Within three years Washington, D.C.’s professional soccer team hopes to transform a quiet grassy bend in the Anacostia River into one of the largest urban renewal projects in the neighborhood’s history.
Coming one year after a rancorous debate over the planned construction of a baseball stadium on the opposite bank of the river, the owners of D.C. United made public a proposal to build a stadium, housing, retail space and park land in the area known as Poplar Point.
The stadium project got a major boost last night at a meeting at Ballou High School when D.C. Councilmember Marion Barry, Jr. (D-Ward 8) ended his outspoken opposition to the project and came out in support of it.
Barry’s chief of staff, Linda Greene, said that Barry changed his mind after he learned that the development plan would include senior and working-class housing and is expected to generate nearly 2,500 permanent jobs in Ward 8.
“They really took anything that could possibly cause a rebuttal and addressed it,” Greene said.
Tuesday’s three-hour forum was the first event in a major public relations campaign mounted by D.C. United to convince Southeast residents that the stadium could be an important factor in the area’s development, according to D.C. United Vice-President for Communications Doug Hicks.
The event followed several well-publicized efforts by team members to coach local schoolchildren in soccer.
“The community is looking for activities or outlets for their children that we can provide,” Hicks said.
The stadium, to be paid for entirely by the team’s owners, Global Sports and Entertainment, is not expected to garner much opposition in city government.
Unlike in the case of the future home of the Nationals baseball team, United owners are not asking the city to help cover the cost of the project.
Tony Robinson, communications director for the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission, which regulates public entertainment development in the city, said it is up to the team to sustain the stadium’s momentum in coming weeks.
“It’s an entirely different process,” he said, referring to last fall’s debate over the Nationals stadium. “This stadium will be up before the baseball stadium, there’s no question about it.”
According to Hicks, the next step in the project is ensuring passage of a current bill in Congress to transfer the Poplar Point site to the city in exchange for other properties in the District.
Hicks said a tentative goal for the team is to have the stadium constructed in time for the beginning of the 2008 season.
Greene emphasized that while Barry is receptive to the stadium plans, he has not ruled out other options for how the development will proceed.
According to Greene, Barry will host a second public meeting exploring alternate possibilities for the site on Nov. 29 at Anacostia High School.
