It was more than money that won it for the suburbs. Mr. Youngkin sold the teams’ owner on an attractive vision of a 12-acre entertainment, office and residential complex — with a venue for hockey and basketball at its center. Virginia’s leaders spoke the language of business. D.C. government officials failed to say much of anything.
To be sure, using taxpayer resources to lure sports franchises is never a no-brainer for local governments, especially when it comes to financing sports stadiums. But this time is different. Downtown D.C. is in a funk. It relied heavily for decades on office workers, especially from the federal government. Those workers aren’t coming back soon, at least not to pre-pandemic levels. Lately, the Caps and Wizards have been among the few events drawing tens of thousands of people to downtown D.C. at least 80 times a year — with all the good things that means for spending on drinks, food, shopping and parking nearby. The teams’ presence was a key reason many young people moved into the Gallery Place-Chinatown neighborhood in the past two decades. Combined with the work-from-home phenomenon, losing them blows a big hole in Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s (D) plans to get 15,000 more people to live downtown.
On Tuesday, D.C. leaders made what they called a “best and final” offer: $500 million to upgrade the teams’ Capital One Arena in Chinatown. But this was a half-court lob at the buzzer — not serious negotiating. It came long after The Post reported in June that Ted Leonsis, owner of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which controls the teams, was in talks with Virginia about a possible move. Their lack of urgency was disastrous but, unfortunately, typical. Too many city leaders, especially on the D.C. Council, still think they’re operating in a pre-pandemic world where downtown businesses — and the revenue streams they generate — can be taken for granted. That world is gone.
D.C. has two choices: It can either let downtown deteriorate further, or it can make bold investments to bring in more visitors and residents. Many in the region still remember the city’s deterioration in the 1980s and ’90s. In fact, a major reason that Abe Pollin, the Capitals’ and Wizards’ former owner, brought the teams to Capital One (then MCI Center) in 1997 is that real estate prices were depressed around the Gallery Place Metro station. He saw investing there as almost as an act of philanthropy to help the city revive the neighborhood. It worked. The arena’s success spurred billions of dollars in new retail, restaurants, offices and residential buildings nearby. But now, that part of the city is backsliding, post-pandemic. Retailers and bars have shuttered, and violent crime is the worst it has been in years. Paying more than $500 million to keep the teams in D.C. until 2052 could go a long way toward saving that area and spurring billions in redevelopment.
To be sure, Mr. Leonsis is acting on economic self-interest, not civic attachment to D.C. He sold a stake in Monumental to the Qatar Investment Authority this year in a deal widely seen as “sportswashing,” given the Qataris’ harsh treatment of LGBTQ+ people and migrant laborers, and he has been open about his desires to take Monumental public. Still, given the mounting problems downtown, it’s hard to make him the sole villain in this story.
City officials’ relative indifference to Mr. Leonsis’s clear signals that he would move the Caps and Wizards is symptomatic of the city’s long-standing failure to understand what it takes to create and sustain a favorable business climate. Neighboring jurisdictions, by contrast, compete hard. Mr. Youngkin and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) are both especially aggressive players. Of course, the city can’t just throw money at the problem. But it is going to have to think much more seriously about matching its neighbors’ efforts. Letting NHL and NBA teams go to the suburbs would be penny-wise, pound-foolish, but it might be too late to do anything about it. Ms. Bowser and the council need to learn from this failure and start applying those lessons — fast.
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