The baseball stadium deal signed by D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams and approved by the City Council is already starting to go bad — and the $611 million publicly financed stadium hasn’t even been built yet.
As an Examiner editorial pointed out last year, the only way the city could hope to financially benefit from the deal was to exercise much greater skill in negotiating the surrounding development rights than the mayor demonstrated negotiating with Major League Baseball for the team itself. But after promising — in writing — to build 1,225 new parking spaces for the Nationals by Opening Day 2008, the city now finds itself in a bind with four unpalatable options — all of which break the $611 million spending cap, none of which were debated publicly before the deal was signed.
Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi laid the options out Tuesday in an eight-page letter to Williams and City Council members who had promised District taxpayers that $611 million would be the maximum amount they would be asked to pay. The least expensive creates temporary parking facilities off-site and will add $25 million to the final cost; the most expensive zooms the tab up at least $138 million. And this isbefore weather conditions, future costs of building supplies and other unknown factors are taken into account.
Only two of the four options would allow separate development to begin by next September, and of these, only one would allow the city to complete the required parking spaces by March 2008. So it really comes down to Option 3 — which provides for two above ground parking garages on the north side of the new stadium and 300 underground spaces on the south side, with room for mixed-use development on top. There’s not enough time left to fully realize the Zoning Commission’s ambitious plans for upscale shops and restaurants on both sides of the stadium because the city already agreed to have 1,225 parking spaces ready by Opening Day 2008.
Even Option 3 — the best of a bad lot — will still cost the city $20 million more than the spending cap allows (only $3 million will be recouped from parking revenues) and would require an expedited exemption from the District’s current zoning rules. Gandhi also warned foot-dragging Council members that there will be serious repercussions on Wall Street if they don’t make a decision on their contractual obligations within the month. “We are about to reduce the overall potential benefits by failing to make a decision regarding parking at the stadium,” he said, adding that “there is unfortunately no administrative ‘fix’ within the parameters of existing laws.” Such a deal this is turning out to be!
So far, the council has permanently lost the opportunity to build two underground parking garages to support development on the southeast waterfront. Last week, on a 7 to 6 vote, council members also torpedoed the only viable alternative remaining — which was supported by Gandhi, Williams and presumptive mayor Adrian Fenty — and in the process risking up to $100 million in penalties if the city doesn’t meet its contractual obligations.
The only thing District residents can really count on now is that the whole baseball stadium project will wind up being much less than promised — and cost them much more.
