Officials say it’s time ‘to move forward’ in Landover, as Commanders return to D.C.

While D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser was saying, “Welcome home,” Monday to the Washington Commanders, Maryland officials were already saying their farewells and looking forward to what’s next for the team’s current home in Landover.

Few seemed surprised by the move, which has been discussed for several years. That discussion picked up when the team was bought two years ago by a new ownership group that said it was looking to replace the isolated and outdated Northwest Stadium.

The team talked to officials in Maryland, the District and Virginia about a move. Despite putting together what Gov. Wes Moore (D) called “a very competitive offer” to keep the team at its current site, most were like House Majority Whip Jazz Lewis (D-Prince George’s), a lifelong fan, who said he understands the historical connection some fans have to the team being in D.C.

“We’ve known that since the new ownership got control of the team, they were interested in exploring going back to D.C.,” said Lewis, whose district includes the stadium site. “We’ve also known that a lot of the fan base use that as their ancestral home.

“We’re going to start preparing to move forward,” he said.

The team played in Washington from 1937 to 1996, with last 35 years at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium. It has a lease at Northwest Stadium through 2027, but is not expected leave until 2030, when a new D.C. stadium is ready.

Even as the state worked to keep the team in Landover, it has been “responsibly preparing for the possibility of the Washington Commanders choosing to return to Washington,” Moore said in a statement released by his office Monday.

Nearly $4 billion deal reached to bring Washington Commanders back to D.C.

In December, team owner Josh Harris signed a memorandum of understanding with Moore and Prince George’s Acting County Executive Tara H. Jackson that said the team would begin demolition of the Landover stadium within 90 days of playing its first game at a new stadium. After demolition, the agreement calls on the team to work with state and county agencies to transform the site into “a vibrant mixed-use development,” to include residential, retail “and other allowable uses.”

Moore said the goal is to ensure the area “will not create blight in the community” and not be “another RFK Stadium,” which has sunk into disrepair and become a blight on the neighborhood since hosting its last event in 2017.

“What’s important going forward is that the Landover community receives the investment that it deserves,” he said. “Currently we have a nearly 200-acre property that gets used eight times a year for a few hours, and I have said from my earliest days as governor that the people of the area deserve better.”

The state has already started work to improve the area, approving a $400 million investment in 2022 for redevelopment of areas around the county’s four Metrorail Blue Line stations. Those include the Morgan Boulevard Station, walking distance from the stadium.

Federal, state and county officials held a groundbreaking ceremony April 9 for a new Civic Plaza near the Wayne K. Curry Administration Building, down the street from Largo Town Center Metrorail station. That project, scheduled for completion in December, calls for an enclosed dog park, a playground and an area for community events.

It represents one of five planned and the first ever with investment from the Maryland Stadium Authority.

The money, approved in 2022 by the General Assembly, did not require any of the funds to be used for a new stadium, but as a boost to revitalize those communities inside the Beltway instead.

Longtime fans such as Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) were around when the team moved from RFK Stadium to Prince George’s in 1997, when the stadium was named for then-team owner Jack Kent Cooke — who also labeled the area “Raljon” for his sons, Ralph and John.

It became FedEx Field when Daniel Snyder bought the team in 1999 and kept that name until Harris and his partners two years ago for about $6 billion. The stadium was called Commanders Field for a few months in 2024, before the team secured a deal to call the site Northwest Stadium named after Northwest Federal Credit Union.

In addition to Commanders games, the stadium has hosted international soccer matches, concerts for performers including U2, Taylor Swift and the Beyoncé Renaissance World Tour, and last year’s 125th Army-Navy college football game.

Alsobrooks, who helped secure state funding and private investment toward the Blue Line corridor as county executive in 2022, pushed to improve the Landover community whether or not the team remained in Maryland.

“I know this area will continue to transform before our eyes with housing, retail and so much more,” she said in a texted statement Monday. “Our continued investment will revitalize our Landover community and energize our entire state.”

Belinda Queen, president of the Coalition of Central Prince George’s County Community Organizations that includes Landover, said there’s one business residents aren’t interested in: data centers.

“Virginia has data centers. Virginia is bigger and has more land,” she said. “I get it. Data centers bring some source of income, and we do need some source of income, but they need to be in places where there’s plenty of land and not close to where people live. Put them where warehouses are.”

As for the team going back to D.C., she said, “Can’t cry over spilled milk. That whole big [stadium site] can be an indoor shopping mall, or a big place where people can live, work and play. It’s time to move the county forward.”