WASHINGTON — The Washington Commanders' search for a new football stadium is heating up. And one state is already pushing hard to make a deal.
The Virginia legislature passed a bill creating a Virginia Football Stadium Authority, authorizing the sale of a billion dollars in bonds to help billionaire owner Dan Snyder finance a stadium in Northern Virginia.
Now, former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder is speaking out against that plan. And he has experience to back up his opinion.
In 1992 he had a deal in place to bring the Commanders to the Commonwealth until it was killed by local opposition.
Wilder and Cooke even held a news conference announcing the agreement.
“And for good purposes," Wilder said in an interview from his Richmond office where he serves as Distinguished Faculty with the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Wilder said after months of secret negotiations between the two friends, Cooke agreed to leave the District and popular but out-of-date RFK Stadium for a brand-new facility built on an underdeveloped railroad yard in Alexandria known as Potomac Yards.
But within months, Alexandria residents had sacked the plan.
Wilder blames one man.
“Ran around almost like Chicken Little: ‘The Sky is Falling’ ‘The Sky is Falling’” Wilder said. “That’s why we don’t have a stadium today that we would own - Congressman James Moran.”
“Yes, I did everything I could to kill that rotten deal,” Moran told WUSA9.
Here’s how.
Wilder only had a verbal agreement with Cooke before holding that infamous news conference for a stadium that never happened.
“Here in truth will be made a silk purse out of a sow's ear,” Cooke gleefully told the crowd of dignitaries and reporters.
Wilder said Cooke agreed to buy the land from the state and build the stadium at his own expense and even claimed the owner said he would sign the stadium title over to Virginia after 20 years. Wilder said Cooke only had one condition.
“He said, 'Doug, I don’t want any publicity associated with this at all, other than the fact that we are going to be doing it,'” Wilder recounted.
But Moran, the former mayor of Alexandria, made sure Wilder’s stadium deal would not go unnoticed.
“I will use every ounce of strength and whatever ability I have and determination to kill this idea,” Moran said in a 1992 interview with WUSA9.
Alexandria residents packed public meetings to speak out against the plan, citing traffic and quality of life concerns. Moran also opposed the financial details of the stadium plan.
He claims Cooke demanded the lion's share of the tax revenue while refusing to pay for public safety expenses like traffic control on game days.
“After it got to that point where people were arguing about it, Jack said guess what, forget it,” Wilder said.
Moran said he is not sorry about killing the 1992 stadium deal.
“I'm sorry that Doug doesn't have a cushy, free seat in the owner’s box to watch the Redskins games,” Moran said. “But the reality is that Jack Kent Cooke and the Redskins organization was going to try to take advantage of the city of Alexandria.”
Now 30 years, the two men share one thing: a role reversal.
Moran, a government consultant, supports a new plan approved by the Virginia legislature to sell a billion dollars in bonds to help Commanders owner Dan Snyder finance a Northern Virginia stadium. Although this time, not in Alexandria.
As for Governor Wilder? He thinks Snyder, not taxpayers, should shoulder the cost of a new stadium. Wherever he decides to put it.
“It’s his problem,” Wilder said. “He doesn't have to deal with it at all. He can sell the team - someone else can deal with it,” Wilder added with a laugh.
The most recent polling on the issue was done by the Virginia Chamber of Commerce in 2016. That survey showed only 46% of Virginians supported a Commanders stadium in the Commonwealth and only 23% supported using tax dollars to make it happen.