As a DC resident, I am proud that our city single-handedly lured baseball back to DC and built a new stadium on time and on budget. While every one of our neighboring jurisdictions is suffering through budget shortfalls and mismanaged bureaucracies, DC is a shining star of sound fiscal policies and good government. The stadium will pay itself back and then some.

"Disingenuous" may not be the right word, but there were three very important omissions:

1. Maintenance and rehabilitation costs. What will they be and who will bear them? And shouldn't the Nationals' rent be applied against these costs rather than the construction costs?

2. Revenue from taxes on ticket and concession sales presumes an average attendance of 30,000 per game. But only 18,000 season-ticket-equivalents have been sold (4,000 FEWER than 2005), and it is unlikely, at least for this year, that the difference will be made up by individual game ticket sales. Similarly, revenue from the gross receipts tax is based on projections that may not bear out in a down economy.

3. The stadium agreement obliges the District to make significant capital improvements during the 30-year life of the lease in order to keep the stadium in the front rank of major league ballparks. This is an open-ended and unfunded liability.

Of course, the Post also didn't take into account increased tax revenues from development around the ballpark, but this was appropriate in view of the dispute over the extent to which that development would have occurred even without the ballpark.

Development definitely would have happened in that area even without the ballpark as several projects were already approved and under construction.

However, the property values, against which taxes are assessed, would have been significantly lower without the ballpark. Just look at how land values spiked after the stadium was announced. Prior to the ballpark decision, land was trading at about $30/FAR sf. After the ballpark, it started trading at $60/FAR sf and is now up into the $80/FAR sf range and holding. This translates into almost 3 times more tax revenenue than would have been expected without the ballpark.

The development might have eventually occured in a piecemeal fashion. But the stadium spurred greater levels and coordination for development. The next plan should be the removal of the poorly maintained low income housing off South Capitol Street and replacing it with mixed-income housing, community rec center and a police substation.