WASHINGTON — Better late than never for Ted Leonsis and Muriel Bowser.
The owner of the Wizards, Capitals and Mystics, along with the G League’s Go-Go, and Washington’s mayor took their victory lap Thursday morning, in what will, if all goes according to plan, be a centerpiece of an $800 million renovation of Capital One Arena. The renovation will keep the Wizards and Capitals in the building through their 2049-50 seasons and allow for additional future events to be held in the building, which is open approximately 220 to 230 nights a year.
“I think the mayor’s being modest,” Leonsis said after a ceremonial groundbreaking, which included NBA commissioner Adam Silver and local officials who helped get the legislation through the city council.
“As we were starting to iterate our showings of preliminary plans, she said ‘make it more connected to D.C.,’” Leonsis continued. “‘Make it modern, airy, I want to see a lot of light. I want to see connection with the streets … there will be now, just as there is at the art museum across the street, a roof that will connect this. And this, still, you’ll be able to walk through from 6th Street to 7th Street. We’ve been able to amalgamate, if you will, a sizable footprint. And once you have the space, you can innovate, you can make those investments.”
On Tuesday, a little more than a year after Leonsis and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin announced with great fanfare a deal to build an area in the Potomac Yards neighborhood in Alexandria, Va. — a plan that collapsed under fierce opposition a few months later — the D.C. City Council formally approved $515 million in public funding for Monumental. It will allow the company to transform the arena that has been the home of the NBA and NHL teams since 1997 and bring it in line with new arenas constructed in both leagues over the last three decades.
The city will also buy the arena from Monumental for $87.5 million, in line with the city’s ownership of Nationals Park and Audi Field. Monumental would then immediately lease the arena from the city in what is known as a “sale/leaseback” arrangement.
For its part, Monumental is pledging $285 million toward the arena renovation. Monumental currently manages the arena venue and will continue to do so in the new arrangement.
Bowser said the deal would be a “catalytic” investment in the city’s future.
“We are all working our level best to make this a premier entertainment district, for our city and region,” Bowser said.
Extensive external renovations are planned for Capital One Arena. (Photo rendering courtesy of Monumental Sports and Entertainment)
Silver cited the late Abe Pollin, who owned the Wizards and Capitals before selling controlling interest to Leonsis, for moving from Capital Centre in Landover, Md., to downtown Washington in 1997, as being one of the first NBA/NHL owners to stem the tide of teams fleeing for the suburbs to return to their cities.
“I’d say, from a league standpoint, this is the ideal public-private partnership,” Silver said. “This is nearly a billion-dollar investment, for their benefit and the community’s benefit. I think these are the modern-day town halls, these arenas. What’s happening now in these entertainment palaces, they are full, seemingly, every night of the year … this will easily put you in the top tier (of busiest NBA arenas) when this renovation is completed.”
As Leonsis’ dalliance with Virginia for a proposed arena in Potomac Yards began to crash and burn last winter, he and Bowser restarted discussions about a renovation of Capital One, after years of negotiations for increased public funding for a COA renovation, along with additional police and security around the building footprint, had gone nowhere. Bowser got the city council to green light the opening of a police and social services “hub” in Chinatown, along with the passage of a crime bill that created “Drug-Free Zones” throughout downtown, including at the COA site. The city also approved a $400 million “Downtown Action Plan” that will bring greater municipal investments to downtown and the surrounding areas.
But the renovation won’t involve new building construction.
“We can’t go up, we can’t go down,” Leonsis said. “We have to go sideways.”
The hope is to use 7th Street, N.W., which is from the Mall and museums to neighborhoods like Shaw further up 7th Street, as a “spine” for connecting the Mall better with neighborhoods that run along it to Chinatown and downtown. The plan also calls for using F Street and a new “Grand Pavilion” — an alleyway between COA and the Gallery Place Mall next door — to serve as the entry and exit point for up to 90 percent of fans coming to Capital One.
Among the myriad changes that are expected to take place:
The renovated arena will double the size of the existing Wizards and Capitals locker rooms, and triple the existing family lounge.
The Wizards’ space, according to Monumental, will include new recovery facilities with hydrotherapy pools and massage areas, along with “greater media and analytics integrations” that will provide greater advanced video review of upcoming opponents.
The Capitals’ space will have “ergonomically designed lockers with integrated drying systems, personalized storage for gear, dressing areas, lounge spaces, and new weight and functional training areas,” including cold and hot tubs and compression therapy areas designed specifically for hockey players’ recovery needs. There will also be on-site skate sharpening and repair stations for players.
F Street NW, between 6th and 7th, will be reduced to two lanes of traffic on event nights, with a widened sidewalk in front of the building to encourage more pedestrian traffic;
A glassway on 6th Street, fully ADA compliant, will be adjacent to the F Street entrance;
Monumental will gain approximately 200,000 feet of space by getting control of the Gallery Place Mall, which has suffered a severe loss of patronage and pedestrian traffic since the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. That includes the alleyway, which will become the “Grand Pavilion,” a sprawling space between 6th and 7th Streets where patrons and fans will have additional access points to the arena.
Along with moving the teams’ current offices out of Capital One into adjacent space Monumental will buy from MRP Reality, which currently owns Gallery Place Mall, much of the existing Mall space will be repurposed both for storage of equipment currently in the back of the house at COA, and for additional meal preparation services for the building.
Local “streateries” along the COA footprint will remain open.
Renovations to Capital One Arena are expected to be completed before the 2027-28 season. (Photo rendering courtesy of Monumental Sports & Entertainment)
The project is supposed to take place primarily over the next three summers, with an idealized end date of summer 2028 before the Wizards’ and Capitals’ 2027-28 seasons. Prep work will begin between now and the end of the teams’ current seasons, with expected minimal disruption to ticket holders, and will have escalator pit installations and hydrotherapy slab construction. Phase 2 will be next summer, with the construction of the new locker rooms, a large family lounge and new media facilities. Monumental said premium fan experiences, including a proposed United Globe Club and Lounge, a partnership with the airline, and Vault Suites for the teams’ most expensive ticket holders, will be completed in time for the teams’ 2025-26 seasons.
Phase 3 will take place during the 2025-26 seasons, with prep work starting on extensive exterior upgrades, including the new primary entrances on F Street, with additional restrooms and concession spaces. Phase 4, in the summer of 2026, will involve major exterior upgrades, including a new façade and enhancements to the Grand Pavilion, revamped concessions and upgraded suites. Phase 5, during the 2026-27 season, will upgrade club level and premium amenities, along with improving egress throughout the building.
The final phase, in the summer of 2027, will see the completion of the Grand Pavilion, along with the construction of additional concession spaces, loge boxes and bathrooms. (There are supposed to be 30 percent more restrooms in the renovated COA than in its current form.)
“We are just really pleased with how the structure looks,” Bowser said. “It’s not just a paint job. It’s really making the building a new, state-of-the-art facility. Part of our focus in the city was making sure the four walls of this building interacted better with the rest of the city, with the Monumental core, and it was a better fan experience. So, I think you’ve seen some of that.”
(Top photo of Muriel Bowser, Ted Leonsis and D.C Councilmember Brooke Pinto: Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)