D.C., Commanders Reach $3.8B Deal For RFK Stadium District

After nearly 30 years, District officials have reached a deal to bring the Washington Commanders back to the city.

Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the deal Monday morning at an event with Commanders owner Josh Harris, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and other D.C. and team officials. 

“This is a big deal,” Bowser said. “I've been working on this for the past 10 years that I've been mayor, and now we have the right partner at the right time.” 

The team plans to invest $2.7B to build a 65,000-seat stadium and will lead efforts for additional development on the 174-acre RFK Stadium site — 2 miles directly east of the Capitol. Team officials called it the “single biggest private investment in D.C. history.”

The District plans to spend nearly $1.1B over the next several years to prepare the site and the surrounding infrastructure, officials told reporters Monday morning. The plan still must be approved by the D.C. Council. 

The mixed-use development around the site is planned to include between 5,000 and 6,000 housing units, of which 30% would be designated as affordable. Plans also call for hotels, retail, restaurants, a new recreation center, and a large amount of public green space.

The Commanders will act as the master developer for those components, and the team plans to partner with other developers on the projects, which officials said will include billions in additional investment. The team earlier this year hired local development veteran Andrew VanHorn, previously of JBG Smith and Dweck Properties, as its head of real estate to lead the project.

The development of the mixed-use districts will go through the city’s traditional planning process, including the upcoming revision to D.C.’s comprehensive plan and requests for proposals for development partners. 

The District’s funding of the project is planned to include $500M generated by the Sports Facilities Fee —which uses revenues from Nationals Park — $202M from the city’s capital budget for surrounding roads and utilities, $181M from Events DC for parking, plus another $175M in fiscal year 2032 that will be generated by activity from the stadium. 

The city is dividing up the site into a series of districts, officials said Monday morning. The Plaza District to the west of the stadium is planned to include hotels, retail, restaurants and housing. The Kingman Park district to the north would include housing and recreational uses. The Riverfront District to the east would include housing, retail and restaurants. The Recreation District would include an indoor sports complex next to the existing Fields at RFK. The Anacostia Commons is marked as a 30-acre stretch of open space along the river. 

D.C. officials laid out a timeline for the project’s development: They aim to obtain council approval and begin the planning process this year, begin construction on the stadium site next year, break ground on the Plaza District in early 2029, cut the ribbon on the indoor sports complex in the summer of 2030, and then open the stadium for the fall 2030 football season. 

Team and city officials said they aim to activate the stadium more than 200 times per year, including concerts and private events. 

At Monday’s event, officials emphasised the benefit to the community, providing housing and other economic drivers to a large portion of the District that’s been underused for three decades — and the economic development potential for the entire city that would come with it.

“This project is about so much more than building a stadium,” Harris said. “It's about a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a catalyst for long term, transformational economic growth here in D.C. That means thousands of new jobs, billions of new tax revenue, thousands of new homes, partnerships with local businesses and the creation of about 90 acres of mixed-use development for our community.” 

Bowser said the economic catalyst comes at a moment when the city urgently needs to adjust its economic strategy. 

The Trump administration is in the process of slashing federal jobs and spending — causing ripple effects to the economic health of a city that has long depended on it as a bedrock of growth and stability. The District is expected to lose about 40,000 federal jobs by 2029, according to D.C.’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer.

“Right now as our economy is shifting, it’s something our city really needs, because we need growth and we need jobs,” Bowser said.

D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson has said he opposes using public funds for a stadium project, signaling the deal could face pushback from the city’s legislature. 

Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen released a statement Monday afternoon opposing the District’s investment in the deal, arguing that the city wouldn’t get enough of a return on taxpayer dollars.

“The proposal announced today is a bad deal for DC,” he wrote. “If passed as is, taxpayers will be on the hook for over $1 billion for a stadium, surrounded by parking garages, that would sit unused 335 days a year.”

Bowser compared the public investment in the RFK site to D.C.’s other major redevelopment projects over the last decade — like St. Elizabeths East, Walter Reed and McMillan — where the city has put in funds for infrastructure and brought in private developers to construct the buildings. 

A group of local activists called Homes Not Stadiums earlier this month launched an effort to block the project by putting a question on the ballot that would prohibit the construction of a professional stadium on the site. 

Bowser said her team has heard from residents in the neighborhood who are supportive of reactivating a site that has sat dormant for years.

“What we’ve heard from the community is they're tired of the blight, and they want the 180-acre parcel to be brought back to life,” Bowser said.

Part of the Commanders funding will come from an NFL stadium fund that includes contributions from all franchises, team officials said. 

“The NFL has a long history of investing in stadiums and projects, along with the home team, but all 31 teams will contribute along with Josh and his partners,” Goddell said. “This is an important project that the league recognizes and will be there to support.”

The team is still working on the design of the stadium, and officials said it is considering having a roof that would allow it to hold events year-round and better position it to host the Super Bowl. A conceptual rendering in the city’s presentation shows a glass-clad roof over the stadium. 

The deal marks a major win for D.C., which has sought for years to return the team to the city. 

D.C.’s NFL franchise played at RFK Stadium from when it opened in 1961 to 1996. It then left the nation’s capital for Landover, Maryland, where it has played since 1997. The team has a contract with Northwest Stadium, formerly FedEx Field, until 2027, but that would likely be extended to align with the timeline for the new stadium. 

D.C. gained control of the site in late December when Congress passed a bill handing over administrative power of the federal site for the next 99 years. The legislation allows for the development of a sports stadium as well as other commercial, residential and recreational facilities, though it prohibits federal dollars from being used for the stadium. It also requires that green space be preserved along the Anacostia River.

The deal with the Commanders is the city’s second major sports win in just over a year. Last March, Bowser came to an agreement with Monumental Sports, the owner of D.C.’s professional hockey and basketball teams, to stay at Capital One Arena through at least 2050 after Monumental attempted to move them to Northern Virginia. That agreement included an $800M renovation of the arena and surrounding streetscape, which is underway.

UPDATE, APRIL 28, 5:00 P.M. ET: This story has been updated with a comment from D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen.

UPDATE, APRIL 28, 2:20 P.M. ET: This story has been updated with additional details on the deal and comments from the announcement event.