D.C. Councilman Jack Evans showed a little frustration Friday when he took D.C. United to task sticking to its position that it will sign a longterm lease where ever it can get a new soccer stadium built.
“D.C. United and Major League Soccer have to come to the realization that it will have to pay substantially the entire cost of a new stadium,” Evans said on NewsTalk 8 with Bruce DePuyt. “And they can do that, they just don’t want to do that.”
He added, “Long gone at the days where cities, counties or states pick up the tab for a stadium. They don’t have money to do that.”
Evans said the team and the city should come to an agreement as to who’s going to pay for what.
“It is traditional that cities and counties pay for the infrastructure and prepare the land, so to speak,” he said.
Of course in the 1990s and early 2000s when the real estate market was booming and cash was flowing into cities, it was a lot easier pill to swallow to have a taxpayer-funded stadium. Baltimore did it in the late ’90s as part of its agreement to lure an NFL team back to the city. And Washington did it during the real estate peak as part of luring a baseball team back to D.C.
But this ain’t the free-flowing 2000s. As we all can tell.
And maybe United sees the writing on the wall, too. The team just signed a two-year lease at RFK Stadium, securing its hometown through 2013. And team president Kevin Payne thanked the D.C. Council for its resolution of support for the team staying in the city.
In a statement Payne said he looked “forward to sitting down in the very near future with the Gray administration to discuss a mutually beneficial solution to D.C. United’s search for a permanent home.”
