H Street United?
Now that DC United won’t be going to Prince George’s after all, what’s next? The Post has a little poll, where staying at RFK, a new DC stadium, or moving away from the region entirely are all about tied.
Reader Max writes in with an intriguing idea. What about something at the Hechinger Mall site at the “starburst intersection” of H Street, Benning Road, Bladensburg Road, Maryland Avenue and 15th Streets, NE? The biggest chunk of this site is now empty with the closing of National Wholesale Liquidators.
Moreover, there actually used to be a stadium nearby, as Brett Abrams pointed out in his chat. A real walkable urban stadium in this area could bring a lot of revitalization to this area. It’s right on the planned H Street streetcar, producing a powerful impetus to get that built.
Of course, there are obstacles. The mall is only partially empty right now. It’s very near many residential neighborhoods, and they might not all want the activity from a stadium. The site isn’t on Metro, though it’s only about a mile from Stadium-Armory (much closer than the Redskins), it’s a stop on Metro’s long-term pie-in-the-sky expansion plan, and a potential infill Oklahoma Avenue station wouldn’t be far away either.
Though being only a mile from Stadium-Armory, we might reasonably ask, why not just keep the current site? We could turn it from a suburban-style stadium surrounded by huge parking lots into an urban stadium with commerce nearby. And while District leaders weren’t able to do a deal for a site on Poplar Point, the site itself wasn’t really the problem. If H Street could use some revitalization that might surround a stadium, Anacostia could even more.