Muriel Bowser took to the airwaves on the Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU today and was asked, among other things, about the progress of the land acquisition for the D.C. United stadium site. Earlier in the month, she delegated authority to the Director of the Department of General Services to execute the purchase agreements most of the parcels on Buzzard Point, as well as giving authority to close the roads on the stadium site.
All of the land for the D.C. United stadium site must be acquired by the end of the month, and the District has purchase agreements with all of the landowners save one: Akridge. Instead of using the land swap that Mayor Vincent Gray favored, Bowser stripped out that language and added provisions to allow the District to take the land by eminent domain. And, according to Bowser on the radio today, eminent domain is now likely as they have reached an impasse with Akridge.
This was always the likely course of action ever since the land swap was spiked. Once the District formally files the eminent domain proceedings, a court will decide what the District will pay Akridge; regardless, it will be far less than what they would have got through the land swap. The land is currently a parking lot and some mostly empty lots, which Akridge has been holding since the early 2000s.
What do you think of the likely eminent domain proceedings?