There is an adage about Charlotte that bears repeating: Eventually, Charlotte always does the right thing. But only after it has exhausted every other possibility.

Years ago, Mayor Harvey Gantt wanted to build the city's new coliseum uptown.

But because of penny-wise, pound-foolish opposition, we built the Coliseum out in the suburbs. Instead of springing for land to build it uptown, we plopped the current spaceship four miles away on Tyvola Road.

Now, if the city council decides we should build a new arena, we can fix that mistake. But it won't be easy.

The mindset of this city is to do public projects - particularly anything controversial - as miserly as possible. That's the wrong approach in a town where the most dramatic public building is the jailhouse.

Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Doug Marlette once noted that while Charlotte does well with matters of "quantity," it doesn't do quality well. Likewise, a real estate appraiser once told me Charlotteans are more hung up on dollar-per-square-foot in home-buying than any place he's seen.

We're good at numbers. Banking has made us a prosperous city. But numbers can't be the only factor when you create parks and public buildings. Being cheap is how we ended up out on Tyvola Road.

This time, we should pick the best location and hire a top architect.

According to the 2010 Plan, the best site is the Graham Street location, beside the railroad tracks between Second and Fourth streets.

One proposal is to connect the arena there to the eight acres the county has purchased for a park across Graham Street. Then, you buy the old federal courthouse on Trade Street and convert it into a new home for the Mint Museum.

That creates synergy - a park, a museum and an arena next to the planned transit hub.

Wayne Weston, director of Parks and Recreation, envisions the park surrounded by restaurants and condos, with a parking deck beneath the park, similar to Union Square in San Francisco. That parking deck would pay for itself.

That should be the mindset. The city should look for ways to get the private sector to pay for developing the park and to create the residential/retail mix you want in the area.

This City Council has a lot to deal with. Housing. Transit. Environment. Most are long-term issues that won't affect most Charlotteans for the next 10 or 20 years. Especially transit, which has about as good a chance of working as a Carolina Panthers game plan.

But building a coliseum as unique as Conseco Arena in Indianapolis, with a park and museum beside it, that could be something memorable. If the council votes to pursue this, they shouldn't nickel-and-dime it again. This should be Charlotte's showpiece.

In a way, there's no more political risk going first rate.

The naysayers are going to come after them no matter how they try to pull this off. If they go the cheap route again, the city will just end up with another mistake. If we can afford to do it at all, we can afford to do it right.