Scribner Place spades turned today as work begins

Demolition work begins today at the future site of Scribner Place, phase one. A YMCA, swimming pool, parking facility and adjacent improvements to accommodate the Ohio River Greenway.

Is it a whole new era for downtown New Albany, or a bureaucratic boondoggle?

Perhaps neither, but any investment in downtown is welcomed and constitutes an improvement on the failed strategies of the past.

To be sure, the staunchest proponent of Scribner Place must concede that in and of itself, a YMCA is not the engine for downtown revitalization. Rather, the gamble is that a tangible building project undertaken by the city and supported by private resources will provide the impetus for further investment.

Uncharacteristically in the context of city and county politics, Scribner Place already has inspired several worthwhile examples of thinking outside the box, as in various proposals to consolidate offices in a new City-County Building along the waterfront.

Such ideas naturally have incited the wrath of the bizarre but sizeable local camp that flies the "no progress at any price" banner, and for this we must be appreciative, for even if new ideas are not able to be carried to fruition, at least the reactionary elements among the populace can be readily identified.

And defeated.

For decades too numerous to count, New Albany has been content to passively sanction the lowest common denominator, to espouse the creed of the absentee landlord ("profit from exploitation and disinvestment)," and to mouth platitudes about the merits of education and knowledge, all the while smirking in Coffeyesque fashion: Children may or may not be left behind, ordinances may or may not be enforced, progress may or may not be made, so long as votes are not lost.

A worthy model ... for 1905.

The Scribner Place gamble may or may not succeed (NA Confidential is betting that it will) , but for many of us, the stakes are far higher: Can New Albany learn to live, to think and to work smarter before it's too late?

Demolition for YMCA to begin Monday, by Amany Ali, Tribune City Editor