In a perfect world, Pittsburgh would be able to replace an aging public arena, build a facility that would strengthen the Penguins hockey team and clear the Mellon Arena site for a new residential neighborhood that would enliven Downtown.
In a perfect world, the state, county and city would not be strapped for money, people in a post-industrial region would be willing to invest in public infrastructure and private beneficiaries -- like the Penguins -- would leverage more of their own capital into such a package.
In a perfect world, professional athletes would generously extend themselves to their fans, a hockey ticket would not cost a day's pay and the NHL would not be a financial disaster zone.
But this, of course, is not a perfect world and the $270 million proposal for a new arena is not a perfect plan.
What the blueprint, released Wednesday by the Sports & Exhibition Authority, does well, though, is get the ball rolling on the discussion for building the city's next civic center.
This much is true:
Mellon Arena, which opened in 1961, is showing its age and hinting at obsolescence. A far less flexible facility than today's new models, it requires more time to tear down and set up shows, which limits its functionality. Its most unique feature, the retractable steel dome, is too expensive and problematic to use.
The Penguins, who take about 46 of the arena's 120 event-days a year, will be freed from the facility (and, if they choose, Pittsburgh) in 2007, when their lease expires. Despite good attendance even in non-Stanley Cup years, the team needs new luxury-box revenue to stay solvent.
Within the next 10 years the arena may need a major repair or overhaul, whether it houses a hockey team or not. That would require the SEA to borrow from an undetermined source, possible temporary closure and a missed opportunity to spend millions of repair dollars on a new facility.
While preservationists and nostalgia buffs want to preserve the flying-saucer-style arena, it would be folly to have two such facilities in a city of this size. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on the life and usefulness of the silver igloo.
It is not too early for local leaders to consider when and how to replace the Mellon Arena -- and the convergence of the Penguins' needs and the chance to foster Downtown living suggests the route should be mapped sooner than later.
But the financial plan to accomplish that should have a larger private component than $108 million (only $11 million from the franchise itself) of the $270 million total. Given the tight public purse, a package closer to the one that built Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio, two years ago -- almost entirely financed by private dollars -- is what should be assembled for Pittsburgh.
This will require a major overhaul of the SEA plan, but given the tepid support for it so far, it's clear that this is the beginning, not the end.
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