The District has released the first comprehensive blueprint for redeveloping the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Stadium campus, laying out an ambitious vision for thousands of new homes, parks, recreation facilities and a new Washington Commanders stadium that officials say will reconnect neighborhoods long divided by the aging sports complex.
The draft RFK Campus Master Plan, released June 30, proposes transforming the 174-acre property into a series of mixed-use neighborhoods linked by new streets, parks and public spaces extending to the Anacostia River. The plan sets maximum building heights, land uses, and basic street and open space framework and will inform zoning text and map amendments for a currently unzoned site.
The Office of Planning (OP) will accept public comment on the document for 45 days —until August 14, 2026— before revising it for consideration by the DC Council later this year.
For nearby residents, however, the release answers some long-standing questions while leaving others unresolved.
The master plan establishes where housing, parks, commercial districts and major streets will be located, but many of the transportation details that have generated the greatest neighborhood concern, including roadway widths, traffic operations, parking design and transit infrastructure, remain subject to future engineering studies and environmental review.
That distinction became a recurring theme during a public webinar introducing the draft plan Tuesday evening.
“This planning effort builds on engagement that started nearly a year ago,” Office of Planning Associate Director Heba El Gawish said, describing the document as a long-term framework that establishes land uses, zoning recommendations, urban design expectations and a vision for the site’s redevelopment rather than detailed engineering plans.
The Plan
The draft plan proposes between 5,000 and 6,500 housing units, at least 30 percent of them affordable, along with six to eight million square feet of mixed-use development, neighborhood retail, hotels, entertainment venues and a new SportsPlex recreation complex. Officials estimate the project would create roughly 14,000 construction jobs and 2,000 permanent jobs while opening the riverfront and reconnecting Ward 6 and Ward 7 through new streets, parks and trails.
The framework divides the campus into six districts. The Washington Commanders will develop the Stadium, Plaza and Riverfront districts, while the District will oversee the Kingman Park District, Recreation District and Anacostia Commons. Together, planners say, the districts are intended to function as neighborhoods rather than simply a stadium complex.
Traffic Concerns
Transportation, however, remains one of the project’s biggest unresolved questions and that is what dominated discussion after the presentation. Officials repeatedly emphasized that the master plan establishes the street network but not the final design of individual roads. Those decisions, they said, will be made during subsequent engineering and transportation studies.
Traffic and circulation dominated the question part of the meeting, with residents zeroing in on how the new street network would affect neighborhood character and game day congestion. They particularly questioned a proposed new north–south street, referencing the image of a five‑lane road that would cut from Benning Road to C Street NE through the Oklahoma lawn. In preliminary drawings, the road is depicted with a 55 foot median beside it that is labeled as a linear park.
The master plan also proposes that C Street and Independence Avenue be converted into two-way streets. Residents questioned how that could be accomplished under current conditions; for instance, C Street currently has three separate uses: a travel lane, parking lane and protected bike lanes.
DDOT framed drawings as explicitly conceptual, stressing that it was a starting point for discussion rather than a final plan.
“We have to let the traffic analysis progress further alongside the environmental review before we can finalize roadway widths, lane configurations and things like that,” said DDOT Senior Transportation Planner Preston Jutte.
DDOT also emphasized that traffic decisions are tightly coupled to the federal NEPA process and cannot be finalized in isolation. The traffic study moves “in lockstep” with the required Environmental Impact Statement and depends on assumptions that come out of the master plan itself, such as where development is ultimately programmed on the site.Preston described this as a deliberately iterative, almost circular relationship between land‑use planning and traffic modeling:
“There’s sort of this feedback loop of what will the future look like and then that is an input into the traffic analysis,” Jutte said, emphasizing that the traffic analysis would not be complete until the EIS, probably in summer 2027.
Another critical question for residents is parking. 8,000 total spaces are planned for a 65,000-seat stadium on opening day. 6,000 will be in garages and 2,000 are in surface lots located in both the Plaza and Riverfront Districts, areas that are slated to be redeveloped at a later date.
Residents had questions about the garage height, which is depicted as eight stories in renderings. But planners said that is illustrative and final design will come after the Commanders complete design work. Parking is a major point of public concern; DDOT and OP emphasized that current illustrations are not final.
Legislation sets out timelines for development of each of the districts. The Riverfront District, site of the largest temporary parking lot, must be in development 13 years after zoning has been approved. OP said they expect Council to adopt the master plan by the end of 2026, then file zoning text/map amendments in early 2027, with Zoning Commission action likely in mid–late 2027.
