Council Chairman Vincent Gray is suggesting that any parking built on Poplar Point for a soccer stadium could be used for baseball games at other times. It’s not a bad idea, as long as the parking is charged at market rate. On the other hand, I wonder how needed it will be—if the ballpark can get by for a few years without Poplar, people will already be used to taking Metro, and it should be able to get by fine after Poplar too. Certainly any development there will need parking demand management to prevent ballpark spillover in addition to soccer spillover, like what Tommy Wells is suggesting near the ballpark.

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.