Sell Riverside Park to save it?

What if the City of New London were to sell a portion of Riverside Park to vastly improve the recreational opportunities on the part of the park that was left?

What if the money from a sale of a large part of the park were dedicated to building a modern recreation and sports facility, a nice one, with an indoor pool, big windows facing the river and a boathouse for sailing and rowing?

And what if the city were to lease this new building to the YMCA for $1 a year, with the understanding that city residents would get membership discounts and needy city youths would get scholarships?

And what if some of the money from the sale were dedicated to an endowment for the new fitness facility, to maintain it over the years?

Would that be enough to entice opponents of a sale of the park to reconsider?

Providing the city, especially its young people, with an outstanding recreation facility would seem to me be sufficient payment, a reasonable trade-off, for giving up acres of open space to the Coast Guard Academy.

I wouldn't blame opponents who might still say, no, that's not enough, because I generally agree that selling the park would shortchange future generations of New Londoners.

And yet I think using money from a sale to create a modern recreation facility would preserve the park in a different form, one with less land but more opportunities, one more suitable to the city's current needs.

It might even please the philanthropists who donated a part of the park to the city in the first place.

They would have had no way of knowing then that a room full of treadmills and stationary bikes would be more appealing recreation opportunities today than a gazebo and picnic tables.

There are many other promising aspects to a land-for-facilities swap.

One is that it would answer the concerns of those who worry that the park needs more policing and maintenance. A new facility there would draw traffic to the park and ensure that it is supervised and kept up.

What would remain of the park would most certainly benefit and would likely be used more.

Another interesting benefit of having a facility at Riverside Park would be to provide new kinds of recreation and fitness opportunities to city residents.

Maybe Coast Guard Academy cadets could dedicate some of their volunteering hours in the city to teaching kids how to sail or coaching rowers.

I first started thinking about the notion of building something new at Riverside Park after reading an e-mail from City Councilor Michael Passero, who suggested that the Coast Guard Academy might lease some of the park land and then share some of the athletic facilities the school creates there with city residents.

It's an interesting suggestion, but I think ultimately it would be hard to get by the Coast Guard brass. The military is not good at sharing.

Passero's plan, in the unlikely event the Coast Guard were to accept it, would be ideal, since the city would get the use of new facilities and keep ownership of the land.

On the other hand, the Coast Guard has already said it wants to buy part of the park and an arrangement to dedicate the money to build new facilities could easily be part of any deal presented to voters.

As for the selling price, the city need only make it clear in negotiations that the asking price is whatever it costs to build a state-of-the-art facility and create an endowment for it.

The Coast Guard would have to understand that acquiring the property it has been coveting for decades would carry a high price, one arrived at what appraisers might call the replacement method.

The asking price is whatever it costs the city to replace all that land with suitable recreational opportunities.

Otherwise, I'd say that the park is priceless, and not for sale.

This is the opinion of David Collins.