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Tentative Deal Reached On Lease For Stadium
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Although general terms have been reached, the deal is not finished in part because city financial officials must obtain Wall Street's blessing on whether the terms are strong enough to gain investment-grade status for the stadium project.
Maryann Young, a spokeswoman for Gandhi, declined to comment.
D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), an ardent supporter of the stadium project in Southeast, said yesterday evening that he was told by a negotiator that the two sides had made significant progress.
"It's not a done deal, but what I was told is that it's safe to say there's been a lot of movement toward agreements on the two issues," said Evans, who was not directly involved in the talks.
Evans added that he expected the council to get the lease by Friday, in time to schedule a public hearing the following week. The council is scheduled to vote on the lease Dec. 20, assuming it is completed.
The emerging consensus on the lease terms follow a meeting Thursday morning among Reinsdorf, Williams and council members.
Several council members told Reinsdorf that if baseball did not agree to the city's demands, they would push to move the project to a site adjacent to Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium. That location could save the city more than $100 million, some council members have said.
But that option would require a costly environmental cleanup of the site and federal and congressional approval, a process that could mean long delays before construction.
The land is owned by the National Park Service and leased to the District at no cost. The 50-year lease, which ends in 2038, allows for only one stadium on the 200-acre site. Building a new complex would require Congress to amend the 1957 law that authorized the stadium, said John Parsons, associate director for the Park Service's National Capital Region.
The project also would require an environmental impact statement and approval from the Park Service, the National Capital Planning Commission and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, Parsons said.
He said the whole process could take two to three years. "That's quite a bit different than their existing circumstance because the other proposal is not on federal land," he said.
An environmental impact study completed in 1993 found potentially harmful lead contamination in the soil.
Staff writer Ray Rivera contributed to this report.
