"The devil is in the details," said Marie Tibor, a spokeswoman for the Board of Trade. "Even today, I'm not sure we have the details we need to be able to go to members and say, 'Hey, guys, what do you think?' "
Baseball officials were part of a series of "collaborative discussions" that led to the selection of the stadium site on the Anacostia waterfront, said Bobb, the city administrator.
The three other sites were eliminated for a variety of reasons, Bobb said. One on New York Avenue NE was deemed by baseball officials to be too close to Baltimore. Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium "was out of the question" because it is not in the heart of downtown.
And the most popular site -- on Banneker Park near the Mall and the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station -- was ruled out because the novel proposal for building a stadium over Interstate 395 was too expensive and would have taken too long to build, Bobb said.
The Banneker site also is "right in the heart of a neighborhood" where community opposition was already stirring, Bobb said, a drawback unlikely to arise in the sparsely populated area on South Capitol Street.
In the last round of discussions with baseball officials, Bobb said it came down to Banneker or South Capitol. South Capitol won.
"There were collaborative discussions without folks saying, 'It's got to go here,' " Bobb said. "I think it is fair to say that both sides are happy with the choice."
The only parties who didn't seem happy yesterday were some owners of the 67 parcels that make up the proposed stadium site. Vincent Warring owns two of them, warehouses on Half Street SE.
Warring said he would want about $4 million for the two buildings and does not want to be forced to sell for much less.
"But this looks like a squeeze play to me," he said. "If they [the District] are going to go in and condemn the property and use eminent domain, what can I do?"
Staff writers Karlyn Barker, Nicole Fuller, Monte Reel, Spencer S. Hsu, Debbi Wilgoren, Yolanda Woodlee, Tom Heath and Steve Fainaru and staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report. Heath reported from Milwaukee, Fainaru from Baghdad.
