The District has quietly entered the race to woo the Washington Redskins headquarters, but the secrecy in which officials have so far operated has quickly raised skepticism. Mayor Vincent Gray and D.C. Council members Jack Evans and Michael Brown visited the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ training facility last week to get a glimpse of what Redskins owner Dan Snyder has said represents his model for a new facility for his team.
A senior Gray administration official confirmed the trip to The Washington Examiner on Thursday and said “we are aggressively pursuing” a proposal to bring the Redskins training facility and headquarters to the District. The Redskins train in Ashburn, Va., and have held camp as far away as Cheney, Wash. (in 1939), but never in the District.
A D.C. training facility would likely be in the form of a sportsplex near RFK Stadium, an area called Reservation 13 that was marked more than a decade ago for redevelopment. But even those who have clamored for the city to remove the homeless shelters and methadone clinics in that spot and bring in the promised mixed-use development are wary.
“If the city’s paying for it, forget it. This could spur positive economic development, but this can’t be paid for by our tax dollars,” said Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Neil Glick. “This can be paid for by the Redskins. They have the money.”
Snyder said earlier this year that he was interested in moving the team’s headquarters from Ashburn, where it has been for 20 years. Prince George’s County is marketing an area near Bowie State University that officials say they want for a mixed-use development and sportsplex. A study on the economic benefits a headquarters relocation would bring to the county is expected by the end of the year.
But D.C.’s entrance into the fray was near-silent compared with its competitor. News of it only leaked out this week and it was not on the mayor’s public schedule. The politicians said they paid for the travel themselves, and city officials have been tight-lipped on specifics.
Elissa Silverman, spokeswoman for the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, said the clandestine way D.C. has thrown its hat into the ring raises questions about how much D.C. is willing to spend in a tight budget climate.
“What’s troubling is right off the bat this seems shrouded in secrecy,” Silverman said. “If this is a priority for our elected officials and will cost a significant amount of taxpayer dollars, then they need to be transparent about it and let the public weigh in.”
The Fiscal Policy Institute was opposed to the public financing for what ended up being a $610 million ballpark for the Washington Nationals. Tampa Bay’s 33-acre training facility, which opened in 2006, reportedly cost $30 million and is the largest in the National Football League.
