RICHMOND, Va. — The majority owner of the Washington Wizards and Capitals, Ted Leonsis, told a crowd in December he had “goosebumps” at the thought of moving his NBA and NHL teams from Washington to Virginia, “if all goes as planned.”
It did not.
Leonsis’ handshake deal with Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin to relocate the teams to a taxpayer-backed arena in Alexandria collapsed Wednesday, weeks after a bumpy slog of a defeat in the Virginia General Assembly. Leonsis, apparently not willing to wait for a second shot in Virginia, reemerged in Washington, which had offered his Monumental Sports & Entertainment a more than half-billion-dollar arena deal to stay.
The demise of the project, a top priority for Youngkin, set off an extraordinary round of bitter recriminations among Virginia officials and companies that were parties to the deal, including allegations of possible impropriety and slander. It also sparked fears about impacts to the state’s future economic development prospects.
“We made mistakes. I know the governor made mistakes. Monumental made mistakes. JBG made mistakes. And I’m sure the General Assembly made mistakes,” Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson said of the key players.
The outpouring of blame began when Alexandria announced the negotiations were over Wednesday, in a statement that expressed disappointment in “what occurred between the Governor and General Assembly.”
Democratic leaders of the General Assembly blamed Youngkin.
“He mismanaged the process,” said Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, who had agreed to sponsor legislation underpinning the deal. The legislation called for a quasi-governmental entity to issue bonds to finance most of the project, repaid through a mix of projected tax revenues recaptured from the development. Surovell’s bill never made it out of his own chamber — due to opposition from one of his colleagues, powerful budget committee chairwoman L. Louise Lucas — even though a companion bill passed the House of Delegates.
House Speaker Don Scott faulted the governor for bringing the Legislature into the conversation too late in the game.
Youngkin told The Associated Press in an interview he believed “politics and personal agendas” in the Senate had derailed what he’s called the single largest economic development deal in Virginia’s history.
Leonsis, in a news conference with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, took a couple of jabs at Virginia. Meanwhile, JBG SMITH, a real estate company and partner to the deal as the proposed developer, unleashed.
In a statement, JBG CEO Matt Kelly questioned the motives of key Senate leaders including Lucas, who had stymied the legislation and gleefullycelebrated itsdemise on social media. Specifically, JBG questioned whether the arena was blocked as part of a “scheme” to benefit a competing developer, Comstock, that had been pushing for a northern Virginia casino. Kelly’s statement did so without mentioning any lawmaker or company by name, but while including enough context to make the criticism understood to people following the matter closely.
