I was reading on Reddit DCU that the club is offering a STM-only entry gate next year. I'm not sure how that is going to work given there are a limited number of gates as it is. The RFK version was sometimes a longer wait than the general access gate right next door.
There's "Premium" gate right next to the box office, but nobody checks for anything. I sit up Sect 109, and I use the gate all the time. Also direct path to ONLY pair of elevators.
I really, really wonder how that would even work. Don't they claim to have 12,000 some STMs right now? The stadium only seats 20k.
Just curious, how well attended was that? I am actually home this week, but going into the District mid morning just doesn't fit my calendar and my kids were at school. When the email came, I took one quick look and deleted it. So true on metro, its not a great value for a family of four. Its $30 one way, Vienna to Navy Yard, I only pay $40 to park 2 blocks away and we get there in well under the 80 minutes (+ time to the metro) the WMATA trip planner claims it takes and that's without missing a train in Vienna or Gallery Place, especially evenings or weekends when you wait 15-20 minutes for the next train.
There are STM gates at almost every entrance gate at Nats Park. I never use them, because none of them are express (no bag) lanes, Nats fans skew way older, and they almost all have bags of crap they've brought with them that need to be checked.
It was fairly well attended - they restricted you to being in the F1-F8(?) and F17,18 in front of the lower Heineken place (first time I'd been in there) to get water and if you chose to stay and get certain players autographs; I left). I'd say those areas were about 30-40% full. There was a fairly long line for those autographs as I was walking back to metro, so quite a few people were able to make a whole day out of it. Russel Canouse and Donovan Pines came over to the sidelines and signed/took pics - I just shook their hands and said thank-you, I didn't think to bring a pen since I wasn't going to stay for the latter part - also got to tell Quincy Amerikwa that I appreciate his work and mouth, he liked that Pines was particularly good with the young kids. If you asked me to pick one thing out about the half of the practice I saw - it would unfortunately have to be the sheer number of balls in the shooting drills coming nowhere near the goal, the worst probably being row 6 of section 116. And that set of drills seemed to be more for the GKs than the shooters weirdly, only the GK coach was paying attention, the other coaches were over watching/officiating a small-sided game drill - I believe I saw Ben Olsen score one of the goals for the green team but perhaps one of our fringe players is similarly bearded
So thats like 300 seats ... they really got 150-200 people to turn out mid-morning on a weekday. I was assuming that they were just running a job fare.
Silver Line is running to Reston now, right. Next Summer to Dulles. So Loudoun isn’t too far off. You can bring groceries on the Metro. Just keep it closed and bagged.
Except this Sunday it's only going as far as Spring Hill - see https://www.wmata.com/service/status/details/weekend.cfm#main-content :-(
The field gets a blanky Nothing like a windy, rainy day to do grow covers before the cold front hits. Shout out to the ops guys for the assist. pic.twitter.com/oXfLba9QFM— Kody Tingler (@KTingler10) October 31, 2019
I've been meaning to post here for a while about the hotel going up nearby and the hotel rooms that will be part of the Riverpoint development, but Peninsula 88 updated their website since the sales are more open now. They're still using a mythical wtadium that would have been better than what we got. I will appreciate a food hall more than anything else upcoming. FWIW, there have also been updates to the riverwalk trail recently (not reflected in the above rendering). I'm looking forward to that.
Spike Gjerde's plans for 2100 2nd St SW appear to have grown substantially. He's opening a ~20,000 sqft "plant based market" (i.e. food hall) called Peaceable Kingdom in addition to Marys, a ~7,000 sqft waterfront restaurant, in an apartment building scheduled to finish next May https://t.co/DtKqqCxcyJ pic.twitter.com/46H4pjH1OF— Eat DC (@eat_dc) October 28, 2019
gee and no money could have been made turning one of those five apartments into a parking garage........................................
In terms of the field itself, in 2020 the Spirit will be playing four games at Audi (plus four at Segra/Loudoun, and four at SoccerPlex/Germantown). In 2021, the Spirit will play seven games at Audi, and five at Segra - bye-bye SoccerPlex.
I think DC United just needs to buy the Spirit. That would allow the teams to leverage their operations and season ticket holders. If the Spirit can maintain momentum and sell at least 15,000 tickets to their games at Audi going forward, that would be huge.
They fully own Loudoun United and can't coordinate ticket sales worth a damn - why diminish the Spirit sales team by folding them into an area (ticket sales/operations) that United does so piss-poorly? But I am positive they'll share email lists. Though I have yet to be offered LU tickets via email even though I have begged three different ticket reps, so maybe positive is the wrong word there
Here's the thing about parking...the city already paid to build two garages in the neighborhood years ago! Has there ever been any information on why the Nats won't open them when there's no scheduling conflict between the two stadiums? They're publicly funded garages after all.
The District didn't want garages there, but MLB required them, for some reasons. They're a waste of space. Not sure why the Nats don't open at least one of them when United is playing. Seems like it would be a good money-maker for them.
That's not it. All of the new apartment and condo buildings down there have plenty of available parking for their residents. But, the developers can make a lot more money building apartments and condos, then a parking structure.