Weekend Interview: Monumental Real Estate Head Jordan Silberman On $515M Deal To Keep Capitals, Wizards In D.C.

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The plan was in motion. D.C.’s NBA and NHL teams, the Wizards and Capitals, were preparing to move from their longtime home downtown to anchor a new $2B mixed-use entertainment district in a rapidly developing neighborhood of Northern Virginia. 

But in an upset, team owner Monumental Sports & Entertainment announced last week they would be staying at the Capital One Arena in D.C., where they’ve played since 1997.

With the agreement, D.C. committed $515M, which was approved Tuesday by the D.C. Council, for a renovation of the arena and a 200K SF expansion into a neighboring building, Gallery Place. The terms also call for a new practice facility for the Wizards, possibly on the top floors of Gallery Place, as well as safety and transportation infrastructure measures in the area. 

"What's so exciting about this opportunity for us is it's not just about us at Cap One, but it’s about all of downtown and what we mean to the future of this area," Monumental Sports President of Venues Jordan Silberman told Bisnow in an interview this week. 

Just four months ago, it seemed like a done deal that the teams would be leaving. Monumental CEO Ted Leonsis joined Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin to unveil the planned move and a 12-acre mixed-use district, to be developed by JBG Smith.

The move would have had massive implications not only for Virginia but back in D.C., leaving a gaping economic hole in a section of downtown that had struggled to recover from the pandemic.

But the vehicle to fund the development with $1.5B in taxpayer-backed bonds hit roadblocks in the state legislature, and lawmakers refused to include it in the annual budget last month. 

"I don't think we expected it to be as political of a process as it became," Silberman said. 

Silberman, who oversees the Capital One Arena and the company’s other sports facilities, spoke to Bisnow about the process, the pivot and the future of the arena.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Bisnow: Tell me about your day-to-day. What does your role entail?

Silberman: I'm president of venues for Monumental Sports & Entertainment. I’ve been in this specific role with different titles coming on three years now, since the pandemic, really, and I'm responsible for overseeing our real estate portfolio, inclusive of all the facilities that we manage. So, Capital One Arena as the crown jewel, District E, which we opened up about a year ago, and then the management of EagleBank Arena and the MedStar Health Performance Center, where the Wizards practice.

Bisnow: I want to start off by talking about the big news from last week – the agreement between D.C. and Monumental to keep the teams at Capital One. Tell me a little bit about your role in those discussions and how that all came together, from your point of view as the president of venues. 

Silberman: Ted has talked a lot about it in the media over the last couple of weeks. We had a framework of an agreement with Virginia, but it was just a framework of an agreement. And he continued to maintain a dialogue with the mayor at the most senior level over the last couple of months. And as that process played out in Virginia, the Virginia process, which seemed to be a lot more political than we had originally thought to be, became more and more political as the process went along. And the process in D.C., which we thought might have been problematic from a political standpoint, became more and more business-friendly. And over the last couple of weeks, there was certainly a pivot as we came to terms with D.C. And I think the mayor and the council, specifically [D.C. Council Chairman] Phil Mendelson's office, were hugely important in coming together in a business-first kind of approach.

Bisnow: Let's talk about your plan for Capital One. What are some of your biggest priorities as you look ahead to the modernization and expansion? 

Silberman: I think in D.C., and nationally, there's been such success around sports and entertainment-anchored facilities and what it means to a neighborhood and a city. We've seen the success of it locally, not only with Capital One when the building was opened in 1997 but also what's happened around Nationals Park and at the Wharf, with the entertainment-focused development around those areas and what has helped to uplift the surrounding neighborhoods. 

I think what's so exciting is about the work that the mayor has done and the commitment that they've made between the Chinatown Task Force, the Downtown Action Plan, the Safe Commercial Corridor Hub, the anti-crime legislation that they passed and drug free zone that was established in the last month, to really focus on the surrounding area, and to help promote business, specifically around entertainment areas. So I think what's so exciting about this opportunity for us is it's not just about us at Cap One, but it’s about all of downtown and what we mean to the future of this area.

Now, obviously, we want to have a door-to-door kind of great fan experience from the time people leave their house, whether that's in the city or Maryland or Virginia getting here. So solving for transportation is hugely important. And the city is committed to helping that through things like light synchronization and street closures with [the Metropolitan Police Department] and dedicated rideshare drop-off areas. 

But also fixing some of the game day experience inside the facility itself. So safety is important outside, but once you get inside the building, from street to seat is really important. And we want to get people in the building, through security, up to their seats in as streamlined and efficient of a way as we can. Get your beer in record time, into your seat and not missing a second of action. 

