A view of a proposed market hall on the RFK campus, by architecture firm OMA.
D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton has introduced a bill to add 50 more years to the city’s lease on the RFK Stadium site in Northeast.
“The RFK Stadium site is in dire shape and has gone well past its intended lifespan; it would be an absolute shame to continue to let such valuable and usable land go to waste,” Norton said in a statement.
Events DC—the city’s quasi-private sports and convention authority—is leasing the site from the National Park Service for about another 20 years to be used for a stadium or “recreational facilities, open spaces, or public outdoor recreation opportunities.”
Norton’s timeline has the contract effective through 2088. She said that the increase will give D.C. “the necessary stability and certainty required to get financing to bring the site into the 21st century.”
The stadium, which previously housed Washington’s football team before it moved to Maryland, will be vacated by D.C. United in October. The team is getting a new stadium at Buzzard Point.
Earlier this year, Events DC announced short-term plans for a huge sports and recreation complex in the lots surrounding the stadium, featuring indoor soccer, basketball, go karts, zip-lines, paintball, trampolining, and batting cages. The plans include outdoor playing fields, pedestrian bridges, and a food hall that’s more than double the size of Union Market. The site will also feature a memorial to Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968 (the stadium was renamed in his honor the following year).
In the long-term, Events DC has presented three options for redevelopment of the site: a 65,000 seat NFL stadium, a 20,000-seat arena, or “no anchor.” Under the Trump administration, there’s an opportunity for the Washington football team to come back to the stadium, an option that was previously stymied by the Department of the Interior’s opposition to the name under President Barack Obama. Wizards and Caps owner Ted Leonsis has also left open the possibility of his teams moving from the Verizon Center. Any of those options, though, would be dependent on a renewal of the site’s lease.
In March, Mayor Bowser sent a letter to President Donald Trump asking for a full transfer or a 100 year extension of the site, which is controlled by the Interior Department. She also asked that the clause to use the space for recreational purposes be removed, which would open up the opportunity for housing on the site.
The president has yet to respond.
