaint the BLM sign. Priorities.

DC is genuinely hopeless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Caps will be fine. It's a good franchise. What they lose in MoCo and NW DC fans attending games, they'll make up with NoVa fans. I'm in MoCo near the DC line. We go to Caps game all the time. I cannot imagine trekking all the way to Potomac Yards for a weeknight game during rush hour. Not happening. But the Virginia fans will be there.

The Wizards are going to suffer. It's been a losing franchise forever with little hope of changing anytime soon. Most of their fan base - such as it is - is DC based. They are not going to Potomac Yards. You need a winning team for people to go through the inconveinience of going to Potomac Yards. It'll be a pretty empty arena for the foreseeable future when it comes to the Wizards.

The real loser, of course, is DC. This is hundreds of millions in lost revenue. All those restaurants in Gallery Place are going to die. It will be impossible to sell a condo in that neighborhood. It was the arena that turned everything around downtown 30 years ago. It will revert back to the crack era so fast it'll make your head spin. The future for downtown DC is bleak.

I blame Bowser and the City Council, of course. Absolute idiots. But the real villain is the USAO. When you decline to prosecute nearly 70 percent of all arrests, there are consequences. Leonsis said it himself. Most of his employees have been attacked and harassed just going to work. No wants that kind of stress in their day to day life. These are all repeat offenders well known to the police. The average murder suspect in DC has 11 felonies - pretty impressive for a teen or someone in their twenties. And USAO does nothing about these violent people.

So people and businesses are leaving DC. Until DC gets serious about putting criminals in prison, the city will continue to decline.

Plenty of people from Loudoun and western Fairfax travel to DC for Nationals BASEBALL(!) games. Plenty via Metro too (shock). Are MD people from Bethesda and CC too provincial to cross the Potomac? I’m sure a few are but C’mon. If you’re a fan, the move to a neighboring DC community won’t be a big deal.

BTW the commute from western Fairfax to Baltimore via car at rush hour is not that much longer than getting to DC for baseball games.

Why do you think people in Bethesda and CC pay so much for rather basic houses? It's because they value time over space.

Alexandria and National Harbor are the furthest places from there in the region. It's a full loop around the beltway to get there and back. I'd rather drive to Baltimore.

Whoosh. The point is that the faux city-dwellers in Bethesda and Chevy Chase are not the only fans of DC area teams. And … you don’t have to drive around the beltway. There are more direct paths.

[Anonymous]

I immediately said, sh&t I guess I won't be using DCA in the winter. Traffic is going to be a nightmare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They will need to time the lights through Old Town better to allow people to go from the WW bridge up to Potomac Yards with minimal stops.

It doesn't matter how well the lights are timed when the streets are already clogged with rush hour traffic.

At 6pm?

6pm is peak rush hour. Rush hour basically goes from about 3:30 to 6:30. So when you add stadium/arena traffic that starts around 6, the bublle to 6:30 will make getting to the arena by 7 very difficult. I guess they could change game times to 7:30, but they were moved to 7 when the teams moved downtown, from 7:30 and that works a lot better for the TV schedules. But if the games start at 7:30, that means they are over after 10, which is when metro will be closing because Youngkin refuses to commit Virginia funds to the regional transit system. So that means everyone going to the games will need to drive or leave the games early. Winning formula there.

+1
I regularly drive s on the parkway to old town, and even around 6:20/6:25 from just south of reagan to old town is a mess. There is no way it can handle more traffice

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Caps will be fine. It's a good franchise. What they lose in MoCo and NW DC fans attending games, they'll make up with NoVa fans. I'm in MoCo near the DC line. We go to Caps game all the time. I cannot imagine trekking all the way to Potomac Yards for a weeknight game during rush hour. Not happening. But the Virginia fans will be there.

The Wizards are going to suffer. It's been a losing franchise forever with little hope of changing anytime soon. Most of their fan base - such as it is - is DC based. They are not going to Potomac Yards. You need a winning team for people to go through the inconveinience of going to Potomac Yards. It'll be a pretty empty arena for the foreseeable future when it comes to the Wizards.

The real loser, of course, is DC. This is hundreds of millions in lost revenue. All those restaurants in Gallery Place are going to die. It will be impossible to sell a condo in that neighborhood. It was the arena that turned everything around downtown 30 years ago. It will revert back to the crack era so fast it'll make your head spin. The future for downtown DC is bleak.

I blame Bowser and the City Council, of course. Absolute idiots. But the real villain is the USAO. When you decline to prosecute nearly 70 percent of all arrests, there are consequences. Leonsis said it himself. Most of his employees have been attacked and harassed just going to work. No wants that kind of stress in their day to day life. These are all repeat offenders well known to the police. The average murder suspect in DC has 11 felonies - pretty impressive for a teen or someone in their twenties. And USAO does nothing about these violent people.

