The costs of acquiring land needed to build the Washington Nationals ballpark have exceeded original estimates by $50 million, busting the publicly financed stadium’s $631 million budget with more increases yet to come, documents show.
Thanks almost entirely to land acquisition, the tab for the stadium is now pegged at $674 million, an increase of $43.2 million over the original budget, according to a Jan. 16 report provided to the D.C. Council by the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission.
The 25 landowners whose 63 parcels were located on the stadium site have pocketed $127 million so far, many after losing their properties to eminent domain and then fighting the District before an arbiter. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi’s initial estimate from early 2005 was $77 million, which he later increased to $97.9 million — the figure built into the project’s budget.
Gandhi’s projections were ridiculed by stadium critics, led by D.C. Councilman David Catania, who argued the District was using outdated assessment data to develop its numbers. He once estimated the CFO’s estimates were short by at least $30 million.
“I voted no on this 10 times, and one of the great concerns was the cost of land, and now those concerns have proven true,” said Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham. “They were lowballed.”
Gandhi told the council in March 2005 that his projections for all land-related costs were “conservative.” His figures were based on a study performed by consultant Deloitte, which came up short on every one of its estimates.
Four of the two dozen eminent domain cases have yet to be settled, a D.C. spokesman said. The District’s legal bill for the arbitration process, originally zero, is now $4.75 million. And environmental remediation has cost $16 million, twice the amount predicted.
Land acquisition was not included in the stadium’s $611 million price cap, meaning the sports commission can bridge the budget gap with excess revenues from the ballpark fund — composed mainly of stadium sales taxes and a 1 percent tax on D.C. businesses. It also means that while the project is technically over budget, it has not breached the statutory cap.
“The cap was never a real number,” said at-large Councilman Phil Mendelson, a stadium critic.
Robert Siegel, owner of 11 parcels seized by the District, is still fighting the city’s original $7 million offer.
“I feel like I’ve been shorted terribly,” he said. “It’s costing me thousands of dollars just to go through this forced arbitration.”
Stadium update
» Project work force up to 930 people between the ballpark and garage
» Ballpark and office building 95 percent complete as of Dec. 31
» On schedule to host first game March 29, an exhibition against the Baltimore Orioles
