Braddock Road Community Coalition
Please help us raise money at our GoFundMe page so we can better organize as a community.
Mission Statement
We, the Concerned Neighbors for Sustainable Development, unite with a shared commitment to preserve the residential character and environmental balance of our community surrounding George Mason University. Our mission is to actively oppose and halt the construction of a cricket stadium on the university premises intended for commercial use, diverging from its original collegiate purpose.
“We are planning a series of community engagements to continue the dialogue and have more of a two-way conversation, as we share more about our activities on the west campus.” – GMU President Dr.Gregory Washington February 14, 2024
It has been 96 days since Dr. Washington’s promise without engagement.
George Mason University recently announced a 10,000+ person commercial sports stadium development on its West Campus without regard for the surrounding community who will be directly impacted by this development. The stadium is not designed to serve GMU’s purpose as an institute for higher learning, rather it is providing a billionaire with tax-exempt land that skirts the normal development process any private actor would have to engage in if they were attempting to construct a stadium like this on private land. If this stadium were to be built on private land, the commercial enterprise would have been subject to the oversight of state and local governments as is happening with the recent proposal for building professional stadiums in Alexandria.
We, the community around GMU’s West Campus, have repeatedly asked to be included in these development discussions to express our concerns and get clarity on the plans. Those requests for open and honest dialogue have gone completely unanswered and, in fact, the stadium’s ground lease review was conducted in a special closed door meeting by the Board of Visitors. We are the taxpayers who will be burdened with the infrastructure, traffic and community costs and concerns a large commercial stadium would bring while the private professional sports team will not have to contribute to that tax base at all given its location on tax-exempt state land.
Letter posted to State and Local representatives