So people and businesses are leaving DC. Until DC gets serious about putting criminals in prison, the city will continue to decline.

Plenty of people from Loudoun and western Fairfax travel to DC for Nationals BASEBALL(!) games. Plenty via Metro too (shock). Are MD people from Bethesda and CC too provincial to cross the Potomac? I’m sure a few are but C’mon. If you’re a fan, the move to a neighboring DC community won’t be a big deal.

BTW the commute from western Fairfax to Baltimore via car at rush hour is not that much longer than getting to DC for baseball games.

Why do you think people in Bethesda and CC pay so much for rather basic houses? It's because they value time over space.

Alexandria and National Harbor are the furthest places from there in the region. It's a full loop around the beltway to get there and back. I'd rather drive to Baltimore.

Whoosh. The point is that the faux city-dwellers in Bethesda and Chevy Chase are not the only fans of DC area teams. And … you don’t have to drive around the beltway. There are more direct paths.

The point is, Gallery Place is convenient to semi-convenient to everyone in the region. Potomac Yards is sort of convenient to people who live in parts of Alexandria and Arlington, but beyond that it is bordering on untenable for anyone else to easily gain access to the venue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In retrospect, that $1M the mayor just spent repainting the BLM street could have been better used elsewhere…

In the end, the BLM street sign will be her greatest accomplishment.

Crime up. Murders at a two decade high. More than a 1000 carjackings. Rampant truancy in DC public schools.

Absolute garbage mayor. Now losing the major sports teams and all that revenue. Downtown will become a wasteland.

But yeah, spend a million to repaint the BLM sign. Priorities.

DC is genuinely hopeless.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If people want to go to a game they will go, it doesn’t matter if it’s in va. Hockey fans are raving and it seems like most come from southern Maryland already.

I can't ever see a scenario where I go to a game there. If you gave me free courtside tickets on a weekend, maybe; otherwise, nothing is worth the headache of getting to and from Potomac Yards from Bethesda/Potomac/CC

Agree 100%. How to piss off a large and long-standing portion of your dedicated fan base! If Ted is leaving DC, then DC Council should start taxing the teams. No reason not to.

Four of the ten richest counties in the country (including #1 and #2) are in NOVA. I think Ted will be just fine.

Rich counties doesn't mean it is easy to make game time at an inaccessible location.

At least my car will be there when the game is over.

With all the tires and intact windows, can't beat that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's annoying to me that our DC rulers take businesses and residents for granted. They just have assumed for a decade now that they don't need to offe anything. FBI leaves... Flippant. Sports leave.... Flippant. Residents leave "we need more condos". Nightmare rulers.

I'm looking forward to swooping in to buy one of those condos as an investment when they start to go bust

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
It's annoying to me that our DC rulers take businesses and residents for granted. They just have assumed for a decade now that they don't need to offe anything. FBI leaves... Flippant. Sports leave.... Flippant. Residents leave "we need more condos". Nightmare rulers.

This. Bowser and the DC Council completely took Monumental Sports for granted. Potomac Yards is a vastly inferior site in terms of public transit but Virginia aggressively pursued Monumental. What is infuriating is that the Mayor was so focused on bringing football (8 to 10 games to year) back to RFK that she (and the Council) ignored retaining the Wizards and the Caps ---which is over 40 home games (with all the attendant economic benefits) in the heart of downtown. And what is worse is that a significant number of the current council neither understands nor cares that they just killed one of the golden geese that lays those eggs they like to soak to pay for their current progressive pipe dream du jour.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It's annoying to me that our DC rulers take businesses and residents for granted. They just have assumed for a decade now that they don't need to offe anything. FBI leaves... Flippant. Sports leave.... Flippant. Residents leave "we need more condos". Nightmare rulers.

This. Bowser and the DC Council completely took Monumental Sports for granted. Potomac Yards is a vastly inferior site in terms of public transit but Virginia aggressively pursued Monumental. What is infuriating is that the Mayor was so focused on bringing football (8 to 10 games to year) back to RFK that she (and the Council) ignored retaining the Wizards and the Caps ---which is over 40 home games (with all the attendant economic benefits) in the heart of downtown. And what is worse is that a significant number of the current council neither understands nor cares that they just killed one of the golden geese that lays those eggs they like to soak to pay for their current progressive pipe dream du jour.

They don't care about location or fan convenience. This is about 70 acres and 2 billion dollars as a windfall to Ted Leonsis. The city doesn't have that kind of space to give to the team, ergo there was never going to be a fair or equal negotiation.