The building, it was built in a completely different era. And what this investment will do is allow us an opportunity to rethink how we do everything here. And it's totally transformational. And we're really excited about the opportunity that we have. 

Bisnow: Do you want to talk about some specifics of things that you're thinking about? 

Silberman: A lot of what we want to change is getting more tailored, experiential and premium experiences. If you were just renovating inside the four walls of Capital One, it'd be really hard for us to do. And with the expansion into Gallery Place, that really opens up a lot of opportunity for us. We can take upwards of 200K SF inside Gallery Place. 

It’s not like we’re going to put all premium space in Gallery Place. But we have key back-of-house areas that are located around the facility, on the event level, where the trucks load in, engineering shops and employee break rooms. All of that stuff that doesn't necessarily need to be touching the arena bowl can then move over to some of the space inside Gallery Place. That allows us to free up more room for premium spaces, for player spaces, for fan spaces and that's what we're really going to focus on, moving the things that aren't necessarily critical to have the direct adjacency to free up more area inside the building.

Our concourses are tight, our entrance experience is narrow and we don't have much vertical circulation around the building. So by getting more space inside Gallery Place, we could have a new dedicated entrance. The space that is currently VIDA [Fitness] right now can become a new entrance and we can add circulation for the building to get people to their seats as efficiently as possible.

Bisnow: In terms of financing, the District’s agreed to $515M. How much on top of that does Monumental see that it would need to provide?

Silberman: We're looking at this as a $700M to $800M investment. We have some work cut out for us, and now that we have the space within Gallery Place, we've studied this previously. But again, that was within the four walls of Cap One, and we were talking about things like changing the rake inside the bowl. But to some of those areas that I was talking about, by freeing up space with direct bowl access we can actually get our premium seat count higher by not having to change that rake like we were originally contemplating.

Right now we're less than 20% premium seats and the goal is to get somewhere around 40%. So we're going to think and strategize with our group of architects over the next couple months to really determine a plan to renovate the facility.

Bisnow: What types of companies would you be looking to bring on with this effort? 

Silberman: We’ll bring in architects. We’ll bring in construction companies. We’ll bring in project managers. We'll bring in consultants to help with the fan experience and developing a new app for the facility. I think that we're going to be partnering with a lot of businesses and then hopefully local businesses to help deliver this renovation.

Bisnow: You say local businesses. Do you have any thresholds or goals for how many local businesses? What percentage? 

Silberman: There are targets within our agreement with the city of 50% that we are going to be shooting for to try to make sure that we are really leaning into D.C.-based employment.

Bisnow: What does your timeline look like?

Silberman: This is all kind of subject to the design process. But the thought would be to do this over the course of three summers, starting in earnest next summer. We'll start the day the Caps and the Wizards win the Stanley Cup and the NBA Finals and go through the start of the following season. 

There's something about the law of events that if you're doing a construction project, you're going to make a deep run. So we'll count on our teams to go the distance over the next couple of years, but the majority of the work will take place over the course of summer months in three consecutive years.

Bisnow: You mentioned this, but I wanted to hone in more on this 200K SF of space at Gallery Place, or upwards, which Monumental has mentioned could include a practice facility. Talk about some of those plans.

Silberman: Gallery Place is key to us staying here. I talked about what it unlocks for us from back-of-house areas on the event level that then free up team space and premium space inside the arena, what it means to the alley and the entry sequence for our fans, delivering a much better experience for people getting in and out of the building, helping with some of the vertical circulation.

But also I think there's a lot of opportunity for the total revitalization of Gallery Place in the Chinatown area. Much of the building is empty right now, from a retail perspective, except for District E and Clydes. But the goal is that we will help anchor the redevelopment of that facility with the MRP Realty group and the redevelopment of Gallery Place. So we're looking at and we'll study moving the Wizards practice facility into the top floors of the office tower on 616 H Street inside the facility, among other kinds of retail and premium opportunities that exist. 

Bisnow: How much space would you envision being devoted to that practice facility? 

Silberman: The practice facility will be well over 100K SF, wherever it's built.

Bisnow: You mentioned MRP is preparing to take over ownership of Gallery Place. What have your conversations with them looked like?

Silberman: They've been great. They're excited about bringing us under the tent and being part of our process to help fix a lot of the issues that we have at Cap One. They've essentially said you can have whatever you need to have, we're here for the success of downtown D.C. [MRP Realty Managing Principal] Bob Murphy and his team are great and they totally understand it and are committed to the neighborhood and downtown D.C. in its full redevelopment. They've been great partners to date.

Bisnow: Have fans provided you with feedback on the arena as it stands now? And what stands out from that feedback from fans on what they'd like to see? 

