When will the new Commanders stadium open?
The target is 2030. The Mayor sent the RFK Campus Master Plan to the DC Council on September 24, 2026, and the Council held its hearing on Sept. 30 and is expected to vote by year-end. The stadium contractor team was named in August, and construction starts in spring 2027.
What’s in the final plan
- 180 acres, split into four development districts and two park and recreation districts.
- Up to 6,500 homes, 30% of them affordable.
- Roughly 65,000-70,000 seats (reports differ) for the new stadium.
- Hotels, and roughly 30% open space.
- A Gold Line bus rapid transit route to Union Station via H Street and Benning Road NE, ending at the campus.
- An expanded Stadium-Armory Metro station, but no second entrance.
- Two garages totaling about 6,000 spaces.
How much retail is planned at the RFK campus?
About 287,000 SF across the campus (City Cast DC, Bisnow, and FOX 5, citing the Mayor’s Sept. 24 release and the DC Office of Planning plan page). It is modest next to up to 6,500 homes.
What changes for East Capitol Street, Benning Road and Minnesota Avenue
The campus retail, roughly 287,000 SF per the plan, sits mostly in the Plaza and Riverfront districts and will open in phases as housing delivers, which Axios reports could run into the 2040s. Until then, new residents, workers and game-day visitors will have little retail on the campus itself. For commercial tenants, this means deciding whether to sign now to secure prime footholds and rates, or waiting for residential critical mass while risking being priced out of the premier stadium-adjacent corridors later.
East Capitol Street, Benning Road and Minnesota Avenue already have the traffic, the rooftops and the storefronts the campus is still years from. For an operator, that means space you can lease and open now, at rents not yet priced for a stadium, serving the neighborhood that is already here.
Spotlight: Solstice, 3534 East Capitol Street NE
Across the river from the new stadium district
Solstice offers about 2,293 SF of ground-floor retail fronting East Capitol Street NE, with 137 apartments upstairs. East Capitol carries about 25,968 vehicles a day. Neighbors include Safeway, McDonald’s, Church’s Chicken and Papa John’s. The property sits roughly 1 mile from the RFK campus.
What operators should weigh now
If you want to be near the stadium district, the question is timing. Campus space won’t exist for years, and when it does, it will carry new-construction rents. Space on the existing corridors is available today. When you evaluate a site, look at three things: how customers reach it on event days, whether its frontage is visible to people heading to the campus, and whether you can open and build a customer base before 2030. We’re glad to walk any site with you through our leasing services.
Contact us at 571.765.4430 or aponcher@renaudconsulting.net, or view the Solstice listing to learn more.
Authors: Andrew Poncher, Jonathan Holland, and Jack Tintle