Maryland leaders expressed disappointment Monday at the Washington Commanders’ now-certain departure from the state, but said the football team is committed to ensuring that Prince George’s County will not be left with “blight” when the team leaves its current stadium.

Under an agreement announced Monday, the District of Columbia’s RFK Stadium site, where the NFL franchise played until moving to Landover in 1997, will be transformed into a massive Anacostia River waterfront development highlighted by a new stadium.

The team has called that site its “spiritual home,” and fans have long complained that its current gameday home, Northwest Stadium, lacks character and tradition and is not easily accessible by Metro.

“Save the date for Fall 2030. The Commanders are coming home!” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser wrote on X. “A state-of-the-art, roofed stadium means jobs, revenue, and opportunities year-round.”

The team said in a statement that it will invest at least $2.7 billion into the stadium and adjacent area, and the city will invest about another $1 billion.

Maryland did not concede until recently that the club would leave Landover. “We fought hard to keep the Washington Commanders in Maryland, working with state and local leaders beginning in 2023 and making our case for building the new stadium in Landover,” Gov. Wes Moore said in a written statement on Monday.But Moore, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen and other state leaders sought a commitment from the team last year that the Landover site would not be an eyesore if the club left, which would slow efforts already underway, with the state’s financial assistance, to revitalize the area.

“From the start our goal was to ensure that, whatever decision the Commanders made regarding their future stadium, they would abide by the commitments they made to me, Governor Moore and others to use the existing site in a manner that serves the best interests of the surrounding community,” Van Hollen said in a statement on Monday.

“While we remain disappointed in the team’s decision to move after 20 years of calling Maryland home, I recently received a call from the team owners assuring me that they would meet the commitments they made, including full implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding,” the senator said.

He referred to a document negotiated last year in which the team made a number of nonbinding promises.

Among them, according to a copy of the document:

The Commanders will maintain Northwest Stadium in “a first-class manner” before demolition begins.

The team will begin demolition within 90 days following its first home game at its new venue on the RFK Stadium site.

The team will collaborate with the state and Prince George’s County to turn the Landover site into a “vibrant, mixed use development.”

Moore, who said the state had proposed “a very competitive offer,” said the timeline and commitments “will ensure that the move will not create blight in the community. What’s important going forward is that the Landover community receives the investment that it deserves.”

The Memorandum of Understanding was negotiated last year and signed by Moore, Commanders owner Josh Harris and Tara H. Jackson, the acting Prince George’s County executive.

The city obtained congressional permission in December to take control of the federally owned RFK Stadium site, allowing a new stadium to be built.

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