The National Park Service owns a lot of land in the District of Columbia, and it does not part with it easily. It owns Rock Creek Park, the former Civil War forts that ring the capital city’s high ground, and assorted squares and monuments throughout our town. Land is power, and the park service doesn’t want to part with either. Take the land atop Fort Dupont Park where the city and the Washington Nationals have been trying to carve out 15 acres to create a baseball academy. Decent idea. It’s a combination of mother and apple pie married to an education program for kids who need it. The city started negotiating for the land back in 2005. And the sides met and talked and negotiated ever since.
Finally, the deal is done. The Washington Nationals, the city and the feds are ready to announce the establishment of the District’s very own baseball academy on Tuesday.
“We did reach a frustrating point,” says Marla Tanenbaum, the younger daughter of Nationals owner Ted Lerner and chairman of the team’s Dream Foundation. “We kept pushing, pushing and pushing, We got a lot of support from the city. It left us with a really good feeling.”
Sports fans can quibble about how well the Lerner family has done in fielding a competitive team. It takes money and patience; the Lerners have depth in both. Patience, my friends.
Patience has paid off with the Lerners as corporate citizens. The baseball academy is the perfect example of a sports franchise teaming up with the city to establish an athletic and educational facility where kids need it most. The planned academy will have three fields and an 18,000-square-foot facility, with classrooms and a kitchen, to complete a double play of hitting and reading.
“We will be stressing academics,” Tanenbaum says. “After-school activities will be very important. We want to keep it simple, stress literacy. I hope we can use public school teachers. I see no reason why not.”
The Lerners and the city have been crosswise a time or two since the developers bought the team from Major League Baseball in 2006. There were questions about rent payments and bruised feelings when the Dream Foundation held its gala in Maryland rather than in the District. But the baseball academy — the sixth in the nation — should heal any wounds.
The city is contributing $10 million, the Nationals $3.5 million and MLB $1 million, according to Tanenbaum. I can assure you the Lerners — a family that made its fortune developing downtown office buildings and suburban malls — will build a first-class facility and fields. The Nationals will operate the academy, too.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Tanenbaum says. “The city made it happen.”
Mayor Vince Gray and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton have been constant supporters. Tanenbaum credits two city lawyers — Susan Longstreet and Beth-Sherri Akyereko — and Jared Kahn from the economic development side.
But in the end it was the Lerner family that pushed and pushed and ponied up, as good owners should.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
