Parking at RFK. Didn’t we agree this was a bad idea?

Rule Number One in contemporary baseball stadium design: Put it in an urban area and make it a great experience for people, even if that means sacrificing convenience for drivers. We’re all familiar with it after a year of wrangling between Major League Baseball and the District government. We all know Rule Number One is the reason the new Nationals ballpark will be in Southeast, where city officials hope it will spur development of a new mixed-use node that would draw visitors from around the region for reasons other than just baseball.

But apparently, when it comes time to make the tough decisions, the National’s new ownership group plays by a different rulebook. The Lerner ownership group is demanding the city build above ground parking garages directly behind the outfield walls in order to provide 1, 225 parking spots to be used mainly by patrons of luxury boxes in the 41, 000-seat stadium. The city wants to put those spaces underground to allow mixed-use development that would contribute to, rather than detract from, the pedestrian experience. Happy with their jewel of an insulated stadium, the Lerners won’t budge.

This is a disaster. Ensuring that these handful of spaces for luxury patrons will be open on time is not more important than the long-term success of the South Capitol Street node as a vital city neighborhood. Acres of parking surrounding the stadium – be it on the surface or in garages – completely defeats the purpose of putting the stadium in an urban location. Planners are still hoping to get sidewalk-level retail, but even if they do, above ground garages will mean fewer people on the sidewalks and, with black holes instead of occupied space staring down, inevitably result in an “empty” feeling at the street below.

Hopefully, and BeyondDC can’t believe we’re saying this, the city will build these garages on the extreme cheap so that when office buildings go up nearby their parking facilities can be used and the dedicated garages torn down in short order and replaced with something useful.