Photo by Joseph Glorioso
Planning for a Wizards practice facility that could possibly be built in Shaw is in the “beginning stages,” according to the team’s owner.
“Recently there has been a flurry of reports, articles, tweets and commentary about our plans to build a Wizards training facility,” owner Ted Leonsis said on his blog. “Like many reports with unnamed sources and inappropriately leaked information, some of the data is good, some is only partially correct and others parts are simply false.”
First the accurate information: Yes, the team wants to build a practice facility and is looking in D.C. and Virginia, Leonsis said. As with a Capitals training facility built in Arlington, Leonsis said team officials will do “due diligence” to select a site.
Leonsis said the team wants to build “a practice facility and front office space where players and staff will spend a vast majority of their time, but a location and community has yet to be identified.” Here comes the bad info: “We do want to build a best-in-class facility, but some of those erroneous media reports suggested a 5,000-seat arena. We weren’t even thinking along those lines, and if they had conducted a little research, it would have been evident that such a facility would not have been feasible in at least one of the locations mentioned.”
We have advised government officials in D.C. and Virginia of our interest, had discussions with developers who own land and want to see if we could partner with them and we have visited potential sites to get a sense of location and suitability. But we are not yet to the point of finalizing locations, budgets, designs or possible business deals.
We have seen sketches of what a building might look like, but they are not advanced plans and just very rough renderings. We are at the beginning stages, and we have a lot of work to do before any decision could be made. After a decision is made, it might take 18 to 24 months to build the facility.
The Washington Wizards are currently considered a pretty good team, with the second-best record in the Eastern Conference.
