Ensuring the Promise of D.C.'s New Stadium

The extraordinary frenzy of construction that surrounds the new Washington Nationals ballpark is a tribute to former mayor Tony Williams and those who believed that bringing baseball back to the District would be a smart move, even if taxpayers and fans are fronting $611 million to build the stadium.

But there is nothing automatic about sparking the economic development that stadium proponents cite as the justification for public investment in a ballpark.

I saw that this month on visits to Cleveland, Detroit and Cincinnati, where new downtown stadiums have done little to cure urban ills or inject street life into places that can be empty except right before and after a game.

There's no doubt that some downtown sports facilities have added neighborhoods to cities, generating tax revenue and rationalizing the use of public dollars. Examples of that abound -- in San Francisco, Denver and in the District, where Abe Pollin's arena on Seventh Street NW, Verizon Center, lured other investors into what is now a thriving east end. When the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Harman Center for the Arts opens in October, it will be the newest reminder of the remarkable turnaround that Pollin launched.

But at this early stage of the D.C. ballpark, it's also important to look at places where the promise of development has not been fulfilled.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has been running articles this summer lamenting the city's desolate center. Longtime columnist Dick Feagler suggested that Cleveland is a "minor-league town" with but a few "vestiges of a great city." What sparked Feagler's outcry was the death this month of a 58-year-old seamstress who had traveled from the suburbs to see "The Lion King" at a downtown theater near the baseball stadium. She was run down by four youths -- a 13-year-old and three 14-year-olds -- fleeing police in a stolen Plymouth Breeze.

Sports stadiums can't solve social ills. But they can serve as anchors for retail, entertainment, office and residential development that boosts a city's tax base, enlivens its streets and thereby lifts all, or at least many, boats.

In Cleveland, it doesn't seem to have worked. Jacobs Field is a terrific place to watch a ballgame. But walk two blocks, and there is little evidence of improvements attributable to the stadium. The homeless rule downtown at night and on weekend days. Cleveland has big office buildings, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a great tourist attraction. But there's nothing like the retail and entertainment neighborhood planned to rise near the D.C. stadium.

Similarly, Cincinnati's new Great American Ball Park, although a pleasant place to watch a game, did not spark a turnaround. There's a spectacular new museum next door about the Underground Railroad, but it and the stadium are divided from downtown by a moat in the form of an interstate highway.

Comerica Park in Detroit is perhaps the best of the new class of stadiums, but except for a couple of bars hard by the ballpark, there's little evidence of economic spillover.

In contrast, the District looks smart to have focused on building residential communities downtown, creating a density of pedestrian activity vastly beyond what these other cities have, even after they built their stadiums.

There is no guarantee that the D.C. experiment with baseball will work. Yes, developers are pumping big money into the ballpark neighborhood in Southeast, and the plans look great. But the ultimate test will be whether people go; declining attendance at RFK over the Nationals' first three years is a warning signal. That said, a new ballpark will draw large crowds to at least check out the scene.

Other cities plopped stadiums downtown and hoped for the best. For Washington to do better, it must make certain that developers provide amenities to make the new neighborhood worth visiting and that team owners do their part to make going to a game an experience worth repeating.

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