JBG SMITH, the developer involved in the now-defunct plan to move the Washington Capitals and Wizards to Potomac Yard, has released a scathing statement in response to the news that the deal is over. The company places blame for the project’s demise on partisan politics and special interests in Virginia’s legislature.
JBG SMITH controls the land where the arena would have been built, and the company would have been a development partner if the plan had progressed. Part of the deal included a commitment from JBG SMITH to preserve affordable housing units in the area — at the time the deal ended, the company had pledged to preserve 1,000 units.
“While we had made great strides in advancing the project’s transportation plan, overall design, and financing structure, the opportunity was derailed largely due to partisan politics and, most troubling, the influence of special interests and potential pay-to-play influences within the Virginia legislature,” JBG SMITH CEO Matt Kelly said in a statement addressed to its stakeholders.
The statement claims that the efforts to move the plan forward in the Virginia Senate “may have been complicated and ultimately blocked, in part, by special interests seeking to move the Monumental arena to Tysons Corner and to combine it with a casino.”
There was a last-minute pitch to combine the arena deal with a casino in Tysons, backed by Senate Majority Leader Scott A. Surovell, D-Fairfax, Comstock CEO Christopher Clemente, and political and business consultant Ben Tribbett. Both Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Monumental Sports & Entertainment CEO Ted Leonsis promptly rejected the idea, according to The Washington Post.
The company isn’t the only one to blame partisan politics; both Youngkin and Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson released statements that pointed to conflicts in the Virginia Senate as the reason the deal could not proceed.
JBG SMITH also said in its statement that “state and local governments will lose needed tax revenue, economic development credibility, and what could have been Virginia’s last best chance to land a professional sports franchise for at least a generation.”
The plot where the arena would have gone is a surface-parked, single-lot shopping center, where a Target has signed a 20-year lease.
JBG SMITH ended by saying that it will continue to look for ways to develop its sites near Virginia Tech’s Innovation Campus.
Deal with DC
Now that the Alexandria plan is off the table, Monumental is moving forward with a new plan to keep the teams in DC. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, Leonsis, and the chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia made an announcement Wednesday evening that they had reached a new deal.
“We are going to have a state-of-the-art urban arena in Downtown DC and that’s a great deal for DC, for the teams, and for the fans,” Bowser said. “We made a great offer — and kept that offer on the table — because we have known all along that this is a win-win for our city and the teams. This is a catalytic investment in Downtown DC.”
With this deal, DC will pay $515 million to upgrade the existing arena, including through expanded retail and concessions and improvements to pedestrian and vehicular flow. The total cost of the project is approximately $800 million.
As part of the deal, Monumental will commit to keep the teams in the Chinatown location at least through 2025.
“I look at outcomes, not process, and we got to the right outcome,” Leonsis said. “I know this was a difficult process and I want people to understand how much I love Washington, DC, and how much I’ve always loved Washington, DC. … We are going to have time to talk about our experience in Virginia, but that is not today.”
Feature rendering courtesy JBG SMITH
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