“Slowly but surely,” D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams must be telling himself, “slowly but surely.”

That’s the pace the new stadium has proceeded at since it was first voted on last December by the City Council on a 7-6 vote, having since seen furious debate over rent payments, bond financing, land and infrastructure costs, and design. But this afternoon the city is one step closer to the stadium.

WJLA is now reporting that city officials and MLB have agreed on a lease to the stadium, one of the last sticking points both needed to overcome before the end of the year. The lease is reported to be 68-pages long, and includes rent payments from MLB that start at $3.5 million a year and grow to $6 million. The council’s committees on finance and economic development will hold a joint hearing next Tuesday at 10 a.m., at which point stadium opponents on the council will be able to air any grievances they have with the agreement.

One of the final — and the most contentious — steps remains, though. The council is planning on voting on the lease agreement on December 20, a vote whose outcome could be colored by the content of the agreement and a cost estimate study set to be released within the next week on relocating the new stadium to the site currently housing RFK. The cost estimate on the South Capitol Street location in Southeast has ballooned from $535 million to over $700 million, according to District CFO Natwar Gandhi, making certain members of the council uncomfortable with it.

This stuff really gets more interesting by the day, doesn’t it?

>>DCist on the stadium