Small and local construction firms in the District will get their first organized shot at landing work on the new Washington Commanders stadium when the project’s builders host a free outreach expo next month at Capital Turnaround, 700 M St SE. Clark | Mortenson | SmootDC, the joint venture selected to build the $2.7 billion stadium, is running the event alongside D.C. workforce agencies and Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office to walk vendors, suppliers, prime contractors, and certified business enterprises through how to get in on the bidding.
The event, called First & Goal, runs from 7:30 a.m. to noon on September 9 at the Navy Yard-area event space. According to the joint venture’s own announcement, shared by Mayor Bowser on Facebook, attendees will learn about the CMS team’s procurement process, trade partner criteria, and upcoming bid timelines. Participation costs nothing, but attendees must register either by scanning a QR code or visiting clrk.cc/cmsjv-outreach, and the CMS team is fielding questions at [email protected].
Workshops Target Certification and Labor Rules
The expo includes dedicated workshops on becoming a Certified Business Enterprise, on apprenticeship requirements and resources, and on the project labor agreement governing the stadium’s construction workforce. Those sessions map directly onto District law: under regulations administered by the Department of Small and Local Business Development, developers on government-assisted private projects like this one must subcontract at least 35% of the adjusted project budget to D.C.-certified CBEs, according to the DSLBD.
Separately, the Department of Employment Services’ First Source Employment Agreement law requires contractors on city-backed construction to prioritize D.C. residents for at least 51% of new positions, with 35% of apprenticeship hours worked by District-registered apprentices, per DOES. That law was first enacted in 1984 and updated in 2011 to maximize local employment from city-backed investments. Also in the mix is the District’s Project Labor Agreement threshold, which the D.C. Council lowered from $75 million to $50 million in legislation passed in August 2024 that took effect October 1, 2025, according to the D.C. Department of General Services. PLAs set standardized wage rates, working conditions, and labor dispute resolution rules across every trade on the job.
A Joint Venture With Local Stadium Experience
The prime contractor team, Clark | Mortenson | SmootDC, was selected by the Commanders on August 11 to build the roughly 1.8-million-square-foot stadium, with groundbreaking planned for spring 2027 and completion targeted for spring 2030, according to Bisnow. Preliminary site work at the former RFK Stadium grounds began back in June, the outlet reports. Two of the three joint venture partners, Clark Construction and Smoot Construction, previously teamed up to build Nationals Park in Navy Yard between 2006 and 2008, and Clark is currently overseeing major renovations at Capital One Arena downtown, set to wrap in 2027. The third partner, Mortenson, has built NFL venues including Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas and U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, per the same report…