The deal Abe Pollin cut with the city, that Leonsis inherited, is good for the city and bad for the owner. That was Abe being a benefactor to the city he loved. Ted is about the money and doesn't care about the city of community. If he loses part of his fan base, he doesn't care. As others have noted up thread, there are plenty of tech/Amazon/Defense contractors who will be happy to fill the void.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Caps will be fine. It's a good franchise. What they lose in MoCo and NW DC fans attending games, they'll make up with NoVa fans. I'm in MoCo near the DC line. We go to Caps game all the time. I cannot imagine trekking all the way to Potomac Yards for a weeknight game during rush hour. Not happening. But the Virginia fans will be there.

The Wizards are going to suffer. It's been a losing franchise forever with little hope of changing anytime soon. Most of their fan base - such as it is - is DC based. They are not going to Potomac Yards. You need a winning team for people to go through the inconveinience of going to Potomac Yards. It'll be a pretty empty arena for the foreseeable future when it comes to the Wizards.

The real loser, of course, is DC. This is hundreds of millions in lost revenue. All those restaurants in Gallery Place are going to die. It will be impossible to sell a condo in that neighborhood. It was the arena that turned everything around downtown 30 years ago. It will revert back to the crack era so fast it'll make your head spin. The future for downtown DC is bleak.

I blame Bowser and the City Council, of course. Absolute idiots. But the real villain is the USAO. When you decline to prosecute nearly 70 percent of all arrests, there are consequences. Leonsis said it himself. Most of his employees have been attacked and harassed just going to work. No wants that kind of stress in their day to day life. These are all repeat offenders well known to the police. The average murder suspect in DC has 11 felonies - pretty impressive for a teen or someone in their twenties. And USAO does nothing about these violent people.

So people and businesses are leaving DC. Until DC gets serious about putting criminals in prison, the city will continue to decline.

Plenty of people from Loudoun and western Fairfax travel to DC for Nationals BASEBALL(!) games. Plenty via Metro too (shock). Are MD people from Bethesda and CC too provincial to cross the Potomac? I’m sure a few are but C’mon. If you’re a fan, the move to a neighboring DC community won’t be a big deal.

BTW the commute from western Fairfax to Baltimore via car at rush hour is not that much longer than getting to DC for baseball games.

Why do you think people in Bethesda and CC pay so much for rather basic houses? It's because they value time over space.

Alexandria and National Harbor are the furthest places from there in the region. It's a full loop around the beltway to get there and back. I'd rather drive to Baltimore.

If you are BCC or SS resident, the Baltimore stadiums, FedEx or RFK, Nats Park, and Audi Field are all closer than PY. My purchases of tickets will reflect that reality.

If you haven't noticed by now, this region doesn't revolve around MoCo. Virginia is the economic engine powering the DMV. If that wasn't evident by the Tysons development, new Metro lines and Amazon, hopefully you realize it now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Caps will be fine. It's a good franchise. What they lose in MoCo and NW DC fans attending games, they'll make up with NoVa fans. I'm in MoCo near the DC line. We go to Caps game all the time. I cannot imagine trekking all the way to Potomac Yards for a weeknight game during rush hour. Not happening. But the Virginia fans will be there.

The Wizards are going to suffer. It's been a losing franchise forever with little hope of changing anytime soon. Most of their fan base - such as it is - is DC based. They are not going to Potomac Yards. You need a winning team for people to go through the inconveinience of going to Potomac Yards. It'll be a pretty empty arena for the foreseeable future when it comes to the Wizards.

The real loser, of course, is DC. This is hundreds of millions in lost revenue. All those restaurants in Gallery Place are going to die. It will be impossible to sell a condo in that neighborhood. It was the arena that turned everything around downtown 30 years ago. It will revert back to the crack era so fast it'll make your head spin. The future for downtown DC is bleak.

I blame Bowser and the City Council, of course. Absolute idiots. But the real villain is the USAO. When you decline to prosecute nearly 70 percent of all arrests, there are consequences. Leonsis said it himself. Most of his employees have been attacked and harassed just going to work. No wants that kind of stress in their day to day life. These are all repeat offenders well known to the police. The average murder suspect in DC has 11 felonies - pretty impressive for a teen or someone in their twenties. And USAO does nothing about these violent people.

So people and businesses are leaving DC. Until DC gets serious about putting criminals in prison, the city will continue to decline.

Plenty of people from Loudoun and western Fairfax travel to DC for Nationals BASEBALL(!) games. Plenty via Metro too (shock). Are MD people from Bethesda and CC too provincial to cross the Potomac? I’m sure a few are but C’mon. If you’re a fan, the move to a neighboring DC community won’t be a big deal.