DDOT said the traffic study and key roadway decisions are tied to the NEPA Environmental Impact Statement, expected by summer 2027 at the latest. Together, that puts the major regulatory pieces—zoning and the traffic and environmental studies—on roughly the same timeline, sometime in mid-2027, nearly a year after the master plan is approved.
Transit
The draft master plan embraces a “transit-first” vision built around improvements to Stadium-Armory Metro station, a new transit center and a proposed Gold Line bus rapid transit route connecting RFK with Union Station. Protected bicycle facilities, shared-use trails and improved pedestrian connections also feature prominently throughout the document.
Those improvements reflect WMATA’s conclusion in a May study of transit needs on the site that Stadium-Armory Station cannot safely accommodate crowds expected after games at a 65,000-seat stadium in its current form.
Metro estimates roughly 25,000 attendees would arrive by car while approximately 40,000 would use transit or other transportation. Without major investments, WMATA estimates nearly 32,000 riders attempting to leave by Metro after an event could require more than two hours to clear the station. The agency instead recommends expanding Stadium-Armory and constructing a Gold Line bus rapid transit corridor rather than building a second Metro station near Oklahoma Avenue.
Ward 7 Councilmember Wendell Felder (D) welcomed portions of that strategy while arguing additional investment should extend farther east.
“The proposed improvements at Stadium-Armory are welcomed,” Felder said in a statement to the Hill Rag. “However, I would like to see further conversation about improvements to other nearby Metro stations in the ward such as Benning Road, Minnesota Ave., and Deanwood. Each of these stations are equally important to increase capacity and improve east-west connectivity as the area prepares to accommodate an influx of visitors. If we only focus investments on one station, we run the risk of placing unnecessary strain on Stadium-Armory.”
Felder also said he supports a proposed Gold Line bus rapid transit route, which would replace the streetcar service recently terminated on H Street NE. But Felder said he wants greater clarity about how it will connect with other transportation projects already underway.
“I also look forward to gaining greater clarity on how WMATA’s recommendations align with existing District Department of Transportation projects such as the East Capitol Safety and Mobility Project and the Benning Road Bridge, and learning more about Metro’s proposed operational strategies to manage crowds,” the councilmember said.
Community Reaction
The Friends of Kingman Park (FOKP) RFK Futures Committee has been working to establish collaboration and communication between those living near the site and those planning the development. Committee member Sarah Miller has spent months studying planning documents closely enough to build a scale model of the proposed redevelopment.
“There are no people in it yet,” Miller said recently, noting that a person would measure about the size of a grain of rice at the model’s scale. The model, she said, helps residents understand a project that many still find difficult to visualize.
Committee members say they support redevelopment and welcome the Commanders’ return to Washington. Their concern is whether transportation decisions are becoming fixed before the public has enough information to evaluate their long-term effects.
“It’s hard to know what we’re even commenting on sometimes,” said committee member Alexis Pazmino.
The FOKP committee is particularly concerned with the five-lane roadway adjacent to Kingman Park, arguing it could separate existing neighborhoods from new development while increasing traffic through an area now used for recreation, walking and cycling.
“It’s incredibly disrespectful,” Miller said of plans showing a narrow strip of green space beside the roadway labeled a “linear park.” “And it’s disingenuous to have these standards for other spaces in the city and then not apply them on a development that doesn’t even exist now.”
Pazmino worries the neighborhood could lose the open space residents currently enjoy. “If we’re stuck with a parking garage and mixed-use development and a big road in the middle of our lawn, that’s not Kingman Park,” she said.
Next Steps
The master plan itself leaves many of those questions for the future. While it establishes where new streets, parks and development will occur, officials repeatedly explained Tuesday that detailed roadway engineering, traffic operations, environmental review and transportation design will proceed through separate processes over the coming several years.
Councilmember Charles Allen (D), Chair of the Council Committee on Transportation and the Environment, is holding a public roundtable on transportation at the site July 1 starting at 10 a.m.
That distinction may frustrate some residents, but planners argue it reflects the purpose of a master plan. Rather than serving as construction drawings, the document establishes the land-use framework that future transportation, architectural and engineering decisions must follow.
For Kingman Park residents, that means the current comment period may shape the overall vision even as many of the details they care about most remain unresolved.
Residents can weigh in on the draft RFK Campus Master Plan during the 45‑day formal public comment period through August 14. Submit comments via the online form at rfk.dc.gov, by emailing op.rfkmasterplan@dc.gov, by giving in‑person testimony at a public meeting August 1 at St. Coletta of Greater Washington (1901 Independence Ave. SE) from 10 a.m.–2 p.m. The project team is also tabling at the RFK Farmers Market on July 11 and the H Street NE Farmers Market on July 18, both from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
See the presentation and the full Master Plan at ourrfk.dc.gov.
