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Communications Committee Terry Squyres, AIA (Chairperson) GWWO, Inc./Architects Represents the interests of AIA Baltimore to the public.
Arena Billboards Letter to Baltimore Sun January 29, 2003 Dianne Donovan, Editor Dear Ms. Donovan; I strongly encourage the city council to vote no on the giant billboards proposed to wallpaper the 1st Mariner Arena. (“Arena signs will net city very little”- reference to article Jan 27). The city of Baltimore has a moratorium on billboards, which the Baltimore Chapter of the American Institute of Architects strongly supports, and it is hard to understand why an exception should be made in this case. The question should not be about plastering this building with signage, but why does the arena continue to exist at all. The recently christened 1st Mariner Arena is a building whose time has passed. It is too old and small a venue for events to be profitable. In Scott Calvert’s article, Mr. Hale admits, “the ad revenue will only offset his team’s losses”. Why does the city continue to prop up this arena in a location where no one seems to be able to make a go of it? Is the best solution to cover an “outmoded and unattractive” building with giant billboards? This certainly will not enhance the quality of life on Howard or Baltimore streets. And now that we know there will be little financial gain to the city it seems like a lose-lose deal. Why not take advantage of the momentum of the west side redevelopment? The arena site would be more valuable to the city if the building was demolished and the blocks returned to their original configuration. Allow Redwood street to pass through again and connect the University of Maryland Baltimore back to Hopkins Plaza and the Central Business District, as has been advocated by the AIA and every one of the planning initiatives for this area. The arena is a giant lifeless interruption in the city that isolates the University of Maryland and Charles Center. If the building was razed and the connection between downtown and the west side reestablished, developers would line up to build housing, retail, or God help us, more parking, in the corridor between these two magnets. The demand in this area has been well established through economic studies sponsored by the BDC and the Downtown Partnership, among others. Wouldn’t that be much more profitable to the city and more useful to the citizens of Baltimore than continuing to prop up this unsuitable building, which seems serviceable solely for monster truck rallies and the occasional WWE Smack-down? The right solution is to build a new state of the art arena where it is a better fit and can be profitable. The area south of Ravens Stadium adjacent to the Middle Branch waterfront would be perfect. A new arena would be the final piece in a baseball/football/basketball sports complex and would stretch from Pratt Street to the waterfront. It could be the stimulus for the creation of a second waterfront, opening up possibilities for development similar to those at Fells Point and Canton. This strategy has been advocated by the AIA for many years and was received positively by the Stadium Authority. Of course the city is not financially prepared to move forward with a plan like this in the near future. But the economic engine of new development on the current arena site would be an excellent investment in that plan. It is not a good plan to plaster a failure with an eyesore so that the tenants of the arena lose money less rapidly. Let’s stop throwing good money after bad and come up with a better plan.
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