It has hosted 2.3 million Major League Baseball fans, Pope Benedict XVI and a sold-out opera simulcast, but Nationals Park still isn’t complete and its cost continues to grow, now approaching $700 million.
The ballpark’s budget hit $687.5 million by the end of September, according to a monthly report produced by the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission, which oversaw the construction of the stadium. Thousands of unfinished work items and a final land acquisition bill $50 million over estimates have pushed the stadium’s price tag 11 percent above the oft-quoted $611 million figure.
“At this rate it’ll take us 100 years to recoup our money on this thing,” said at-large D.C. Councilman David Catania, a longtime stadium critic. “What a colossal waste of money. We’re never going to get out of subsidizing the Washington Nationals.”
The sports commission, meanwhile, is bleeding money. The agency is supposed to cover its expenses with event fees earned at RFK Stadium and the D.C. Armory, but its recent struggles have required a bailout.
The commission received $2 million in fiscal 2008, $2.5 million in fiscal 2009 and, on Oct. 7, Mayor Adrian Fenty asked the D.C. Council for another $500,000. Council members said they are growing increasingly concerned that the commission may not be sustainable, especially in tough economic times.
“I’ve always had questions on what we’re doing over there,” said at-large D.C. Councilman Kwame Brown, who has oversight of the commission. “It seems to me we should give them the opportunity to make things happen. They are starting to, and the question is whether or not it will be enough to sustain them.”
Maurice Henderson, the commission’s chief operating officer, said the agency is “looking at all our financial responsibilities.”
“It would be nice if that solves the problems,” Henderson said of the most recent $500,000. “I couldn’t say that for sure.”
As for Nationals Park, the District over the weekend pledged another $4 million for stadium upgrades, pushing the budget over $690 million, while team owners agreed to release $3.5 million in rent they had withheld over claims the stadium wasn’t substantially complete.
Thousands of work items are still to be done, such as repairs to pedestrian ramps and replacement of defective carpeting. Last-minute change orders and “security and utility costs the team alleges they are owed” could push the budget even higher, the commission warned.
