Tom Boswell deserves a promotion to urban design columnist

When the park first opened mayor Tom Murphy exclaimed, "The only city I can think of with a similar view is Paris." From the page on Pittsburgh from the Baseball Pilgrimages website.

Tom Boswell is one of the sports columnists for the Washington Post. On the baseball stadium issue-debacle, he's been one of the stalwarts, writing some excellent analysis throughout the process. Today's column, "If you build it, don't build next to it," has some of the best points about urban design that I've ever seen in Post, better than I've ever seen in any column by Ben Forgey, the architecture (architecture ≠ urban design) critic. (Roger Lewis, the university professor-columnist in the real estate section does write about urban design.)

Boswell writes:

Some ideas are so dumb you assume they'll collapse of their own weight. That's what we hope will happen to Mayor Anthony A. Williams's cockamamie brainstorm to construct two vast 13-story towers -- filled with condos, shops, garages and a hotel -- just beyond left and center field of the new Nationals stadium on the Anacostia waterfront.

Thirteen stories? The ballpark is only eight stories. The twin eyesores, which would blanket much of the view from the left field corner to center field, would loom at least 50 feet above the park and block almost every sight line to the U.S. Capitol or any cityscape. Whether you were approaching the park from the Metro or sitting in your seat, the massive $281 million towers, which would cost almost as much as the $313 million ballpark, would be an eternal infuriating visual blight for fans....

Meantime, across about half of its outfield panorama, Washington might well have condo balcony parties, hotel gawkers and who knows what else. In Toronto, the center field hotel rooms famously offer sexhibitionists....

Believe it or not, this mixed-use monstrosity, to be built by developer Herb Miller who needed a decade to finish Gallery Place, has already been passed by the zoning commission and the D.C. Council....

All in all, the whole project has the feeling of such a slapdash last-minute Mayor-plus-developer-driven compromise that the project may fall apart. We can only hope so. Once the ambiance of a ballpark has been created, it doesn't change for decades. If the mayor has his way, the tone will be set at the top; developers will race to dream up new 13-story projects with their noses pressed as closely as possible to the park. Much of the land on the Anacostia side is already spoken for.

After the first few seasons of novelty, two factors will determine whether baseball will attract urban development (and tax dollars) to Southeast: the quality of the team and the appeal of the ballpark. A compromise needs to be struck between the esthetics of a new park and the development of Southeast. Neither rules all decisions. But powerful trends have already begun to bring energy, money and construction to the area. Over the next decade, it's doubtful anything can stop it. But a ballpark that's surrounded -- perhaps eventually on all sides -- by the equivalent of soulless K Street is hardly a setting that many baseball fans will want to linger, shop and eat. Ugly doesn't sell.

The mayor means well. But he's not really a baseball fan. He's an urban development fan. He has never met a millionaire with a shovel or a New York bank with a line of credit that he didn't love.

Remember the "iconic ballpark" the mayor talked about when he was selling his $611 million project? Recall his poetic vision of a stadium with views of the U.S. Capitol from the right field upper deck? And don't forget his central concept that a gorgeous park with a contending team would be a tax magnet and source of civic pride.

______

The kind of bait and switch of iconic ballpark (or cool fun neighborhood-place) to K Street development is sadly too typical of the kind of projects that the city has pushed over the past few years--great Southwest waterfront to big box shopping district; great public place at the Convention Center site to some office buildings and condos; etc.

Without an uncompromising commitment to quality and urban design, you just get value engineered soulless boxes. (Read the Speech by Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley to get a sense of the difference.)

I don't imagine that Tom Boswell wants to switch beats. For one, he wouldn't get to travel as much. But this kind of directness in writing about the built environment would be a step forward on the part of the Post.
SBC Park. Getty Images.

Washington Nationals Stadium Design, northwest aerial perspective. By the river, but not on it, and the Anacostia River is not likely to be seen from within the stadium.

Index Keywords: urban-design-placemaking; stadiums-arenas