The documents suggest the government steered a parkland lease through an unusually fast process that favored a businessman with a financial interest in the site.
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National Park Service officials repeatedly raised legal and environmental concerns over the Trump administration’s plan to lease public parkland, including the site of a professional tennis tournament, to a private operator widely expected to be the tournament’s operator, according to records reviewed by The Washington Post.
Park Service employees objected to leasing property that stretched well beyond the Rock Creek Tennis Center, where the long-running DC Open is played, and warned that the plan could affect an endangered-species habitat and run afoul of federal rules designed to keep parkland accessible to the public.
“The park vehemently disagrees with these lease boundaries,” officials wrote on draft lease documents, adding: “This lease proposal does not meet these legal requirements.”
The documents, obtained through a public-records request by an advocacy group that opposes the project, also suggest the federal government steered a long-term lease of public parkland through an unusually fast process that limited potential bidders and positioned Washington businessman Mark Ein, who has a direct financial interest in the health of the site, to win the contract.
Ein, who owns the DC Open, has been widely viewed by neighbors, park advocates and those in D.C. tennis circles as the most likely operator. Ein has pushed for upgrades to the facility for years, saying it needs substantial investment to keep the tournament in Washington. He has not publicly commented on the project, and a spokeswoman declined to comment.
National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit that advocates for the protection and preservation of national parks, obtained the documents through a public records request. Ed Stierli, the group’s Mid-Atlantic senior director, said the Park Service should reject any proposals before signing a lease agreement, complete environmental reviews and ensure the process remains competitive.
“These documents once again show how the Trump administration continues to bulldoze through Washington, D.C.’s national parks,” Stierli said. “They are handing public lands to private interests and ignoring the laws designed to protect national parks that belong to all Americans.”
The National Park Service publicly issued a request for proposals on Dec. 17, giving potential operators until Jan. 20 to submit bids to lease and refurbish the aging tennis complex in Rock Creek Park. The agency said at the time it hoped to have a lease in place by March 1.
Months later, however, no deal has been announced and federal officials have said little about the process.
Park Service officials did not respond to requests for comment. The Interior Department did not respond to a list of questions, but a spokesperson said in a statement that “we can guarantee the lease was handled appropriately, followed all laws and regulations and will continue to do so.”
“The Trump administration is working to transform a rusting, decaying, not fit for purpose facility, that was in danger of losing its tournament, into a world class asset to be enjoyed by the community and the only thing the Washington Post is focused on is gossip,” the spokesperson said. “The Rock Creek Tennis Center has an opportunity to become an elite tennis facility that will be affordable for DMV residents and also host major tournaments.”
The tennis center sits inside one of Washington’s most beloved public parks, but the facility itself has needed major repairs for years. Ein, a Washington-area native who was once a ball kid at the tournament, took over management of the event in 2019 and said then that he wanted to lift “everything about this event” to “a new level.”
As recently as last summer, federal officials were engaged with the District about a deal to put the tennis center under city control, and Ein was circulating a proposal for a major overhaul of the facility.
But then, in July 2025, Jessica Bowron, then comptroller at the National Park Service, told officials to “please pause further action” on the tennis center proposal and said they needed to “figure out what to tell the city on this pause.”
The records do not make clear who directed the pause or why, and government officials have not publicly explained why they moved away from the possible transfer. But within months, Interior officials were moving toward a private lease instead.
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And they appeared especially interested in supporting Ein’s annual tennis tournament, the records show. In September, as the National Park Service weighed several options for the tennis center, an unnamed Park Service official criticized an internal options memo as overly focused on tournament demands.
“It is not our mission to respond to the ‘sponsor’s expansion requests,’” the official wrote. “Our mission is to protect the park’s natural and cultural resources. Why is this not addressed here? Why is not primacy given to our mission instead of tournament requests? This paper is fundamentally flawed and should be completely rewritten to consider options that are in keeping with the park’s mission.”
Park Service officials were engaged with Ein before the government even sought proposals, the documents show. In one October email, Adam Suess, an Interior official at the time, wrote that he wanted to include in the lease the north and south athletic fields, nearby picnic groves, Carter Barron Amphitheater parking areas and internal park roads around the Brightwood Recreation Area.
The following day, Nick Bartolomeo, Rock Creek Park’s resources manager, appeared to question why the proposed lease area was being expanded beyond what officials understood Ein to be seeking.
“It is unclear why, if Mark Ein himself said what he is looking for, that we are being directed to include everything in Brightwood,” Bartolomeo wrote to Brian Joyner, Rock Creek Park’s superintendent, on Oct. 28.
Joyner replied that he had passed along the National Park Service recommendations but had received no explanation for why they were not followed. He added that another Park Service official was “surprised as well,” because he had been drafting his portion “based upon what we talked with Mark Ein about and what we collectively discussed last week.”
Officials also worried about the project’s impact on endangered species and public access. Tammy Stidham, the Park Service’s associate regional director for lands and planning, warned in an email that the expanded area included recreational fields in a threatened-and-endangered species habitat, picnic areas and parking lots used for public recreation and Carter Barron Amphitheater access.
“I am not seeing how we can make a determination” that the lease would not interfere with park protection, visitor enjoyment or park administration, Stidham wrote, adding that the proposal could leave the lease vulnerable to legal challenge.
Jennifer Nersesian, the Park Service’s National Capital Region director, responded: “I assure you I have made people aware multiple times. We will continue our best to inform these decisions, but in this case leadership has decided to go with the larger footprint.”
The concerns centered on the Hays Spring amphipod, a federally protected crustacean found in springs near the tennis center. Internal park comments noted that the Park Service and the District had already spent more than $1 million on drainage and stormwater protections designed to protect the species and its habitat. Officials warned that redevelopment or disturbance in the Brightwood area could threaten those protections.
Dan Puskar, executive director of Rock Creek Conservancy, a nonprofit focused on protecting and preserving the national park, said the process left many details to be resolved but that a final lease would need to account for the Hays Spring amphipod and the federal protections around its habitat. He said there are only seven known pools where the species exists, all in Rock Creek Park, and three fall within the nearly 40-acre lease boundary included in the RFP.
“The tennis center is part of that ‘we have to be extra careful’ zone,” Puskar said. “Any management choice, any scope of a future lease — it’s incredibly important to an organization like the Conservancy that we abide by the decisions that were made decades ago” to protect wildlife in the park.
Other comments from an unnamed Park Service official challenged the premise that the lease was consistent with Rock Creek Park’s General Management Plan. The official wrote that “the park disputes this contention,” noting that the lease “may well lead to redevelopment” that is “directly opposed” to the park’s management plan.
The internal concerns echo questions raised by neighbors and park advocates, who have warned that the lease process moved too quickly, lacked meaningful public input and could shift parts of Rock Creek Park from public recreational use toward a more commercial, tournament-driven operation.
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