In 2005, the Brookings Institute published a study on downtown revitalization efforts throughout the nation. If you have the time, check out the full report here. The report mentions a number of things which are directly applicable to the market here in Alexandria, and it also debunks many misconceptions about downtown revitalization efforts– who pays for these projects, who benefits from these projects, and why this is a complicated and challenging issue.
One of the most oft-repeated misconceptions about downtown revitalization efforts is that they are top-heavy with publicly-financed projects. Of course, there are a handful of things that a city can do to improve its downtown, primarily regarding infrastructure and traffic, but the majority of the work done by a city is conceptual and organizational.
The study found that most of the funding behind downtown revitalization is spurred by private industry: “In fact, successful downtown turnarounds have shown that for every $1 of public investment, there will be $10 to $15 of private money. The bulk of the public investment must be made in the early years, however, in order to set the stage for private development.” Believe it or not, cities spend much more on suburban developments, in part, because their shelf lives are much shorter. Still, the dynamic is different; suburban developments, the report states, peak in value after about ten years; developers then move out– and so does value. Downtowns, however, retain value significantly longer because of their locations and because of their accessibility to resources.
Fortunately for Alexandria, we have already invested in most of those important, “early” projects; traffic flow and parking continue to be a problem, but I believe a viable solution to this is forthcoming. The key infrastructure is already there. Most of the work that remains to be done is conceptual and organizational. No doubt, the biggest task ahead for downtown revitalizers is convincing private industry that this is a worthy cause.
The conversation that is occurring right now in Alexandria has occurred in almost every city that has decided to revitalize their downtowns. It’s not unusual. The most common criticism is that downtown has been “dead” for nearly thirty years, so why is there any reason to believe that it will rebound now? And on a related note, why should we invest any energy toward this effort?
Well, put simply, the report concludes that healthy downtowns can become an economic engine that drives commerce, gives people an alternative, walkable community (an untapped and unrealized market in Alexandria), and that downtowns increase value and quality of life. Despite what has been said, a revitalized downtown doesn’t just benefit a small segment of the population; research clearly shows that revitalized downtowns are utilized (and even lived in) by people all across the demographic spectrum. Certainly, “early adopters” tend to be “young, urban pioneers” (not my term), but over time, others move in, and value increases. Indeed, rental property in revitalized downtowns tend to “float to the top of the market.”
Another criticism leveled against downtown revitalization is that “it takes too long.” The Brookings report showed that a successful revitalization can take as long as twenty years, during which time citizens may become frustrated. However, if you follow the steps and recognize what has already been done here in Alexandria, you’ll likely conclude that Alexandria has probably already committed over ten years to this effort. In other words, most of the work has already been done and what remains, again, is conceptual and organizational– changing zoning codes, implementing a marketing study and plan, and consolidating efforts, among other things.
These are the twelve steps identified by the Brookings Institute. Not every downtown is the same, of course, and Alexandria has some unique demands.
STEP 1 : Capture the Vision
STEP 2: Develop a Strategic Plan
STEP 3: Forge a Healthy Private/Public Partnership
STEP 4: Make the Right Thing Easy
STEP 5: Establish Business Improvement Districts and Other Non-Profits
STEP 6: Create a Catalytic Development Company
STEP 7: Create an Urban Entertainment District
STEP 8: Develop a Rental Housing Market
STEP 9: Pioneer an Affordability Strategy
STEP 10: Focus on For-Sale Housing
STEP 11: Develop a Local-Serving Retail Strategy
STEP 12: Re-create a Strong Office Market
Let us also consider something else, perhaps an unpopular truth to some, but one that bears repeating: Despite the fact that Alexandria has engaged in a conversation about downtown revitalization for the past ten years, most of our collective efforts and more of our tax dollars have been spent in expanding infrastructure.
As previously stated, sprawl developments cost the city more, both in the short and the long term, because sprawl keeps sprawling. Much has been said about the explosion of the 28 West corridor. Rod Noles even predicted this year that the land out on 28 West would be the most expensive land in all of Alexandria. I don’t doubt it. And this is great for some. There is definitely a market out there.
But we should ask: What created this market? What made it valuable? Is the land itself inherently that valuable? Or is the value due, in part, to the investments that taxpayers have paid for– the Links Golf Course, the Johnny Downs Sports Complex, the roads and infrastructure? Certainly, you’d to admit that the city’s willingness to spend millions of dollars on infrastructure and facilities on land that epitomizes sprawl has contributed to the high property value. One can also argue that the high cost of land and homes on this corridor are prohibitively expensive and therefore inaccessible to most Alexandrians.
When you consider inclusive growth for the city in its entireity, you’re not necessarily taking away from this area; the movement of people into this corridor will necessitate other improvements and added infrastructure in order to ensure that traffic flows more efficiently. But you must change perogatives.
Downtown isn’t the only area in need of attention, but it’s definitely important. And if it is revitalized correctly, it will create a destination for everyone in town, something that we can all be proud of, a place that can bring people together and attract visitors, conventions, concerts, and much more.
