DC Council Unanimously Approves Plan For MLS' Costliest Stadium

The DC Council yesterday voted unanimously to approve a new stadium for DC United, "probably ending the team's decade-long search for a new home." The plan is expected to cost the District at least $150M in direct investment and another $43M in forgone tax revenue. The deal "benefited from the project’s relatively modest scale, the desire to kick-start development in a gritty industrial zone, and the team’s willingness to bear" the roughly $150M cost of building the most expensive MLS facility proposed to date.

The 20,000-seat facility in the Buzzard Point area of Southwest DC "remains on track to open in time" for the '17 season. The Council is set to take a final vote Dec. 16, and the team "might fight for additional concessions." But there is "little expectation that the agreement will collapse" (WASHINGTON POST, 12/3).