Silberman: We have a pretty robust fan survey. A lot of it is the stuff that I've talked about, like people don't like waiting in lines. They don't like feeling like sardines on the concourse. They want to get back and forth to the restroom at intermission or halftime more quickly. They want a colder beer and a warmer hotdog. 

And that's our goal is to make the fan experience better all across the board. It's not just premium space, it’s the everyman seat too, to give a better experience on each of the levels and give everybody a tailored, curated experience that will differentiate it from somebody watching a game at home. And that's our goal.

Bisnow: Are you looking at examples from other cities of sports developments as you plan for the future of Capital One? 

Silberman: It's definitely on trend right now to have sports-anchored development. Our location is unrivaled in terms of where we are, on top of Gallery Place metro and in the heart of downtown, almost central between the White House and the Capitol.

We've seen the success of it recently with the Wharf and Nats Park locally, and expect the pendulum to swing back this way. And I think that the mayor and council are committed to the revitalization of the area. And much of the work that [Edens CEO] Jodie McLean and [Uplands Real Estate principal] Debbie Ratner Salzburg have been championing on the Gallery Place Task Force will still need to happen. The work is done now, just because we're staying in downtown. A lot needs to happen for this entire downtown area to be successful. We need to make sure that we have pathways for more residential conversions. We need people to feel safe and secure downtown. We need businesses to come back. And I think that the mayor is certainly committed, not only through the creation of the task force and to come up with new ideas about how to do it, but some of the work that she's already outlined in the Downtown Action Plan.

Bisnow: In Virginia, you were planning to build on 12 acres of land a $2B entertainment district. Could you talk about some of the appeal of those plans and how you’ve rerouted those priorities?

Silberman: I think we learned a lot in that experience of what we would want and what it takes to be successful and kind of have that landing area. The city came back to us with a strong offer to match everything that we were going to be able to achieve in Potomac Yard at Cap One – through the expansion into Gallery Place, to shutting down streets on game nights, to having fan plazas and activations, to coordinating some of the city services around safety and security. 

A lot of what was so enticing about Potomac Yard, the mayor and [Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development] Nina Albert and their whole staff really came to the table with a full menu of everything that was great about Potomac Yard. So we think that again, through the 200K SF at Gallery Place and what we're able to do with some of our existing office and tenant spaces inside Cap One, we’ll be able to replicate that same type of experience.

Bisnow: Were you surprised at some of the pushback you received from the Virginia legislature and groups in the area?

Silberman: I think that what we were bringing in terms of our businesses and two major league teams was a pretty incredible opportunity. I don't think we expected it to be as political of a process as it became. You know, Virginia certainly led with a business focus. And it ended with D.C. really being business-focused and finding a pathway for us to commit to 25 more years through 2050 at Capital One.

Bisnow: Through that, what did you learn about working with local governments and legislatures and communities and this kind of process?

Silberman: What we found at the city level is that the business and public community really wanted our project to succeed, and we learned that talking to local businesses in the local community to see really how impactful we are to a potential community.

And I understand that about D.C. too. I'm hoping to make sure that you know that us as a sports-anchored development with the Caps, Wizards and the concerts that we have here can really help lift up a community. And that’s where I think a lot of our focus will be “how do we help the surrounding blocks?” It's not just the $800M at Capital One. It's about how we raise the entire area.

Bisnow: We have two questions that we ask all of our weekend interviewees and the first is to make a bold prediction. And so for you, I'd like to ask if you have a bold prediction about sports and real estate. 

Silberman: I think that the pendulum is going to swing back into D.C.’s favor with sports, not just from what we've seen from a development perspective but also with teams’ performance. 2018, 2019 were great years for local sports teams. And I would expect by the time that we are finishing rounds of our renovations we'll be back in the conversation for championships at Capital One Arena.

Bisnow: You said construction projects and teams performing somehow go hand in hand. Is that something you've seen?

Silberman: The year that the [Entertainment & Sports Arena] opened up, the Mystics won the championship. So I think that we've seen it locally.

But I think that you know what we'll be doing here will highlight D.C. on a national level. I think it wouldn't be too far-fetched to think that we would be hosting NBA and NHL All-Star games here once we complete renovations as well. The mayor always talks about D.C. as being the sports capital and it’s part of our job to deliver that. 

Bisnow: The other question we ask is: what is your weekend routine?

Silberman: My weekend routine centers around my family. We wake up at seven in the morning, get my wife some time – some peace and quiet to herself, take the boys out of the house. When the weather's nice, spend time outside as much as we can as a family.

Get everybody down for nap. Have a little bit of “me time,” maybe a workout or two during a nap time. And then, ending the night with a Caps or Wizards win at Capital One Arena. There are no weekends. We work nights and weekends in this business.