Washington, D.C.’s Subsidies for New Soccer Stadium Delayed, Thank God.

Last year, Washington Nationals managing owner and billionaire
real estate tycoon Ted Lerner had an idea: build a
retractable roof over the Nats baseball stadium and stick the
taxpayers with the $300 million tab. That’s on top of the more than

$600 million the District already shelled out to build the
stadium that charges fans $9 for a Miller Lite. But in an unusual
twist to
an otherwise routine story, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray reportedly

started laughing when he heard the proposal and threw it
out.

D.C. taxpayers may have weathered that particular crony
capitalist squall, but more dark clouds have been lowering on the
horizon. For over a year and a half, developers, District
officials—including
Gray—and D.C. United, the city’s Major League Soccer team, have
been negotiating a sweetheart deal for the franchise. Unhappy with
the Washington Senators’ old
stomping grounds, D.C. United wants politicians to unite behind a plan to bankroll up to
half the cost of a new $300 million, 20,000-seat stadium.

The government largess will come in the form of land and
infrastructure payments as well as tax breaks for the franchise. To
justify this bald-faced cronyism, officials have promised the usual

litany of bogus benefits:
jobs, economic development, increased tax revenue, ad
nauseum.

There is a chance that fiscal sanity will prevail, at least for
the time being—not because of principled opposition to corporate
welfare, sadly, but because of political infighting. The deal
hinges on a pair of 
property transfers to cobble together enough land on Buzzard
Point for the stadium, including a relocation of the Reeves
Municipal Center to Ward 8. Several council members have been
skeptical about the plan.

Other recent developments also threaten to delay the project,
hopefully indefinitely. In a completely nonpolitical move, of
course, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson on Monday decided to
postpone a council hearing on the proposal until after the
election, reports
The Washington Post:

Every candidate for mayor and council has said that their
decision on whether to support the $300 million stadium would
rest in part on the findings of a study commissioned by Mendelson
(D) that was set to be released Tuesday at a council hearing.

Instead, his office announced that the hearing would take place
the day after the election and that Mendelson wasn’t sure whether
the study, which details financial risks to the city, would be made
public before voters go to the polls.

This despite Mendelson having been briefed earlier this month on
the study’s findings. Those privy to the briefing confirm that the
study found issue with the city’s financial assessments of the
property transfers.

Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) interprets the postponement as a sign that
the project is dead. Others think the move will only delay the
council’s consideration until January, when a new mayor occupies
City Hall.

In either case, chalk one up for political gridlock saving the
taxpayers some money for a few months. God only knows they’ll need
it: The Gray administration recently announced that the District’s
harebrained streetcar project faces further
delays and will wreak
commuter havoc when finished—all for a very pretty penny,
indeed.