On Wednesday December 13th, 2023 the owner of the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals, Ted Leonsis, joined Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin to announce a two billion dollar arena project. Perhaps the most surprising thing about the project was the total secrecy in which the deal had been made. As local residents can tell you, nothing happens in Alexandria without a healthy debate. The NIMBYs, YIMBYs, and MIMBYs always engage in a ritualistic death battle before even the smallest changes, while this might seem strange to outsiders, it’s expected in Alexandria and only added to the shock of the announcement.
Glenn Youngkin, with a straight face, told Virginia residents that there would be no subsidies involved with the stadium, a lie that would be soon be rebuked. That he was lying was common sense, D.C. the current location of the arena was offering 500 million dollars, Ted didn’t become a billionaire turning down 100s of millions of dollars in free money. The Washington Post eventually dug up a JP Morgan analysis done for the state where they found that the Arena was indeed subsidized to the tune of 1.35 billion dollars, the largest handout ever for a project of its kind.
Youngkin and Leonsis put together a handout package that combines the best of all handouts, maybe not for the public, but certainly for Ted. A couple 100 million in taxpayer funded improvements redirected to the arena site, then the issuance of 100s of millions in bonds, all under the guise of using money that wouldn’t be generated otherwise.
Alexandria mayor Justin Wilson co-signed the stadium deal, which was ironic, but it’s worth noting that he’s already decided to vacate his office so he’s a lame duck mayor. The state’s Democrats appear to be willing to negotiate on the issue, Ted gets his handout and the state gets metro funding, but I suspect most of their constituency would rather just fund metro without the handouts.
