If a deal to move the Washington Capitals and Wizards to Virginia is successful, D.C. taxpayers and businesses would feel the loss. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Wednesday that losing the teams could cost the nation's capital as much as $25 million a year in tax revenue.
The possibility of the teams leaving D.C. for a $2 billion planned spot across the Potomac River in Alexandria is an additional blow to a city that has struggled with empty office buildings and rising crime in the pandemic's wake.
"We're very disappointed, but at the same time, we have to look at our assets and we're talking about five acres in the center of the District of Columbia. It's a great asset," Bowser said Wednesday.
Bowser and the D.C. Council proposed a $500 million "best and final" deal to Monumental Sports and Entertainment CEO Ted Leonsis over the weekend in an effort to keep the teams at Capital One Arena. The mayor said Wednesday the offer was "the best for the entire DMV."
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"National Landing Wizards doesn't quite have the same ring," she said.
Bowser expressed hope that the deal with Virginia could fall through, and pointed out that leaders have tried and failed in the past to bring baseball and football to Northern Virginia.
However, Leonsis made it clear during a news conference with Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and other leaders Wednesday he intends to move the two teams and the company's headquarters to the Potomac Yard site.
"I saw 70 acres and the ability to start with a clean slate," Leonsis said.
The tentative deal still needs "legislative approval and completion of definitive documents," according to a statement from Monumental.
D.C. Council Member Charles Allen pointed blame toward Bowser's administration, saying in a statement Wednesday it didn't make Capital One Arena a priority.
"Instead of prioritizing the cultural and economic engines already in our backyard, ones that are central to our continued recovery, we’ve only seen greater focus on the shiny object – and the less fruitful deal – for DC’s economy. Today’s move wasn’t inevitable, but avoiding it required far more focus in the past year than it ever received from the Administration," Allen said.
As for the future of Capital One Arena, Leonsis said he wants to continue operating the aging venue.
"I also need to explain to everybody that we own Capital One Arena. We also own the Washington Mystics. My belief is that at Capital One Arena we can host womens sports. We've invested $200 million in the last 10 years in keeping Capital One world-class as an arena, and our intention is to expand here and keep Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., a great place. We'll host concerts here. We'll host concerts there," Leonsis said.
But Bowser was noncommittal about whether D.C. would put up hundreds of millions of dollars if the Capitals and Wizards aren't part of the deal, or whether she supports moving the Washington Mystics from their arena east of the Anacostia River back to Capital One.
"That is not what the proposal is," she said.
The mayor acknowledged the city could not offer Leonsis a 70-acre campus, but she floated the possibility of providing high-profile land to keep the two teams.
"If they come back to us … at a later time, we may be able to talk about something different. But if they want a campus style, it may take a couple of years, but we would have RFK and we would have the FBI. So there are multi-acre sites in the District that aren't fully available at this point, but they could be," she said.
With or without the Capitals and Wizards, Bowser said she's creating a taskforce to look at ways to revitalize the Gallery Place-Chinatown neighborhood.
