What Will New RFK Site Look Like? This Plan Offers Clues.

For months the Washington Commanders have been teasing out what the team’s new, 65,000-seat stadium in D.C. will look like, and now the city is fleshing out the details on the housing, hotels, retail, parks and parking that are expected to fill the area around it.

On Tuesday morning, the D.C. Office of Planning released a draft 89-page master plan for the 180-acre site on the east end of Capitol Hill, providing renderings, design guidelines and more firm numbers on what will be built around the new $3.7 billion stadium — and where exactly it will go.

“We’ve been talking a lot about some really inspirational designs for the stadium that the Commanders and their designers have put forward,” said Anita Cozart, the director of the Office of Planning. “This master plan lays the groundwork for the entire area that will be able to welcome thousands of not only visitors but people living in and around this area.”

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The draft master plan — which was developed with input from residents at public meetings last year — shows up to 6,600 new homes across three different districts located around the stadium, largely in buildings that will range in height from 110 to 130 feet. (The stadium itself will be 130 feet tall, with the roof dome rising up to 194 feet.) Under the stadium deal signed between the Commanders and the District, at least 30% of the housing will have to be affordable.

“We are taking another step forward in our promise to District residents and businesses — to plan not just for a world-class stadium, but for a community-centric 365-day campus that will drive growth for years to come,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement. “Now, let’s work together toward the final goal — to finalize a plan rich in amenities like housing, parks, and entertainment.”

The plan contemplates 1,200 hotel rooms, more than 260,000 square feet of retail and commercial space and a combined 60 acres of park and recreation space, including a public indoor sports facility built on the north end of the stadium. It also pledges to continue pushing for a grocery store on the site, which with “higher levels of disposable income” from new residents “would be both beneficial and market feasible.”

When the plan to move the Commanders from the team’s current stadium in Landover, Maryland, back to D.C. was unveiled in April 2025, officials described it as a once-in-a-generation chance to redevelop one of the city’s last remaining large plots of largely unused land. D.C. taxpayers are kicking in $1 billion to prepare the site for construction, and are also expected to pay for two parking decks.

The new RFK Stadium site is expected to include space for recreational activities. (D.C. Office of Planning)

In return, boosters say the stadium and surrounding development will produce 14,000 construction jobs and 2,000 permanent jobs, and produce $4 billion in new tax revenue.

“With its scale, visibility, and historic significance, the RFK Campus will become a new civic gateway for Washington, DC, honoring the site’s legacy while modeling sustainable, community living along the Anacostia River,” declares the draft master plan.

How Commanders fans get to the new civic gateway, though, remains an open question. While initial plans for the site have contemplated up to 8,000 parking spots in the two decks, the draft plan says they will actually only have 6,000 spots. Another 2,000 will be provided on surface parking lots that will remain undeveloped for the first few years after the stadium opens; after that, city officials tell NOTUS they expect those 2,000 spots to be incorporated in the retail and residential development that will take place.

All told, the parking that will be made available outside the new stadium is less than the roughly 20,000 parking spaces outside Northwest Stadium in Landover, and on the lower end of available parking for some NFL stadiums. But the new Commanders stadium would be in line with other new stadiums in urban areas; the Tennessee Titans’ new Nissan Stadium in Nashville, for example, will have less on-site parking when it’s completed in 2027.

Generally, D.C. and team officials expect a significant number of the estimated 65,000 fans coming to Commanders games will be using public transit. While Metro has already ruled out building a new station at Oklahoma Avenue — it would be too expensive, transit officials have said — there are plans to expand the existing Stadium-Armory station to accommodate more people. As part of its 2027 budget, D.C. is setting aside $300 million for the work.

Metro General Manager Randy Clarke has also proposed a Bus Rapid Transit line running down H Street and Benning Road NE from Union Station to the new station; he’s dubbed it the “Gold Line.” Clarke has told D.C. lawmakers that building the new line — which would likely fall to D.C. — would be critical to managing the crush of crowds for games and other big events at the new stadium.

But the concerns over parking aren’t just about storing cars, but also about tailgating. In stadium plans submitted to the federal government earlier this year, the Commanders said that the team’s legion of tailgaters will be able to use the surface lots before they are redeveloped. After that, the team said “it is anticipated that tailgating from the surface parking lots will migrate to the top levels of the parking decks as new buildings are constructed on the surface parking lots.”

Ultimately, Cozart says the draft master plan — which will be open for public comment and feedback through mid-August — allows city officials and residents to drill down on a sweeping redevelopment that has been, to this point, somewhat aspirational.

“What the master plan allows us to do is really think about the entire 180-acre site in a detailed way that really thinks about the transportation networks, that thinks about the ways that people will get into and through the site, the ways people will experience the site both on event days but also everyday,” she said. “It also helps people think about the parks and open space, the interconnected system that will be in place on the entire site.”

As for what it will mean for fans of the team, the Commanders have promised both shiny new features for the stadium — including a translucent roof and halo digital scoreboard — and a nod to the past. The curved roof is an homage to the original’s design, and back in January the Commanders sent out a survey asking fans about their preferences for “bounce seats,” reminiscent of the movable bleacher seating of the former stadium. The team has also detailed plans for a live entertainment venue near the north entrance for gameday concerts and events, and something Commanders head of real estate Andy VanHorn calls a “beer garden approach” near the Anacostia River entrance.

The stadium is still expected to open by 2030, with the surrounding development lagging behind because of the need to proceed through the city’s zoning process. But under the deal the Commanders signed with D.C., the team will have to complete development of two of its main parcels — the Plaza District in front of the stadium and the Riverfront District’s residential component on the southeast side of the stadium — by 2040 at the latest.

In the meantime, other components of the stadium’s construction are moving ahead. This month, D.C. unveiled its plan to sell the stadium’s seating rights to the Commanders for a top price of $975 million, giving the team the ability to then sell personal seat licenses — essentially the rights to buy season tickets for a particular seat — to fans. The money the Commanders make from the licenses will help fund the construction of the stadium itself.