D.C. United broke ground on its planned 19,000-seat Buzzard Point stadium in April, but something was, and still is, missing: An approved stadium design.
The team, with architects Populous and Marshall Moya Design, has been quiet on that front since the D.C. Zoning Commission had its first take in March, an exercise that didn’t go as well as the MLS franchise had likely hoped.
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D.C. United’s stadium project includes a parcel intended for a single mixed-use building.
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“I actually looked at it and I thought, this reminds me of a prison, the facade,” Commissioner Marcie Cohen said at the time. “I think we need to get a little bit more, maybe a little bit more friendly to the neighborhood, because if I’m looking at the facade, I wouldn’t be too happy with that view.”
A new set of drawings was released last week before a Nov. 2 follow-up hearing. There are two fundamental changes to the initial set, according to the fresh filing: the addition of a two-way private street along the east side of the stadium, and an active plaza to the northeast of the stadium. The stadium design itself has been changed only slightly, with more clarity and color provided for the stadium exterior, refinement of lower-level enclosed spaces, and material refinement.
“The design team devoted considerable time making what is an extremely challenging design problem seem simple,” the designers said. “It required working from the inside out, starting with the seating bowl. We quickly determined the stadium could fit on the site but it required a design that contradicted all best practices for seat locations in typical stadium design.”
The stadium is scheduled to open in time for the 2018 season. The District has agreed to spend up to $150 million to acquire the land and prepare it for development, and the team will finance stadium construction. Site work is underway.
While there are no parking spaces on-site, the team has secured 3,950 committed parking spaces in the vicinity.
In July, United selected Turner Construction as its stadium contractor, giving it a $150 million contract.
The stadium footprint is bounded by Second Street, T Street, R Street and Potomac Avenue SW. The site, southwest of Nationals Park, is about half a mile from both the Navy Yard-Ballpark and Waterfront Metro stations.
In a year or two, according to the new filings, the team is expected to start work on an adjacent development parcel, which is envisioned to include a single mixed-use building combining a hotel, office space, event space and/or a restaurant and retail space.
Development activity continues to hum along at Buzzard Point. Akridge and Western Development Corp. acquired the former U.S. Coast Guard headquarters on Second Street SW with plans to convert the 609,265-square-foot building into a mix of apartments and condos above roughly 80,000 square feet of retail space.
Michael Neibauer is senior staff reporter for the Washington Business Journal, an affiliated publication.
