Audi Field - Gorove Slade

Smart Transportation Solutions for a D.C. Sports Destination

Description

Audi Field is the home for D.C. United, the District of Columbia’s major league soccer (MLS) franchise. Completed in 2018, this Buzzard Point development boasts a modern facility with the capacity for 20,000 cheering fans featuring 31 luxury suites, an on-site bike valet, team offices, and team store. The Washington Spirit, a National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) team, and DC Defenders, an XFL team, also use Audi Field for their home games, making it a year-round destination and a site of constant movement of people and vehicles.

D.C. United engaged Gorove Slade early in the process, starting with a strategic planning document, the Transportation Management Plan (TMP) for the stadium. The TMP included a review of spectator travel demands and operational and infrastructure recommendations for all modes of travel on how to accommodate those demands on game days. After review by all stakeholders, including community associations and the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), it served as the guiding document for future phases.

Then, Gorove Slade assisted with the stadium design, working with the architecture firm Populous to incorporate TMP strategies. This included helping to design the stadium’s loading docks, locating and designing entry gates based on anticipated arrival routes, assisting with the bike valet and parking located on site, and designing a game day pedestrian-only street. At the same time, Gorove Slade assisted DDOT with planning and designing new bicycle lanes along 2nd Street SW and Potomac Avenue SW.

Gorove Slade prepared the studies needed for the stadium’s entitlement via a Planned Unit Development (PUD) application for the DC Zoning Commission to approve the use on this site. As part of this effort, Gorove Slade prepared a Comprehensive Transportation Review (CTR) that analyzed trip generation, traffic operations, and the transit, pedestrian, and bicycle facilities that were essential to the project’s success. Our experts testified at the Zoning Commission on behalf of the team and helped gain final approvals for the stadium.

Finally, Gorove Slade wrote the opening day Transportation Operations and Parking Plan (TOPP) for Audi Field. The TOPP is an operations document, outlining and detailing specific actions and responsibilities that occur on game days of various sizes, essentially acting as a game day ‘instruction manual’ to be used by the team, DDOT, police, and other agencies.