Prince George’s County Executive Aisha Braveboy’s still-new administration appears to have secured its signature win this week.
After weeks of negotiation, the County Council on Monday gave its initial approval to a set of agreements with the county executive and Sphere Entertainment for its plans to build a smaller version of its Las Vegas entertainment venue at National Harbor.
“My role is to just bring everyone together — to listen, to hear concerns, try to come to consensus. But, ultimately, we have to move projects forward,” Braveboy said in a press conference Monday.
The council’s decision comes after some of the state’s most powerful politicians pushed for a resolution to increasingly tense negotiations between the council, Braveboy’s office and Sphere executives.
It also marked a defining moment for Braveboy, showing that she can secure the votes necessary to advance important projects, and could provide momentum for the start of her first full term, if she wins the general election in November against write-in candidate Tonya Sweat, Braveboy’s allies said.
“This creates an open lane to show that Prince George’s County can handle a project of this scale‚” said Alexander Austin, president and CEO of the Prince George’s Chamber of Commerce. “And we want projects of this scale.”
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The agreements, which one union president called a disappointment, include requirements for small and minority-owned businesses at a time when deep cuts to federal agencies under President Donald Trump have reduced or dismantled opportunities for contractors, including programs meant for small businesses owned by socially and economically disadvantaged groups.
Fears that the County Council would vote to require a labor agreement as a condition of public financing the county has promised, potentially prompting Sphere to pull out of Prince George’s, have for now been alleviated — though not without powerful intervention.
Amid rising concern that the council’s tactics and stalling negotiations could doom the project, Gov. Wes Moore, along with one of his top advisors and the administration’s lead on the Sphere project, Manny Welsh; his labor relations director, Dyana Forester; and House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk, among others, took an active role in negotiations.
They called or met with council members to stress the project’s importance and ensure a deal was reached that kept things moving forward, according to multiple people familiar with the negotiations who confirmed the officials’ involvement on the condition of anonymity.
Braveboy’s office did not make her available for an interview for this story, and her spokesperson, Brian Fischer, did not respond to a request for comment, including about state officials’ involvement.
Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for the governor, said Moore and Braveboy partnered to bring the Sphere to National Harbor.
“The Governor and his team engaged in productive conversations with council members and stakeholders to ensure that this transformational project can continue,” Moussa said in a statement.
Peña-Melnyk couldn’t be reached for comment.
The stakes were high for Braveboy.
One of her predecessors, Rushern Baker, said any failure could have prompted state officials to rethink pitching Prince George’s County as a destination for future projects and investments.
“Your administration will rise or fall on getting that first significant deal done,” said Baker, who served as county executive from 2010 to 2018.
Several of Braveboy’s predecessors oversaw big-time developments at National Harbor.
Wayne Curry landed the deal that ushered in National Harbor, while Jack Johnson was at the helm for its groundbreaking and the opening of the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center — National Harbor’s original anchor.
Baker led the negotiations to secure the MGM National Harbor Hotel & Casino.
Had the negotiations failed, and Sphere’s executives in New York decided to pull out, Braveboy, who has been in office since winning a special election in June 2025 after Angela Alsobrooks left for the U.S. Senate, would have carried the blame.
Attracting additional large-scale developments, including at the Six Flags America site in Bowie and at Northwest Stadium in Landover after the Commanders’ expected departure, could have become all the more difficult.
After advancing the Sphere project, officials and investors who are considering Prince George’s County will now see Braveboy as a leader “who can go to bat and get it done,” Baker said.
Some of the council’s most staunch union advocates abandoned their push for a labor agreement, which Sphere executives had identified as a red line, to provide the votes needed to advance a financing bill.
“We cannot afford to have Sphere walk away,” council member Wala Blegay, who spent years in the labor movement and worked as a laborattorney, said after voting against an amendment that would have added labor requirements to the bill.
She said that voting against the union priority made Monday “a painful day for me.”
In the weeks leading up to the council’s vote, Braveboy walked a tightrope.
She weighed competing concerns from longtime friends on the council, political allies in labor unions and Sphere executives, whose project is expected to create thousands of jobs and generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue for the county, which is currently staring down a $151 million deficit.
At a time when the FBI’s relocation to Greenbelt is stalled, the Six Flags site sits dormant and the Commanders are nearing the end of their time in Landover, the Sphere also represents a much-needed shot in the arm for Prince George’s County.
Negotiations were precarious in recent weeks, and frustrations spilled into public view during a tense hearing in late September, when council Chair Krystal Oriadha accused a Sphere executive of disrespecting and offending county residents.
Braveboy presented a united front during this stretch and after Monday’s council meeting.
“They are really good people, and I think we all care about the future of Prince George’s County. We all have different constituencies, different relationships,” Braveboy said of the council. “And so, sometimes votes are tough.”
Braveboy said Sphere has agreed to award at least half of construction dollars to county small businesses and 40% to minority-owned businesses. Many of the county small businesses are also minority-owned.
Braveboy has said the requirements for local and minority business participation “represent the largest percentage of any major project in Prince George’s County’s history.”
Sphere has pledged to allocate similar percentages of its operations spending to these businesses.
The deal also includes a labor peace agreement that Braveboy said will allow Sphere employees the opportunity to join a union.
A Sphere representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Edward Burroughs, Braveboy’s longtime friend and the council member whose district includes National Harbor, proposed an amendment Monday that would have required Sphere to hire a percentage of union workers. But his colleagues voted the measure down.
He still said the county executive “did a tremendous job” of balancing competing concerns, including those of 11 council members who are “very passionate about various aspects of the deal,” such as guarantees for minority-owned businesses, unions and, in Burroughs’s case, the communities surrounding National Harbor.
“There are a lot of moving pieces in a deal of this magnitude. And it’s not easy,” he said.
The council is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the financing bill and must cast a final vote by the end of the month.
Greg Akerman, president of the Baltimore-D.C. Metro Building Trades Council, which represents the region’s 22 construction trade unions, said his organization was disappointed that the project was moving forward without labor agreements for its workers.
He said in a statement that developments without such agreements “are often riddled with wage theft.
“Going forward,” he said, ”Prince George’s County must prioritize developments that guarantee good union jobs for local residents."
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