Maryland Proposes $400 Million Redevelopment Around Commanders Stadium

Erin Cox reports on Maryland’s offer to the newly renamed Commanders football team, which proposes a raft of improvements in the area surrounding a potential stadium project and no public money for the stadium itself. “As the football team shops for a new stadium site and leaves public officials in Maryland, Virginia and D.C. competing to host the organization, Maryland developed a pitch that would benefit residents even if the team left and deprived the state of the multibillion dollar investment a stadium project would bring.”

According to the article, “The plan would deeply invest in largely undeveloped acres around the decades-old stadium in Landover and deconstruct the privately owned FedEx Field at public expense. The remaining cash would build an amphitheater, a charter school and library, a public market, a civic plaza and field houses for volleyball and basketball.”

Del. Nick Charles (D-Prince George’s), chair of the county’s House delegation, said “we have to take care of ourselves first before we take care of anybody else,” pointing to past promises of redevelopment that have gone unfulfilled. “County officials hope to make the residential and underdeveloped area feel like an urban extension of the city, and they were careful to make clear the money is not for the Commanders.”