Washington, D.C., has managed to find the funds to pay for the long-awaited RFK Stadium renovation, at least on paper — even as the city suffers from a flurry of financial woes.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser unveiled her proposed city budget on Tuesday, breaking down how the District plans to pay for its share of the roughly $3.6 billion project in tandem with the NFL’s Washington Commanders. The main components involve debt refinancing and cutting plans to renovate the city’s jail, according to city officials, while cuts and delays to schools, libraries and recreation centers were avoided.
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The city freed up some $800 million by refinancing long-held debt, according to Axios, citing city officials. A $400 million plan to redevelop the city’s 50-year-old jail has been scrapped in favor of the stadium project, though the city will still spend $5 million on a new plan to replace the jail, per the city.
D.C. also plans to use funds from its sports facilities tax, which it imposes on businesses with more than $5 million in annual gross receipts.
The District is on the hook for about $1.1 billion to redevelop the 45,000-seat husk that has stood empty since 2017 (D.C.’s football team left the stadium for Maryland’s Northwest Stadium in 1997) and the surrounding area, which will be split into four distinct districts. The Commanders will lead “vertical construction” on the stadium itself, city officials said Tuesday, while funds from the District would go toward “horizontal construction” for the surrounding districts. That includes infrastructure, parking and public transit upgrades, as well as housing, recreation and waterfront community spaces along the banks of the Anacostia River.
Bringing the Commanders back to D.C. has long been a priority for Bowser since she assumed office in 2015. The District ultimately gained control of the stadium back from the federal government in December, after Congress passed a bill granting D.C. administrative power over the site for 99 years. The federal government owns the land beneath RFK Stadium.
Before the project can proceed, the D.C. Council must first approve both the RFK Stadium proposal — a prospect easier said than done — as well as Bowser’s budget.
The budget sans the RFK Stadium project, and the District’s finances in general, are another can of worms. D.C. has faced record-high office vacancy rates in recent years, ongoing cuts to federal workforces and programs from the Trump administration, and a Metro system that has long teetered on the edge of fiscal instability.
The biggest hurdle, however, is the $400 million in cuts that the city must make to comply with the federal government’s annual spending package. The congressional bill that passed in March omits language that would allow D.C. to spend its fiscal 2025 budget, effectively relegating it to last year’s budget. The House of Representatives has yet to vote on a fix to the bill, despite approval from the Senate and pressure from President Donald Trump.
To make up for the funding discrepancy, Bowser said her proposal is both business-friendly (she calls the budget a “growth agenda” to encourage new economic activity and jobs amid federal workforce cuts) and aggressive in its own cost-cutting efforts. The District could remove more than 25,000 people from Medicaid and scratch programs expected to launch in the near term, such as child tax credits.
“With this budget, we’re not waiting for change to happen – we’re making change happen,” Bowser said in a statement. “The Growth Agenda is about creating jobs for D.C. residents and generating the economic activity we need to keep D.C. a world-class city.
Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.
