Quote:
Originally Posted by tripin_billie
- Notwithstanding all of this, Gallery Place is an inherently excellent location for an arena. It sits above 3 metro lines and has the other 2 only 3 blocks away at Metro Center. This is by far one of the best entertainment locations in the region.
[...]
- The proposed Potomac Yards location sucks. It's a freaking Target and strip mall right now. If they move the team there, it is going to feel like the most artificial suburban towncenter ever. Yuck! Also, it's a terrible metro location as it is only served by the Blue Line and the exiting the station you have to cross rail tracks to get anywhere.
[...]
- I still think this is all a ploy to extract more concessions out of DC and that the Caps and Wizards end up in a renovated Capital One.
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Technically Potomac Yard is also served by the Yellow Line.
And the walk from the Metro station is still only about 250 m—around half of the walk in Calgary from Victoria Park/Stampede Station to the Saddledome.
That said, yes absolutely it suuuuuuuuuucks as compared to the ease of getting to Gallery Place. For those Flames fans and others who've never been to a Caps game, the Metro station quite literally sits right underneath the arena: you just get off the train, go up to street level and BAM! you're there.
I also think this is still just a ploy to extract more concessions out of DC, and that they still end up at a renovated Capital One Arena. Leonsis is a parasite just looking for VA to give him a handout. His biggest complaints—"the worst arena deal in pro sports"—are that he has to (gasp!)
pay his ####ing mortgage and
pay to maintain the building he owns: that doesn't just disappear if he moves the Caps and Wizards to a new arena in Alexandria.
If the Caps/Wizards
do move I wouldn't put it past him to go for a nuclear option with respect to Capital One Arena though: pay off the mortgage, then just stop paying the (land) lease payments to DC. What're they gonna do? The only thing they
can do at that point is seize the building from him, which he'd quite happily let them have at this point.