Stadium Pact To Be Revised For Financing

"We're still trying to understand the details. We want to see the documents."

Williams declined to comment as he left the meeting, saying only, "Ask the council."

The lease agreement is crucial to the project, which would be built near the Navy Yard and South Capitol Street along the Anacostia River in Southeast Washington. Gandhi said he will not issue construction bonds without a final lease.

The council had been scheduled to vote on a lease in December, but Williams asked Cropp to withdraw it from consideration because it did not have enough support.

Council members are concerned about the project's rising cost estimates. The council approved a $535 million budget in 2004, but recent estimates by city officials put the price at $667 million.

After a month of additional negotiations with baseball officials, city officials resubmitted the lease Friday with several changes. Under the new terms, baseball agreed to spend $3.5 million on a new youth academy in the city, to give the city 2,000 more free tickets a year and to pay $2.65 million in rent at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium during the 2008 season if the new ballpark does not open on time.

"What has been committed to would allow the council to move forward to approve the lease," Archer said.

Archer, who was named mediator by the American Arbitration Association last month, said he hoped the council would approve the lease so stadium construction could begin and baseball officials could go forward with selling the team to an ownership group.

The new owner, Archer said, would then be able to talk directly with city officials about other concerns.

Among the ways that costs would be contained, according to Williams, are the guaranteed maximum price contract and the sale of development rights on land near the ballpark.

Under the terms of the construction administration agreement that is being negotiated by the District and the construction companies, the companies would obtain greater authority over the project in exchange for ensuring that the price of the structure would not exceed $320 million.

Meanwhile, the Anacostia Waterfront Corp., created by the mayor to oversee development of the Anacostia riverfront near the stadium site, has pledged to cover all potential cost overruns related to the city's purchase of 14 acres for the stadium.

The corporation would cover such costs by selling development rights on the south side of the stadium site. Under the lease agreement, the city would receive 57.5 percent of the profits, and Major League Baseball would receive 42.5 percent.

But council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) said he believes that the city should receive all the profits because the District is buying the land and building the stadium.

"They still have a distance to go," Barry said of Williams administration officials. "There are seven or eight of us who are not comfortable to approve the lease as they described it."