The plan Thursday was unveiled with flourish -- a site and impact study for a proposed $31.8 million sports and entertainment complex in downtown Augusta, on prime riverfront real estate next to the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame's Botanical Gardens. The centerpiece of the development would be a new 4,000-seat stadium for the Augusta GreenJackets minor-league baseball team.

Mayor Deke Copenhaver is very excited about this plan, and his excitement is contagious. And we have long admired his can-do spirit, diligence and energy.

But in this case, something should be said for energy conservation.

What's the rush?

No one should view the development potential of this riverfront property through a microscopic window of opportunity that will disappear in the blink of an eye. It's not necessary to get immediately behind the idea of a multiuse stadium complex if you support sound, beneficial development of that land.

Does that mean a stadium never will be built there? Not necessarily. But such a proposal needs a harder, longer look than is offered in the plan's budget, marketing and financial analysis that was released Thursday.

The multiuse stadium complex concept has gained popularity in recent years among cities desperate to revitalize their downtowns. Augusta officials who have visited these facilities in these cities came away impressed. But complexes or stand-alone stadiums in other cities came to life under circumstances different from Augusta's.

Take Greensboro, N.C. The city's First Horizon Park opened there in 2006 -- and they used 100-percent private funding to build it. Where will the money come from for the Augusta project? Nobody precisely knows yet. Bonds? Public-private partnership? It's still up in the air.

Also, the former Greensboro Bats baseball team was threatening to leave town if the city couldn't come up with a new facility. No such threat exists in Augusta for the Jackets, whose owner, Cal Ripken, thought enough of the Jackets' current stadium to spend $400,000 renovating it.

Take Durham, N.C. In 1995, the local government opened a new park for its baseball team, the Durham Bulls. The city is recording great success with it. But that success could be best attributed to the Bulls' lofty Class AAA minor-league status and the fact that the Bulls are arguably the most famous minor-league franchise around today.

Greenville, S.C., built Fluor Field at the West End for its Greenville Drive minor-league franchise -- thanks to $12 million from the Drive's major-league affiliate, the Boston Red Sox. Also, like Greensboro's new stadium, it opened only in 2006. That's too recent to render an assessment that such an idea could work in Augusta for the long term.

As a whole, the history of these small and mid-sized baseball stadiums have not been good. Look no further than Aberdeen, Md., a city still crushed under millions of dollars of debt and interest payments that will take a decade or more to pay off -- and its stadium has operated at a $1 million loss each year since 2001, despite being full every game.

Supporters of a new stadium complex for Augusta say that the facility would be a year-round money-maker because of planned commercial components surrounding the ballpark.

But Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., has said that stadiums themselves don't spur economic activity. So why consider a ballpark there at all? There are many kinds of development that could suit that piece of riverfront property.

What, for example, would be wrong with putting residential dwellings there? A strong argument could be made that Augusta needs more people living downtown to keep them downtown. That is a keystone for sound development in our city center.

The idea of a baseball stadium complex shouldn't be leapt at until a full, thorough consideration of options can be examined for the property. The study presented Thursday specifically was a feasibility study for a sports entertainment complex. But has a broad-reaching, objective study ever been done to find out overall what the best use would be for that land? If there hasn't been, there should be.

If a new baseball stadium must be built -- and it really should be left to the voters to decide -- then put it where there will be adequate parking. This latest study's assertion that there are enough parking spaces at the currently suggested location still leaves us unconvinced.

We must go slow and make sure we're doing the right thing here. If not, it could be a costly mistake for which the taxpayers are going to have to make up if the city defaults on bonds.

Anyone who wants to help make Augusta thrive shouldn't mind taking some risks. But there's a huge financial risk and a lot of probabilities working against Augusta in executing this venture successfully here and now.

Whatever is built on that riverfront property must be an economic home run, not a strikeout.