Sometimes I wonder if Planning is out of ideas.  We have a limited number of set pieces that get new coats of paint every decade.  The worst are the flagship projects - arenas, stadiums, convention centers, waterfront revitalization - that get some current buzzwords tacked on.  Transit oriented.  LEED Certified.  You know the drill.

For example, the proposal for Baltimore's proposed new arena.  For a city that has no professional basketball or hockey, it has the imminent stink of a white elephant.  BUT IT HAS A GREEN ROOF.

What happens if we try something really startling.  Let's not build a brand new arena.  Let's not dump huge sums of cash on untested one-off transit modes.  Let's not sink half a billion dollars into a money losing publicly owned hotel.

These big monsters hit a sweet spot between bulldozer politics and growth machine governance.  We need NEW income to grow.  That new income needs to come from NEW things.  Politicians can attend ribbon cuttings at NEW things.  Ergo, bring on the new arena.

But the concept is so deep in the mold that you can taste the penicillin.  The tacked-on green roof just accentuates how poor the whole idea is.  "How can we spruce up this off-the-shelf design?  Let's add some grass!"

If you're going to blow my money on another boondoggle, at least make it an awesome boondoggle.  Break through the boring. Maybe an arena integrated into an office block.

Or apartments in a second enclosure around the main stadium.

If you think of it, the most ancient of arenas - Madison Square Garden - does just this.  It sits on top of Penn Station, the busiest train station in the country.  There will be plenty of opportunities for transit development, as the new arena is going to sit near, if not at, the new Red Line.

Maybe finding the something to fit with the arena is thinking backwards.  We do not even know if there will be occupants for the arena/expanded convention center.  So we should make the arena the secondary function of the site.  What would be useful here, that an arena can be integrated into?