Carry Ted Back To Old Virginny?

DC left scrambling as Ted Leonsis takes Caps and Wizards over the river.

Image courtesy of the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership.

No, Ted Leonsis wasn’t kidding.

A little more than 26 years after the late Abe Pollin moved the Washington Capitals and Washington Wizards from the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland to an arena in the District’s Chinatown neighborhood, the current owner announced a deal with the state of Virginia and the City of Alexandria to move the teams to a new arena in the Potomac Yard development in Alexandria, Virginia as soon as 2028.

Leonsis announced the deal at a press conference at Potomac Yard with Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson, the entire Alexandria City Council, and JBG Smith CEO Matt Kelly. JBG Smith will be the developer of the $2 billion project, which in addition to the new arena will include a practice court for the Wizards, a headquarters for Monumental Sports, a 6,000 seat performing arts center and an e-sports facility, as well as new retail and restaurant space.

Image courtesy of the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership.

As for Capital One Arena, Leonsis expressed interest in staying involved in the management and redevelopment of the property — perhaps helping convert it to host daytime events much like a convention center — after the Caps and Wizards depart. The WNBA’s Washington Mystics will continue to call Capital One Arena home.

Am I the only one who thinks it’s odd they wouldn’t come along to Virginia?

After making his statement, Leonsis declined to answer questions from the press.

Capital One Arena Washington, D.C by APK is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

It was back in March that a “friend of Leonsis,” spoke to Axios DC to pass along the sports mogul’s displeasure with the “safety and quality of life,” around Capital One Arena, something that should have been taken as an ominous sign as the owner asked that the District provide $600 million to update the venue that opened in 1997. And as I outlined in March when I asked, “Is it dangerous to go to a game in the District?”, there was ample reason to be concerned. The Chinatown/Penn Quarter area that the arena calls home has emptied out of office workers in the wake of the Pandemic. Restaurants and retail outlets that relied on those office workers for business are closing and a lawless element has moved in to fill the void (paywall). A recent robbery of the Walgreens a few blocks north of the arena is just one example of the sort of crime that’s moved into the neighborhood and has seemed to grow out of control as it has spread outside the downtown core into more suburban areas in upper Northwest.

You know things are bad when FBI agents get carjacked.

The District government, which is also attempting to lure the Commanders back to the city, hastily organized a press conference for Mayor Bowser to announce their “best deal” to entice Monumental to stay: a $500 million package to upgrade the arena, $100 million short of the figure Leonsis cited as what he needed.

It’s important to remember this isn’t the first time that someone has tried to build a stadium in Potomac Yard. Back in 1992, Jack Kent Cooke and Virginia Governor Doug Wilder announced the framework of a deal to move the Washington Redskins — now known as the Commanders — from RFK Stadium in the District to a new venue in a then undeveloped Potomac Yard. Ironically, it’s the Commanders who are now looking to abandon Landover and return to the District.

Community opposition from residents of Alexandria’s Del Ray neighborhood located west of the proposed site derailed that idea. Cooke shelved the plan and instead built his new football stadium in Landover, Maryland beside the Capital Beltway (it’s difficult not to note the circularity in these deals). A replay of that outcome is the District’s best hope to see the plan scuttled, forcing Monumental to return to the city.

That might be a forlorn hope. Del Ray isn’t the same neighborhood it was 30 years ago. As I noted above and as was reported by Grant Paulsen, Mayor Wilson and the entire Alexandria City Council — which must also approve the deal along with both houses of the Virginia state legislature — were in attendance at today’s event. The mayor recently announced that he won’t be running for re-election next year after 16 years in office, meaning he can focus full-time on selling the deal to Del Ray’s residents without fear of paying a price at the polls next November — something he got to work on right away last night.

So while this isn’t a done deal — Governor Youngkin compared it to the initial handshake agreement between the state and Amazon when it came to locating their HQ2 project just south of Potomac Yard in Arlington County — there isn’t a whole lot of hope for the District to hang on to.

As someone who has lived in the DMV for 38 years, spending more than 30 in Northern Virginia between Alexandria, McLean, Arlington and Reston, I have mixed feelings about the deal. Pollin, the original owner of the Capitals and Wizards, truly loved the region and its people. He had a vision for redeveloping Chinatown. For a time that vision was fulfilled, never more so than when thousands thronged into the streets around the arena during Game Five of the Stanley Cup Finals when the Caps were thousands of miles away clinching the Cup on the ice in Las Vegas.

