Art of the deal: How Mayor Bowser’s negotiations kept Wizards, Capitals in DC
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WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — It all started with an impromptu meeting at a posh hotel between D.C.’s mayor and the wealthy owner of the city’s professional hockey and basketball franchises.
In January, Mayor Muriel Bowser and Capitals and Wizards owner, Ted Leonsis, sat on a couch at the Waldorf Astoria hotel and began the first of several conversations that eventually culminated in Wednesday’s surprise announcement that the teams were not moving to Virginia.
“She said to me, ‘You really don’t want to go,'” Leonsis recalled to DC News Now just after he signed the $515 million dollar deal to stay in D.C. until 2050.
Leonsis said Bowser’s statement was a bold one, and his response?
“I said, ‘Don’t tell me how I should feel, what I should think. You know where we are in the process.’ And she said, well, ‘I’m going to keep at it.’ And she did.”
The mayor and the business titan kept talking after their couch meeting at the hotel. They texted and kept meeting in the hotel lobby while Leonsis’ deal to move the teams to Potomac Yard was announced in December, but it was falling apart.
Leonsis’ Monumental Sports and Entertainment had a handshake agreement with Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin for a $2 billion sports and entertainment facility in Alexandria, Va. But strong opposition from key Democrats like Virginia Sen. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) and some in the community sank the deal.
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For Leonsis, he said the deal was primarily about space and room to grow, and Virginia had that.
But Bowser had already been having conversations with Leonsis as Virginia officials fought over the deal and kept it stalled in committee.
The mayor admits she was dogged in her approach to keep the teams in the nation’s capital.
“We saw what they had on the table and quite frankly, we thought that they could do something more interesting that was less risky for them and was better for the city and the region,” Bowser said. “It was our obligation to go for it.”
The mayor said the city “went for it” and soon met with members of the City Council
“I said we’re going to keep pushing on this,” Bowser added.
Capitals fan, Roger Bernard, said he has been following the saga about the teams’ possible move to Virginia. He said he appreciated the city not giving up.
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“In the end I think it’s great that they are going to be staying in downtown D.C.,” Bernard said. “I think it just shows the commitment that at least city officials have to the Capitals and the Wizards.”
Leonsis said he was also impressed with the mayor’s tenacity.
“She just kept at it,” he said. “When there was oddness of behavior at some places in Virginia, she would call me.”
Leonsis said the council’s passing of the crime bill showed a commitment to solving crime that was also affecting the area near the stadium. But a key piece was large square footage opening up at the adjacent Gallery Place that he could expand into, he said.
“She was probably mad at me, but she was always selling,” Leonsis said of Bowser. “Then she would say, ‘We need your help. I need your help. People are leaving.'”
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Bowser said she and city officials did not go about “disparaging anybody else or any other deal,” but always felt the District would win over neighboring Virginia.
“Our residents, our visitors, our businesses, they want our teams,” she said. “So we went for it.”
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