There's an editorial in the D.C. Examiner today regarding the Nationals new ballpark and its costs to the city.

The piece raises some very important issues, most notably that the stadium is over budget as a result of increased costs for land and environmental remediation at the ballpark site. But from what I can tell, the editorial contains a few factual errors and a misleading statement.

The Examiner repeatedly refers to the $611 million "cap" on city expenditures passed by the D.C. Council.

But the Council's "cap" only applies to $475 million to be spent on the hard and soft costs of the stadium. ($300 million for hard, $175 million for soft.)

And when it comes to the cap, the city is actually on target to be under target, with about $12 million left in contingency.

The Council's cap did not apply to $24 million set aside for renovation of RFK Stadium or $111 million estimated for the cost of land and environmental cleanup. The cost of land and environmental remediation was not capped by the Council, because eminent domain cases would be up to a judge in many instances. (Members of the media, myself included, have admittedly done a poor job of explaining the cap issue.)

As it turns out, it's clear that city officials did underestimate how much land would eventually cost. But not to the extent the Examiner claims.

The Examiner says "the total price tag of the new stadium has now reached $674 million -- $63 million over the cap taxpayers were promised would not be exceeded -- due to settlements in some eminent domain cases and increased site remediation costs."

It is accurate that the new projected cost of the stadium is $674 million. But the $63 million cited by the Examiner is wrong, according to the latest budget statement from the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission. That budget table shows the additional cost is actually $43 million, broken down as follows:
-$30 million for land (was $97 million, is now $127 million)
-$951,170 in additional support services
-$4.75 million for eminent domain legal services
-$7.3 million for environment remediation (was $8.5 million, is now $15.9 million)

It appears that the Examiner is basing its overrun figure on a budget of $610 million. The actual original budget was about $631 million ($610.8 million from the city, $20 million from the team.

The Examiner says that "according to the city's official 2007 budget figures, the District's contribution to the stadium was supposed to be $630.8 million -- compared to $20 million from the team's owners."

As stated above, the city was supposed to contribute $610.8 million, while the team is contributing $20 million, bringing the total to about $631 million.

The Examiner states that the total cost of the project will be "closer to $759 million" when you include the cost of settling eminent domain lawsuits and a lawsuit with developer Herb Miller and upgrading nearby roads and the Douglass Bridge.

It's true that the costs of settling remaining eminent domain lawsuits and settling with Miller could bring costs up. But those costs are unknown at the moment. Furthermore, the cost of upgrades to roads and the Douglass Bridge are not part of the stadium's budget. There can be a reasonable debate about whether those costs should have been included in the final budget, but they were not.

The Examiner refers to the baseball stadium as "$168 million over budget."

I do not know how they came to this number.

So I guess the question everyone will have is "will the stadium come in on budget?" And the answer is that no, the stadium is over budget as a result of more than $40 million increased costs for land and environmental cleanup. However, it's worth noting that the project will not violate the cost cap on hard and soft costs set by the council.