Cooke Discussed Stadium Plans With D.C. Mayor Marion Barry

One day before he was arrested, Mayor Marion Barry met for several hours with Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke at Cooke’s Middleburg, Va., estate to discuss specific plans for a 78,000-seat stadium next to RFK Stadium, sources have confirmed.

At the Jan. 17 meeting, Cooke presented plans for the stadium, complete with lucrative skyboxes and other amenities, according to a monthly report on commercial real-estate circulated this week to area real-estate executives. It was believed to be the first time Cooke has shown plans for his stadium to D.C. Armory Board officials, who had expressed impatience with Cooke on this issue.

“At the meeting, Cooke reportedly even conceded to having high-rise parking built instead of taking nine holes of the (Langston) golf course,” according to the public-relations firm of Arthur J. Schultz and Co., which writes the report for Smithy Braedon, a commercial real-estate services company.

Cooke declined comment. Artis Hampshire-Cowan, general counsel to the Armory Board, called the meeting “good and fruitful,” but refused to discuss details.

Hampshire-Cowan said that despite Barry’s arrest and subsequent decision to enter a rehabilitation center in Florida, negotiations between Cooke and the Armory Board are “on the fast track.”

She said she spoke to Barry the day after his arrest specifically about the stadium. “The mayor and I discussed what’s going on with the stadium and he instructed me to proceed,” she said.

With the Redskins’ 30-year lease on RFK Stadium set to expire at the end of the year, Cooke told Barry in a Dec. 13, 1989, letter obtained by The Washington Post that he still wanted to build a stadium next to RFK but was exploring “other locations for the new stadium.”

Sources have said that major environmental problems may make it extremely difficult for Cooke to begin construction of a stadium in the District.

Among concerns is the issue of filling in a portion of the Anacostia River and reconfiguring parts of Langston Golf Course to make room for the stadium and parking. But that problem might be solved with Cooke’s reported interest in high-rise parking.

Another meeting between Cooke and Armory Board officials is scheduled for early March, according to the Smithy Braedon report.