Will they buy the Brooklyn Bridge next?

Sometimes I take someone else's comment left here and make it into a post, but in this case I'm going to take something I left in Right Coast Girl's sandbox and bring it on back here.

She noted that the Wicomico County Council held their public hearing on whether the county should use $1.5 million in Program Open Space money that's apparently just laying around for our use and spend it on 5 acres to create more parking for the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center. While I heard a lot of proponents of the deal during the portion of the public hearing I watched on PAC-14, Julie pointed out that a number of opponents were likely unable to attend because they were working or watching their children who were home from school thanks to a snow day.

But here was my comment on her post.

Although I question the accuracy of the source, let's talk about the "barter" idea. Why not sell some "surplus" land in order to purchase the 5 (perhaps eventually 20) acres on better terms?

Meanwhile, it was only a couple years back that some serious discussion was being made about relocating the WYCC to a lot adjacent to Perdue Stadium. Since Perdue Stadium is only used about 75 days a year, chances are that sharing parking with the stadium (and its capacity of 10,000) would create a win-win for the taxpayers and may end the subsidies necessary to continue propping up a building which is beloved by locals but becoming hopelessly outdated.

Mr. Urban may want to note that the OC Convention Center is getting $2.8 million in upgrades if the information given at the most recent AFP meeting is correct, so the taxpayers of Wicomico County may be faced with the prospect of losing business to their competitor to the east anyway.

It may be a difficult pill to swallow in these economic times, but the reality is getting another parking lot isn't going to make the Civic Center all that much more viable in the long run.

I also briefly commented on proposed stormwater regulations on her site but my main point was the idea of alternatives to the revised parking. As I noted, it was only a couple years back that there was talk about relocating the Civic Center to the Hobbs Road site but that chatter ceased once the county's finances hit the skids. Perhaps it's still a viable idea, but the rotten economic situation we find ourselves in means it's an idea going nowhere fast.

Yet the Youth and Civic Center is likely approaching the end of its useful life. In this day and age of constantly improving facilities, a long lifespan for such a facility would be 40 to 50 years.

Recently the city of Philadelphia closed down the Spectrum. That facility was built in 1967 to house the then-expansion Philadelphia Flyers so its useful life turned out to be 42 years. An even newer facility, Giants Stadium in suburban New Jersey, closed up shop after just 34 years as a new facility is being built next door.

While the Youth and Civic Center doesn't host a professional sports team, it still competes in a league of its own against newer and larger facilities throughout the region. In the next decade, it's going to be up to the community to decide whether they want to use public funding to build a more modern facility and perhaps draw a professional minor league basketball, hockey, or even indoor soccer team - or, create the incentives to have a private developer build a new arena on the Hobbs Road site. (Baseball stadiums tend to have a longer shelf life, so Perdue Stadium has the potential of decades more service unless the accreditation process for class A ball becomes much more stringent.)

As part of the process of determining whether paying $1.5 million for a parking lot to serve the Civic Center as well as the funding necessary to rework the lot to conform with state regulations and create the 500 or so spaces on the site, much thought needs to be devoted to the prospect of selling the land once the Civic Center is relocated - given the restriction on alcohol sales at the present site, it's doubtful the Civic Center will ever exist without a taxpayer subsidy otherwise.

With the backing of the majority of the testimony today and the slick marketing of the County Executive claiming the land will be bought with "free" money, the citizens of Wicomico County may end up buying a pig in a poke. (I predict a 5-2 or 4-3 vote in favor of the purchase.) But we may look back in 10 years and wonder about the wisdom of the white elephant we purchased at the old Mall site, a site which may yet be undeveloped in a decade's time.

I don't think this is the wisest move, but perhaps it can trigger further discussion of whether we find it necessary to have a county-owned civic center.