The Washington Commanders should know by the start of next month whether they are clear to start work on their new home, slated for the site of the former RFK Stadium that staged some of the club’s most famous games.

RFK Stadium — which was officially renamed in 1969 following the assassination of Robert Kennedy — was home to the then Washington Redskins for 36 seasons between 1961-96, with the team going 173-102-3 in 266 games there. However, after nearly a decade of wrangling over a new stadium, and having a 1994 agreement collapse in the face of complaints in part fuelled by the team’s racially insensitive nickname, owner Jack Kent Cooke decided to move to Maryland, where the team remained through the Daniel Snyder years and, now, into its latest ownership, overseen by Josh Harris.

Although several options were under consideration as a replacement for the ageing Northwest Stadium (formerly FedEx Field), the Harris-led group secured a potential return to the RFK campus by signing an agreement in late April, alongside DC mayor Muriel Bowser, that would activate ‘180 acres of opportunity’, starting with the construction of a state-of-the-art roofed stadium. When Congress passed the D.C. Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Campus Revitalization Act at the start of 2025, which was signed into law in January, it gave the District the ability to develop the long-underutilised space after lifting restrictions that were in place under the previous lease.

The project, however, was subject to the usual financial scrutiny, and the D.C. Council this week set a date to vote on revised legislation that could confirm the Commanders’ return to the capital. The updated plan would support a $3.7bn redevelopment project featuring the new stadium, 6,000 housing units — including 1,800 designated as ‘affordable’ — and a mix of retail space and parkland across 174 acres.

“I am pleased to announce that, in discussions I have had with the Washington Commanders with regard to the proposal for a new stadium, we have reached an

agreement on the general terms, primarily with regard to the finances,” council chairman Phil Mendelson reported. “The Commanders’ need for urgency actually worked to our benefit because what we said to them was, ‘If you really want an earlier date [for the vote], then we want to see some changes that make it better for the citizens of the district. I am pleased to say that will see significant revenues coming to the District General Fund and some other changes that are of benefit to the city.

“As a reminder, when the deal was announced between the mayor and the Commanders, what was proposed was a $500m subsidy for construction of the stadium plus another $356m for the construction of two parking garages. I want to emphasise that those dollars, which are unchanged from where we are today, are the upside of what the District provides. That is to say the city is not on the hook if the cost of the stadium is greater than what the team thinks.

“In addition, what was worked out between the mayor and the team was that there would be a significant number of tax abatements or tax avoidance — no parking tax, which is 18 per cent, and tax abatements on sales tax with different sales taxes, which is to say the city would be borrowing and providing $856m and there would be no revenue stream to the general fund in return. What we have negotiated is quite different. Benefit to the city in terms of revenues could be as much as $949m over the term of the lease, so there will be parking taxes that will go to the general fund, as well as sales taxes on general merchandise and sales taxes on food and beverages. The team will retain the ticket taxes and they will go into the maintenance fund that they want, and that is important for maintaining the facility for the life of the lease.

“We will also be redirecting some of the revenue from what is going to be called the Sports Facilities Fee, roughly $600m over the lease term, to a transportation improvement fund to [address] the capacity of the existing metro station and the possibility that a new additional station would have to be built. The Commanders, meanwhile, have agreed to provide $50m for community benefits: youth sports linked to education, a grocery store, job training, community benefits such as that.”

Under the revised proposal, Mendelson’s office estimates, the redevelopment could generate $26.6bn in tax revenue over 30 years. The District would contribute $1bn toward the stadium project, while the team would fund the remaining $2.7bn.