Mayor Muriel Bowser’s quest to develop the RFK campus and put a new football stadium there is getting an assist from an unlikely but powerful group of allies—the Washington football team, the White House, and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Bowser’s office is quietly working with the team and Republican leaders to work a provision into a must-pass federal spending bill that would extend the city’s lease over the federally owned 190-acre campus and allow it to use the land for commercial development and a new 60,000-seat stadium for the Washington football team.

The news of the ongoing negotiations over the future of the RFK campus was first reported by The Washington Post on Friday and independently confirmed by WAMU 88.5.

When first asked about the talks early last week, Bowser officials did not deny that conversations were happening with Republican leaders over the fate of RFK, but also did not publicly offer any additional details about them.

“The mayor petitioned the president for the RFK Stadium, Franklin Park, and the golf courses in March 2017,” said John Falcicchio, Bowser’s chief of staff. “Since that time, our team has advocated for all three initiatives with both sides of the aisle.”

Falcicchio was referring to the letter Bowser sent President Trump asking that he turn over control of RFK, Franklin Park, and three golf courses—Rock Creek, Langston and East Potomac—to D.C.

But of those federally owned parcels of land D.C. has long wanted to put to better use, none is larger nor more politically sensitive than RFK, where a stadium was built for the football team in 1961. The stadium lost its last major tenant late last year; D.C. United has since moved to Audi Field. While Events D.C., the city’s sports and entertainment promotion agency, has started work on converting some of the RFK parkings lots into soccer fields, it has also proposed development plans for the entire campus—one of which includes a new stadium for the football team.

While early in her term Bowser called the team’s name “offensive” and was more circumspect about whether it should return to D.C., this summer she left little doubt that she’d like to see the team decamp from FedEx Field in Prince George’s County and play in a new stadium on the RFK campus.

And she seems to have found willing partners not just in the team, but also Republican leaders on the Hill and White House officials who are willing to include the changes in the federal spending bill currently being negotiated.

According to multiple sources who spoke to WAMU on the condition that they not be named, the likely proposal would grant D.C. a 99-year extension over the current RFK lease, which is set to end in 2038. It would also tweak the lease’s language so that the campus could be used for commercial development, not just sports and entertainment as is currently the case.

Speaking last month about the future of the RFK campus, Bowser said she hoped to see the campus used for multiple purposes.

“What’s important to us about RFK is that it’s no longer just a sea of parking, but that it comes into productive use and allows the District to take advantage of that land and proximity to the [Anacostia] River,” she said.

But even the mere possibility of a new football stadium on a part of the campus has prompted criticism from some corners.

Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who represents the neighborhoods closest to RFK, says he’d be happy with a new 99-year lease and language allowing commercial development for the campus. But he says he would also like to see housing built there, and worries that even if commercial development is allowed, a football stadium would drown that out.

“NFL stadiums are not economic drivers,” he said. “There’s no version [of a stadium] that’s not a giant suck on available space. It’s a giveaway to billionaires, and it’s something that doesn’t make any sense.”

An initial design of a possible stadium unveiled by the team in 2016 included 25,000 parking spots for fans.

Residents of Hill East, the neighborhood immediately adjacent to RFK, also say they are frustrated by the secrecy surrounding the negotiations over the fate of the campus, and concerned that lease changes may be snuck into a massive federal spending bill that has to be approved before the end of the tear.

“A phone call, ‘Hey, this is what we’re doing, what do your neighbors think?’ That’s never happened. I’m frustrated they’ve never spoken to the neighbors. We live here, this is our community,” said Denise Krepp, an ANC commissioner in the neighborhood. “To have the mayor negotiate something that’s going to impact our lives is frustrating.”

The level of secrecy and the likelihood that any RFK-related provisions would be worked into a spending bill this year may be explained by the fact that some Democrats are still oppose the team’s name, which Native American groups say is racist. Republicans are more likely to sign off on the changes to the RFK lease, especially with team owner Dan Snyder, himself a Republican donor, onboard.

“This is a blatant attempt to avoid public debate & sidestep Democratic input by sneaking it in to a complex & nearly complete spending bill at the eleventh hour—& is the latest in a long history of dehumanizing & demeaning Native Americans,” tweeted Rep. Betsy McCollum (D-Minnesota) on Sunday, who also called the possible deal an “injustice.”

Krepp similarly criticized Bowser for working with Republicans on RFK, given the fact that they have also inserted provisions into spending bills to prohibit D.C. from legalizing the sale of marijuana or subsidizing abortions for low-income women, and have generally opposed D.C. requests for voting representation in Congress or full statehood.

“The Republicans don’t give us the opportunity to vote, and she’s working with them?” she said.

But other city officials see the negotiations as a reflection of the current reality in Washington: Republicans are currently in power, a spending bill has to be passed, and there’s an opening for what many elected leaders in D.C. have long wished for.

“I want the team back,” said Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent Gray, who during his mayoral term tried to woo the team with a proposed training facility adjacent to the RFK campus. “I really hope the city can be successful in doing that.”

This story was originally published on WAMU.