BTW the commute from western Fairfax to Baltimore via car at rush hour is not that much longer than getting to DC for baseball games.

You aren't getting it. The reason people from all corners go to the games in DC is because DC is in the middle of the region with the transit hubs in the city. When you move attractions to one corner or another, it becomes at best inconvenient and at worse burdensome to untenable, to attend. So sure, you have people from western fairfax to Baltimore going to events in DC because it is DC. For people from Baltimore, it is an easy train ride to Union Station and then walk to the Arena or capital bike share to the arena or stadium. Really for people from upper NW DC and Montgomery County, adding an hour commute to attend games on a weeknight during rush hour (not an hour commute, ADDING an hour) is simply not an option for most people.

You aren’t getting it. Leonsis correctly understands that the economic engine of the region has shifted completely to Fairfax and Loudoun Counties. He only needs this one corner that is paved with the gold from defense contractors and massive IT companies and their millionaire employees. He doesn’t need the other three corners and the blight that some of those corners bring. The arena is going to filled with Amazon engineers barely able to squeeze into the seats because their wallets are so fat. PLUS he still gets to own an arena downtown which DC has no alternative but to upgrade massively. It was a genius move.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Caps will be fine. It's a good franchise. What they lose in MoCo and NW DC fans attending games, they'll make up with NoVa fans. I'm in MoCo near the DC line. We go to Caps game all the time. I cannot imagine trekking all the way to Potomac Yards for a weeknight game during rush hour. Not happening. But the Virginia fans will be there.

The Wizards are going to suffer. It's been a losing franchise forever with little hope of changing anytime soon. Most of their fan base - such as it is - is DC based. They are not going to Potomac Yards. You need a winning team for people to go through the inconveinience of going to Potomac Yards. It'll be a pretty empty arena for the foreseeable future when it comes to the Wizards.

The real loser, of course, is DC. This is hundreds of millions in lost revenue. All those restaurants in Gallery Place are going to die. It will be impossible to sell a condo in that neighborhood. It was the arena that turned everything around downtown 30 years ago. It will revert back to the crack era so fast it'll make your head spin. The future for downtown DC is bleak.

I blame Bowser and the City Council, of course. Absolute idiots. But the real villain is the USAO. When you decline to prosecute nearly 70 percent of all arrests, there are consequences. Leonsis said it himself. Most of his employees have been attacked and harassed just going to work. No wants that kind of stress in their day to day life. These are all repeat offenders well known to the police. The average murder suspect in DC has 11 felonies - pretty impressive for a teen or someone in their twenties. And USAO does nothing about these violent people.

So people and businesses are leaving DC. Until DC gets serious about putting criminals in prison, the city will continue to decline.

Plenty of people from Loudoun and western Fairfax travel to DC for Nationals BASEBALL(!) games. Plenty via Metro too (shock). Are MD people from Bethesda and CC too provincial to cross the Potomac? I’m sure a few are but C’mon. If you’re a fan, the move to a neighboring DC community won’t be a big deal.

BTW the commute from western Fairfax to Baltimore via car at rush hour is not that much longer than getting to DC for baseball games.

Why do you think people in Bethesda and CC pay so much for rather basic houses? It's because they value time over space.

Alexandria and National Harbor are the furthest places from there in the region. It's a full loop around the beltway to get there and back. I'd rather drive to Baltimore.

If you are BCC or SS resident, the Baltimore stadiums, FedEx or RFK, Nats Park, and Audi Field are all closer than PY. My purchases of tickets will reflect that reality.

Camden yards is actually a fairly easy drive, particularly in the western moco vibes. The ICC is fantastic.

And one could argue that Camden Yards is nicer. Of course, the Inner Harbor area is struggling and is nothing like it was in the ‘90s or 2000s.

[Anonymous]

It’ll be a good new development for 20 years and then whoever owns the teams then will blackmail public officials into financing yet another stadium.

The trend is moving away from stadiums and real estate developments in big cities. With hybrid work here to stay, the only way to revitalize cities like DC will be a massive, long term remaking of commercial areas into new, mire desirable residential ones, with smaller businesses (restaurants, grocery stores, cafes, etc) following residents into these areas. And for it to work there will need to be crackdowns on crime. There isn’t a lot of money to fund or incentivize this kind of redevelopment right now so this is going to be a long term challenge.

If DC and other big cities die, the close-in suburbs will follow. In past eras when cities were down they at least still had the business and commercial real estate tax base. Without that there won’t be enough to see the city through to the next redevelopment and revitalization phase. The long term effect of work from home policies is not good for cities as commercial districts.