page_title: Anacostia Waterfront Corporation
section_title: Baseball District
hierarchical_section_title: Anacostia Waterfront Corporation / Activities / Baseball District
caption_attribution_description: Nationals Park &#32;and&#32; Navy Yard English: Aerial view of Nationals Park and the surrounding Navy Yard neighborhood in Washington, D.C.
context_page_description: The Anacostia Waterfront Corporation was a government-owned corporation established in 2004 by the government of District of Columbia, to revitalize neighborhoods next to the Anacostia River and to coordinate the environmental rehabilitation and use of the river. The corporation was intended to have a 20-year lifespan, during which it would oversee an $8 billion public-private redevelopment plan covering the Anacostia River waterfront, as well as numerous parcels of land in the city east of the river. However, a change in mayoral administrations and frustration with the slow pace of redevelopment resulted in abolition of the corporation after three years.
context_section_description: The AWC was a proponent of building Nationals Park, a new baseball stadium, to be the home field of the Washington Nationals Major League Baseball team. The stadium quickly became AWC's biggest redevelopment project, which the corporation called the "Baseball District." The AWC began negotiating in August 2005 to buy land near the ballpark in order to spur development and turn the area around the stadium into an attraction similar to area around the Verizon Center in Chinatown. A 40 acres (16 ha) site with hotels, office space, parks, residential housing, retail shops, and restaurants was envisioned. As part of its development effort, the AWC feuded publicly with the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission, calling for underground rather than surface parking. The Washington Nationals' ownership demanded above-ground parking as well. A deal was struck in June 2006 to build both parking garages above-ground, but to surround them with high-rise condominium buildings so they would not be eyesores. When the deal collapsed three months later, the AWC tried to buy the land for $1 million.
  In December 2005, the AWC named two master planning teams to help oversee the design of the Baseball District. When the cost of building the stadium soared by 25 percent to $667 million, the AWC was asked to sell development rights on its land adjacent to the stadium to cover the cost overruns. By June 2006, feuding over the development had resulted in Mayor Williams' creating an Office of Baseball on his staff to oversee development of the Ballpark District. A draft master plan was released in late June 2006.
caption: Nationals Park, with completed and under-construction buildings of the Baseball District in the background.
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