There is one other point that needs to be made: Downtown revitalization isn’t about the city getting into the real estate business. It’s primarily about shifting perspectives, changing codes, and enforcing those codes. If developers want to take advantage of incentives to help them renovate property, then, I believe, they should look at the federal renewal zone incentives, not at the City of Alexandria.
CenLamar 
I’m glad there are at least two steps involving getting people to actually live (rent/own) downtown. I think in Alexandria’s case these should actually be one of the earlier steps, but it’s good to see them listed.
Perhaps we’re actually at that step.
We’ve already captured the vision and come up with a comprehensive plan.
Private/public partnerships (notice that private is written first) have been forged, though there is still work to do.
I think there is some backtracking involved, concerning the creating of specific districts; however, our downtown is small enough to where this should be easy enough.
This is perhaps why revitalizers here seem to be primarily focused on housing opportunities right now. Plus, it should be noted that these steps often overlap. Not everything happens in order.
People have asked for examples of cities the size of Alexandria successfully revitalizing their downtowns. Here are some case studies concerning US cities equal to or small than Alexandria successfully revitalizing their downtowns:
Racine, Wisconsin
http://www.city-data.com/us-cities/The-Midwest/Racine-Economy.html
Burlington, Vermont (This is about the Church Street Marketplace)
http://www.churchstmarketplace.com/accolades.html
Winona, Minnesota
http://www.cityofwinona-mn.com/school1000178/genie60/images/files/arts4_26.doc
And here is a paper entitled “Downtown Revitalization in Urban Neighborhoods and Small Cities”
Click to access DowntownRevital.pdf
This paper concerns the successful projects undertaken in:
Brea, California,
Middletown, Connecticut (pop: 43,000),
Lawrence, Kansas (pop: 85,000),
Portland, Maine (pop: 62,500),
Peterborough, New Hampshire (pop: 5,500),
Manchester, Vermont,
Roanoke, Virginia (pop: close to 100,000), and more.
I’ve actually spent time in Manchester and Burlington, VT and in Portland, ME.
They’ve all done quite a nice job with their revitalization, although they’ve going the route of housing, restaurants and small-scale tourism (much like Natchitoches has done) whereas so much of the local push seems to be for office/banking type development.
One thing Portland has done is to make sure that overall community assets are available downtown in addition to the suburbs and mall-type areas. For instance they have a nice modern movie theatre (that fits in with the look of the area) and either a borders or barnes and noble as well. It keeps those who live downtown in downtown and gives others a reason to shop there.
Many cities have also done well with getting the Whole Foods chain into these area (like New Orleans’ Magazine St).
Now there is one difference. These three towns were all former factory, cannery, and mill towns. They had tons of empty large buildings to work with. In Alexandria aside from a few historical structures most of the development will need to be redevelopment — building of new buildings of an historical style but with more usefulness.
I think as a community we need to know what to keep and what not to. Like the 3rd st. From Jackson to Murray it’s good, but from Murray on, those buldings (although old) need to go. That’s too valuable a space to be limited by what’s there now. Same with city hall. That space would be better used as an open space like you find in Jackson square or something.
Lafayette’s downtown revival started with all the bars opening and relocating there. After that, other businesses, especially restuarants, started opening up there.
It is always nice to have a good downtown area, rather than one that is dead and full of nothing but drugs and hobos.
Fact is, Alexandria’s in an enviable situation when it comes to downtown revitalization; the downtown is still central to the metropolitan area’s population, it’s relatively small, geographically speaking, so there’s not much SPACE that needs renovating, I-49 and state highways feed into downtown well, and Alexandria itself hasn’t yet sprawled to the point of no return.
The building blocks are in place, too. With the nightlife starting to take shape (and needing, I think, maybe two or three more viable bars/clubs to make the area a destination for party-goers), plus the Hotel Bentley re-opening soon, the recently-announced condiminium development luring resients to the area permanently, a new performing arts center, terrific convention center (needing just an adjacent arena, frankly to make it a HUGE economic engine to downtown and the adjoining hotels), it seems that the next 5-10 years could be exciting times.
Incidentally, I grabbed some aerial photos of downtown, and grabbed aerials of two arenas, the CenturyTel Center (Bossier City) and James Brown Arena (Augusta, Ga) and super-imposed them over an area between the Riverfront Center, the Holiday Inn and the adjacent parking garage, just to see if buildings of those size and scale would fit in the space where Main Street bends between the Riverfront Center and Rapides Regional, and surprisingly, they both do.
The CenturyTel Center seats 14,000; James Brown Arena seats 8,100. My guess would be that Alexandria would need something between those two figures, when it’s decided the city needs a new indoor venue.
Anybody wanting to see these photos, just shoot me an e-mail.
