Whether Herbert Miller’s baseball parking plan is dead is still up for debate.
Sources close to the baseball talks told The Examiner Thursday negotiations between the parties were ongoing.
But Mayor Anthony Williams warned that the city must move fast to reconsider a parking plan that can win.
“Right now, we’re at an impasse,” Williams said. “And I believe very, very strongly at this point we have to quickly move to looking at other alternatives to try to get us to providing the parking that baseball expects and at the same time preserving our options to maximize development on the site.”
On Wednesday, Western Development Corp. and its chairman, Miller, rejected a contract proposed by the D.C. Sports Entertainment Commission that was to set the parameters for construction of two parking garages, masked by condominiums and retail, on the north side of the Anacostia waterfront stadium.
In its rejection letter, Western’s counsel accused the sports commission of exceeding its authority and proposing a contract “replete with terms which, as the Commission well knows, cannot be accepted by WDS and would not be accepted by any rational developer.”
According to the letter, the commission increased Western’s required letter of credit by $2 million, changed the timing for excavation without shifting the project completion date and removed the District’s obligation to reimburse Western if the project collapses, among other amendments.
The city’s agreement with Major League Baseball requires that 1,225 on-site parking spaces are ready when the ballpark opens in April 2008, or D.C. will be in default.
The District, which has only $21 million available for parking, wants underground garages to maximize development and revenue opportunities adjacent to the stadium, while Nationals’ ownership wants above-ground garages.
One option, Williams said, would be “temporarily doing some surface parking” to “give us the option to really do it right.”
But team ownership is unlikely to support such an alternative. The Western project has long teetered on the edge as Miller was never able to shake lingering questions about his financing package.