If you haven’t lived in the DMV very long, you can’t know what that neighborhood looked like before Capital One Arena, first known as the MCI Center, opened in 1997. In the Summer of 1987, I worked at a law firm off the K Street corridor, and often had to carry filings to the District’s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs located just north of the current location of the arena. The buildings were of a 1940s vintage and showing their age. The neighborhood wasn’t a magnet for nightlife, and most people wouldn’t opt to visit after sundown.

Ten years later, when I began training in a gym on the second floor of a building above a Chinese restaurant just across the street from MCI Center, it was hard not to be taken aback by how quickly and dramatically the neighborhood was transformed. At the time, I was lucky enough to work for MCI, and I was in the crowd for the first home game for both the Wizards and the Capitals. The following Spring in 1998, the Caps went on an unexpected playoff run to the Stanley Cup Finals, and while they were swept by the Detroit Red Wings, it was inspiring to see Pollin’s vision come together as fans returned to the neighborhood night after night to cheer the team on.

Noble as that vision was, it was Pollin’s. Ted Leonsis has a different vision, one that includes his son, Zach, who he’s been grooming to take control of Monumental Sports. Leonsis is in the office every day, and he’s had a front row seat as the neighborhood around the arena, and the city at large, has taken a turn for the worse. That includes Washington’s Metro system, which has been flirting with the idea of shutting down at 10:00 p.m. instead of Midnight, something that would crimp the style not only of fans coming to the arena, but also the people who have to work there. And while Pollin might have been happy with the deal he signed with the city, Leonsis clearly believes it handcuffs him, so much so he’s willing to accelerate payments to the city in order to get out of the deal ahead of schedule.

Potomac Yard Station by Mint0ri is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

As for the new location in Alexandria, I have some questions. Traffic is going to be an issue. I lived in and around Potomac Yard for a number of years, and there aren’t a whole lot of ways into and out of that neighborhood. Access via Route 1 in Virginia is going to be an issue on game nights, so be prepared to take the train to the game.

Here’s a nightmare scenario: what happens if the arena is being used on the night before Thanksgiving? If that’s the case in Chinatown, it isn’t a problem. But when you move to Potomac Yard, a spot within shouting distance of Reagan National Airport, this could be a very significant issue. Once again, be prepared to take the train, and here’s hoping the state is making accommodations for new road access into the area.

From a personal standpoint, I’ll miss the old barn. I have great memories there — perhaps none better than watching the Caps win Game Three of the Stanley Cup Finals in 2018 — but they don’t tug at me the way the ones from childhood do. The best days were when I would go to the game after work downtown right around the time the arena opened. Things were fun and convenient, not like today when I have to negotiate the trip from the suburbs and find parking close enough to the arena to avoid a long schlep into the night. The ride to the new venue, which I won’t have to make till 2028 at the earliest, won’t be any more arduous. As for my friends from Montgomery County, I’m sure they don’t feel the same way. For many of them, I’m sure the move feels like the fans there are being abandoned for new ones in Virginia — and I’m sure the betrayal feels doubly so for Wizards fans.

One day the Wizards will win an NBA title. Washington, DC is an underrated basketball town and one that deserves a winner. It’s easy to forget that the old Washington Bullets went to the NBA Final five times in the 1970s, winning it all in 1978. The Washington basketball fan is a giant waiting to be reawakened. If and when that day comes, I’ll be disappointed that it happens in Virginia and not the District.

But what really bothers me is the potential decline of a neighborhood that’s been a destination for decades. That Leonsis wants to leave has to be laid at the feet of Mayor Bowser and the DC City Council. They squandered Pollin’s legacy and that of former Mayor Anthony Williams, a man who wanted to entice 100,000 new residents to move to the District and made it happen. While the city was dealt a bad hand with the Pandemic, the deterioration of public safety is on the politicians. What’s worse, it didn’t have to be this way. For the sake of the city and its residents, I hope they turn things around and soon, even if it won’t be in time to keep the Caps and Wizards from moving. In the end, there’s a lot more on the line than just game night.