Ted Leonsis The bid to move the Washington Capitals and Washington Wizards to Northern Virginia ended in late March when he officially signed a $515 million deal with Washington DC to keep their teams at Capital One Arena through 2050.
Both the fanatics and the Virginia government resisted the move to Alexandria. Leonsis, once a popular figure in the area, saw much of his goodwill and political capital evaporate in the effort with Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
“I look at the results, not the process, and we arrived at the correct result,” Leonsis said in a statement. “I know this was a difficult process and I want people to understand how much I love Washington DC and how much I have always loved Washington DC. Mayor Bowser and her team listened to us, worked with us, and gave us the tools to find each other. our business needs to expand right here in the center of the city.”
Since then, Leonsis has focused not only on how to transform his space into Capital One Arena but also downtown DC in general to draw more crowds and make Gallery Place and Chinatown more destinations.
The deal Leonsis signed with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser gives Monumental Sports & Entertainment nearly 200,000 square feet of newly scheduled space at Capital One Arena and Gallery Place, security improvements around the venue, and the creation of an entertainment district which allows you not to sell or slack off. noise restrictions.
“We’re going to have a state-of-the-art urban stadium in downtown DC and that’s a big deal for DC, for the teams and for the fans,” Mayor Bowser said in a statement. “This is a catalytic investment in downtown DC. “We are excited to have Monumental as our partners in DC’s return and look forward to working together to win for DC.”
The Washington Business Journal’s Drew Hansen shared a rendering of what a renovated Capital One Arena could look like in the future.
This is a low-res rendering of a renovated Capital One Arena that DC threw at the Monumental last year as part of its attempt to preserve the equipment. To be clear, this is not Monumental’s plan, but it gives an idea of what could happen. #DC #dcsports #ALL CKeynote USAS #ForTheDistrict pic.twitter.com/NYM0ihOShk
– Drew Hansen (@Drubaru) March 27, 2024
Since early 2024, several working groups and action plans have been established to ensure business issues, public safety, new developments and overall investment are prioritized to ensure the long-term success of the Gallery Place/Chinatown neighborhood.
Leonsis believes the area needs to reinvent itself and connect with other historic parts of DC to attract more people to downtown.
He shared his vast thoughts with FOX 5’s Steve Chenevy:
Ted Leonsis: I see more connectivity between federal Washington, DC and the Mall. How do we make those 30 million tourists who arrive feel connected to the city center? That will require smart planning around traffic flow, streets and closures.
I see more walkable spaces, more outdoor dining. I see more integration of how traffic flows. I see an improvement in Metro: Last week when the Caps were in the playoffs, we were playing at Madison Square Garden and I walked around the building and right across the street now is the Moynihan train station. This is spectacular. It’s a welcome to New York and it’s very different than it was five years ago. Well lit, large, lots of places to eat, I felt safe.
We need to follow the lead of the country’s largest, world-class cities, and how do we make Capital One Arena a new gateway to downtown? How do we make this a portal for the 2-2.5 million people who come every year? Only 15 to 20 percent are from Washington, DC. That means we’ll be bringing in people from Virginia and Maryland. How do we move them?
And I think we can also consider a broadening of the definition of downtown. For me, the center should be Howard University, the White House lawn and all the way to the Capitol. We should be very personalized, schedule it that way, outdoor festivals, outdoor movie viewing.
And so how do we activate universities locally to bring young children here? I think it’s very, very important that we continue to be a young and vibrant community. Right now, when we send kids to college, 70 percent of DC kids who go to college don’t come back to DC. We need to give signals here to young people that they want to come back and they want to get jobs here, they want to get apartments here, they want to contribute locally.
So it’s going to be kind of a grand 20- to 30-year master plan. We’ll play a big role in this, but I’m delighted that the mayor has received a great reception and brought in some really great thinkers, urban planners, real estate people and economic development people. We will have to reconsider how quickly we can process change orders.
During the conversation on Fox 5, Leonsis revealed that he wants the city to reconsider its strict 130-foot height limitations within the district that prevent Capital One Arena from expanding even further vertically. The law was implemented to preserve the city’s historic sightlines that include the Washington Monument and the Capitol building.
“I know it’s very, very difficult, but it’s been one of our biggest problems,” Leonsis said. “We don’t have access to the sea here, we have four acres and maybe we can go up one floor. I drive every day through Virginia, over the Key Bridge, and it’s as vertical as it gets. However, on this side of the bridge, we can only have about ten stories.”
To make downtown a thriving area again, Leonsis has a three-point plan in mind to help him achieve his goals. He admitted that any successful reinvention requires its sports teams to be popular, successful and generate interest.
Ted Leonsis: Our first constituency has to be our players, coaches and employees because if we don’t have great teams, that is our product. That’s why people come to watch, participate and dedicate three hours of their day to us. So, that’s the bottom floor here, the infrastructure. That’s where we are doing our first work but we can only do it during the off-season. So the amount of rigor we will have in scheduling and managing the project is because we still have to fly the plane. We still have to play Caps and Wizards games and some Mystics games and all the concerts.
Once the season ends, then we go to double shifts. I think it will take four years starting next offseason to complete it. The first phase will be downstairs, the players’ area, the infrastructure. Then we’ll move on to the bowl, which is primarily for the fans: better sight lines, better sound systems, more technology, new seats, new dining options.
Then we have to focus on our partners and the city community around us. How are we going to have a traffic flow where people arrive early, dine, compare prices, win a game, are in a good mood and want to stay afterward?
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We’re going to have to maintain that discipline about what’s best for the fans, what’s best for the employees and what’s best for small businesses. This is a long-term renovation that will cost more than $1 billion. My expectation is that the building will be considered world class but that the neighborhood will also be improved.
Leonsis estimated the redevelopment of Capital One Arena will take approximately four years to complete with construction beginning next offseason. The first phase will be the ground floor, including the player areas and arena infrastructure. Next, MSE will work on the bowl and look to improve sight lines, sound system and seating, while adding more technology and dining options.
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