Two weeks ago, DC Mayor Vince Gray took a quick trip down to Tampa, Florida, accompanied by DC Council members Jack Evans and Michael Brown. It wasn’t to escape the chilly temperatures here in Washington. The three were there to look at the training facility for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League.
According to press reports, Gray is thinking about trying to build a similar facility for the Washington Redskins near the team’s old home at RFK Stadium. The Redskins currently have a practice facility in Ashburn, Va., and play homes games in Landover, Md.
Building this type of facility would likely involve some use of public dollars, ranging from infrastructure needs like roads, lights, and storm water runoff to direct subsidies for the facility.
The decision to use city resources to convince the Redskins to move their training camp to the District should be considered through the lens of economic development. And like any other economic development project, there are important questions to ask before deciding whether this is a worthwhile project:
- Is the project an economic development priority for the District?
- Is some type of public subsidy needed for the project to move forward?
- What are the costs?
- What are the benefits?
- Is the project an economic development priority for the District? Right now, that remains unclear. Many neighborhoods across the District are in need of economic development, yet with limited public dollars, the District has yet to set priorities. One big question is: How would putting in a Redskins training facility impact the planned economic developments underway or in the pipeline in other neighborhoods? Another question is whether putting an NFL training facility at the location known as Reservation 13 is a higher economic development priority than what the District has so far envisioned for the land, a mixed use development which would be an extension of the Capitol Hill East community.
- Is some type of public subsidy needed for the project to move forward? Again, this is unclear right now. Professional sports teams often request financial assistance from cities and states to defray costs, but it is not always clear that they need them.
- What are the costs? Again, unclear. Nationals Park was built with taxpayer dollars. The former Wizards and Capitals team owner Abe Pollin did not ask for public dollars to build the Verizon Center, though the city did pay a substantial amount to upgrade infrastructure around the facility.
- What are the benefits? Many DC residents and Redskins fans would like to see the team return to playing within its namesake. There is a hometown pride to attending games inside the District line. But it also is important to know what other community benefits there might be, such as jobs for DC residents, if this proposal becomes more serious.
DCFPI hopes that if such a proposal does move forward, city officials will take a transparent approach to informing residents about plans and addressing these important questions. Unfortunately, city officials got off to a bad start by not making the trip a part of the mayor’s public schedule. We look forward to move information on this project.
