Today, the Times-Picayune had a provocative and interesting article in which a developer proposes rehabilitating Charity Hospital into the new home of City Hall. At various points, downtown developers have floated all sorts of ideas to put Charity Hospital back into commerce – a medical supply showroom, condominiums, dorms – that all ultimately lead back to one lingering question:

If the building is able to be gutted and rebuilt into a state-of-the-art something, why shouldn't it be gutted and rebuilt into the state-of-the-art hospital this city needs so badly?

The question demands a real answer now more than ever given that plans to build a $1.2 billion medical campus in Lower Mid-City have stalled, putting the whole vision of a synergized biomedical corridor – the apparent rationale for keeping Charity Hospital closed in the first place – at risk.

The suggested reuse of Charity Hospital addresses the million square foot elephant in the room: What will become of downtown New Orleans? The article implicitly raises important questions about New Orleans' moribund downtown and whether or not it is wise to evacuate hospital infrastructure and associated economic development into Lower Mid-City's residential streets without any real plan for area to be abandoned.

These are the types of things everyone had hoped would be evaluated within the Goody Clancy master planning process. This is why a coalition of nearly 80 community groups, and this website, have spent months and months calling for the inclusion of real evaluation of the competing plans for new hospitals within the master plan process. Perhaps this is why disappointment with the product that the Goody Clancy team has produced is growing more widespread.