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Council Chairman to Propose New Stadium Plan

By David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 5, 2004; 11:47 AM

D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp has developed a plan that would significantly alter a deal to bring Major League Baseball to Washington by changing both the site of a new stadium and the cost of the controversial project, a source close to Cropp said this morning.

Cropp (D) has planned a 12:30 p.m. news conference at the Wilson Building to announce her new proposal, which would move the location of a stadium from the banks of the Anacostia River in Southeast. Cropp favors a 67-acre parcel of land near the site of Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium known as Reservation 13.

The new proposal would significantly reduce costs, by up to 20 percent, Cropp aides said. The funding mechanism would remain the same, with the financing provided by a gross-receipts tax on the city's largest businesses, a tax on stadium concessions and an annual rent payment by the team. The team's payment, starting at $3.5 million per season and rising annually, would stay the same under Cropp's plan, but the gross-receipts tax would be reduced, the sources said.

Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) has agreed to build a stadium largely with public funds by 2008 in order to convince Major League Baseball officials to relocate the Montreal Expos to Washington this spring.

How Cropp's deal would go over with baseball officials and whether it could kill the deal is not known. Cropp was writing a letter to Williams this morning to inform him of the plan.

The funding of a new stadium has provoked outcries from many council members, business leaders and activists. The business leaders say the tax was too high, while council members and activists have said that public money should be spent on neighborhood needs such as schools, libraries and recreation centers.

Williams has said the new stadium, if built along the Anacostia, would bring significant economic revitalization to an area sorely in need of it.

Reservation 13 has long been relegated to institutional uses such as the D.C. jail and D.C. General Hospital.

Under a redevelopment plan approved in January 2003, the current street grid would be extended into the large tract, with Massachusetts Avenue reaching a park along the Anacostia River. City officials at the time said private developers were eager to invest in the area.

The master plan envisioned 800 units of housing, 35,000 square feet of retail space and 3.2 million square feet of space for other commercial or institutional uses.

Four acres near the Stadium/Armory Metro station would be reserved for a new campus for St. Coletta's, an Alexandria special education school that serves many severely disabled District students. Community activists on Capitol Hill at the time said they preferred to see the land put out for bid to private developers, in hopes of attracting a specialty grocer or other retail.

Eight acres along Independence Avenue are reserved for municipal facilities, possibly including a new hospital. The housing envisioned in the plan would be separated from the campus of D.C. jail by an extension of Massachusetts Avenue SE from 19th Street to the Anacostia River.