United co-owner Jason Levien, center, and Mayor Vince Gray sign the term sheet for the stadium deal. (Photo by Pablo Maurer)

United co-owner Jason Levien, center, and Mayor Vince Gray sign the term sheet for the stadium deal. (Photo by Pablo Maurer)

A couple weeks ago D.C. United and city officials unveiled plans to build a flashy new soccer stadium at Buzzard Point in Southwest D.C. The stadium—which could open as early as 2016—would cost around $300 million, with the team fronting $150 million for the actual cost of constructing the stadium, and the city covering the rest of the costs for obtaining the land to build on.

As announced at the July 25 press conference, most of the nine acre land the stadium would be constructed on is owned by Pepco, with a couple acres owned by the development firm Akridge. Pepco investor Mark Ein and regional president Thomas Graham, along with Akridge’s Matthew Klein, stood behind Gray at the conference, signaling their agreement to work with the city and the D.C. United to make plans for this new stadium a reality.

However, it turns out city officials overlooked a key part of the area: Super Salvage, an employee-owned salvage yard that sits smack dab in the middle of where the stadium would stand.

As WAMU reports, when city officials reached out to Pepco and Akridge about obtaining the land—which, as Madden writes, would “require a series of complicated land swaps” and deals in order to rightfully obtain—they somehow forgot to contact Super Salvage. “Nobody from the press, nobody from the team, and nobody from the D.C. government has been in touch with us,” Super Salvage’s Bob Bullock told WAMU. “What we know is what we read in the newspapers.”

What’s more is that Bullock tells WAMU they aren’t looking to relocate. As the District’s last remaining salvage yard, there aren’t too many locations suitable for Super Salvage to move to, and even if they found a suitable location, it could be quite a costly affair to move.

Although Bullock says Super Salvage is open to striking an arrangement with the city, it doesn’t really matter. D.C. City Administrator Allen Lew recently told the City Paper “the city will exercise eminent domain to acquire any pieces we can’t acquire,” although he’d rather not do that.

Filed Under: allen lew, Buzzard Park, d.c. united, Super Salvage, vincent gray,