• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Washington city council rejects new stadium lease

Posted on: Tuesday, 7 February 2006, 21:45 CST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington's city council rejected a stadium lease agreement with Major League Baseball in a vote on Tuesday that puts the city at risk of losing the Washington Nationals to another location.

The council voted 8-5 against the lease, which set out the terms for construction of a new stadium south of the U.S. capitol on the Anacostia River.

A last-ditch effort to craft a $610 million cap on the city's total project costs failed to win over enough council members worried about cost overruns. A recent estimate pegged total project costs, including surrounding infrastructure, at $667 million.

"I think we're in danger of losing baseball," said Mayor Anthony Williams following the vote. He called the council vote "shortsighted" and "a huge missed opportunity."

Major League Baseball moved the Nationals, formerly the Montreal Expos, to Washington last year after the city agreed to build a new stadium, approving a $535 million borrowing cap for the project.

The league's president, Bob DuPuy, said in a statement that it would seek to resolve the deadlock through binding arbitration.

"I regret very much that D.C. officials have failed to honor the agreement they made when they successfully bid for the Expos to move to Washington," DuPuy said. "Baseball has no choice but to pursue arbitration so the terms of our original agreement can be honored and to begin to explore whatever options are available to us."

Officials in Virginia, which bid on the Expos move initially, may be waiting in the wings to make a new offer to the league. Delancey Skinner, a spokeswoman for Gov. Tim Kaine, said the state could revisit the issue "should everything fall through for D.C."

She said that no actions had been taken and added that "We hope it all works out for the district."

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category