If the thing weren’t solidly anchored to the ground, we might expect to find the District’s new baseball stadium hiding somewhere in a corner. After all, the last few months have seen enough bad news for Nationals Park to make even the most confident of publicly financed ballparks a little glum.

Beyond the low attendance, poor team performance, ever-rising price tag and on-and-off battle over rent (which the District won! Or did they?), the Washington Times reports today that the entertainment district set to pop up around the stadium may be a little longer in coming. According to the article, the national economic slump has hit the developers that are looking to spruce up the neighborhood. Fox 5 similarly reported on the development slow-down in late September, noting that when Lehman Brothers went, so too did much of the financing for new projects around the stadium.

None of this is positive news for the District. While the Nats’ first season yielded enough revenue to finance the cost of the stadium, a prolonged team slump and bum economy might cut into the money the city needs to keep up its payments to creditors. If that happens, look for the “I told you so” crowd of stadium opponents to become a whole lot louder.

Developers aren’t abandoning hope, though, expecting that a new administration and Congress will bring an influx of new residents looking for places to live. The stadium better hope so. It’s still awful lonely down by South Capitol Street.