The Church Street area in Burlington, VT is great. They closed off the street to cars, built have many little shops and cafes where you can sit outside, usually have street entertainers of some sort on Saturdays, there’s a big Borders, a Starbucks, a Ben & Jerry’s (of course since it’s Vermont), lots of bookstores, clubs, restaurants. The surrounding few blocks contain other shops, theatres, etc. There’s also a grocery coop called City Market, which has offerings similar to Whole Foods, as well as being an upscale regular supermarket. Burlington is a college town, and the area serves tourist traffic, college kids, and adult locals. In my opinion, the best part of it all is the way they closed off Church Street itself to automobile traffic. You can use the cross streets and drive through Church Street, but not drive on the street itself. It’s like a little 4-5 block concrete park.
Lamar, I have read the Brookings Institution report, your post, and the comments here, and see the excitement and benefits to a downtown revitalization project for Alexandria. However, and I realize that it is too early for anything so concrete, I await a bottom line dollar amount, and percentage of the City’s budget, that the public expenditures will amount to. Before I make my mind up on the extent of such revitalization, I would want to measure the impact of the public investment upon other projects and services in Alexandria. Awaiting more information …….
Two other cities worth noting for downtown revitalization:
Charlottesville, VA and Kenosha, WI (just south of Racine by about 15 minutes).
C-Ville really is the superior model for Alexandria. They started with closing off Main St. to pedestrian traffic only. This red brick street was lined with local retailers selling furniture, books, music, and clothing. At one end was city hall, and the other end was an Omni Hotel. It also had the bar where the Dave Matthews Band started. Over the years it has improved. Parking issues were resolved by a multi-level garage owned by the city being built one block away from the pedestrian mall. Restaurants, both fast food chains and “white linen” gourmet, opened in the vacancies remaining on the street. An ice skating rink opened across from the hotel, and a four-screen movie theatre opened a couple of doors down from the skating rink. The area also had a one-screen “art-house” theatre around the corner from the hotel. On the upper floors of the buildings on the street, loft apartments and condominiums began to fill with tenants, and a budding dotcom industry populated the office space. The businesses on the downtown “mall” did an excellent job making it attractive for professionals with after-hours events during the week. They also made it very family friendly with the inclusion of the ice skating rink, the theatre, and fast food (of the Chili’s and TGIFridays variety, not McDonald’s or Popeyes), and a Baskin-Robbin ice cream parlor.
Kenosha, WI, has done an excellent job with creating modern and attractive town home and condominium complexes on the Lake Michigan waterfront. They added a street car service recently with success, though not overwhelming. The waterfront developers have also added farmers’ markets and weekend festivals to the mix. There is a successful marina and several local restaurants have joined the few older local institutions.
Alexandria really can learn a lot from both towns. I remember talk a few years ago of making downtown into an arts district, with many wanting antique shops and artist studios providing the bulk of tenants to the area. I’ve always liked the idea of these kinds of shops, but I don’t want this to make up the definition of downtown re-development. I think we’d be stuck with junk shops and untalented twits hocking second-rate trinkets and canvasses if we dedicate our efforts to that. What would be great would be concentrating on several goals:
1. Bring restaurants downtown. The Diamond Grill is a terrific start. The lunch counter at the drug store is decent for the lunch crowd. It would be better if we could have a good tex-mex place, a barbecue joint, or a Chinese restaurant that would each be unique but concentrate on good food in a high quality atmosphere. A Chili’s or a TGIFridays downtown would do well to help, if not a Pizza Hut or BJ’s. Steal the idea from C’ville of putting a movie theatre downtown or an ice skating rink, and combined with restaurants you create an atmosphere that will attract families to go downtown on the weekends.
2. Restore the convention business downtown. Before too long Natchitoches will be the best location for conventions in the central part of Louisiana. Alexandria already has the natural advantages of the Bentley, Holiday Inn, and the Riverfront Center. Get these guys under one marketing group and start selling this town as the best spot for state conventions. It’s a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg argument but adding more convention business would also help with the development of the restaurant business downtown, especially for the better restaurants a la the Diamond Grill.
3. Build the marina and take advantage of the river for residential property. This step makes downtown revitalization self-sustainable. First downtown has some of the best views of the river in the parish, why not live down there for that reason alone? Second, the marina makes the river a more valuable resource for the residents of the city. Third, housing means people move downtown and become a population for businesses to attract as customers and politicians to heed as constituents.
If the Silvers would renovate the Weiss & Goldring building, it would be a perfect spot to divide into the kinds of restaurants I’m thinking of. They could enjoy leasing the space if they don’t want to be in the restaurant business. Over a period of time it would help increase the value of the property and make it productive for the city. Certainly doing that would be better than letting it sit there growing mold. The Louisiana Nightmares building should be recycled into something — anything — that would have year-round appeal and business (or couldn’t LSUA use another building for classrooms downtown?). The Masonic building is a condo complex waiting to happen. I could go on and on…
My ultimate point here is that we should have some very specific goals in mind when we talk about downtown revitalization. Other cities around the country are doing what I’m writing about here, and I hope that these cities have provided us with a wheel we don’t have to re-invent. We are luckier than these other places because we have so many advantages they don’t; it’s unfortunate we haven’t started sooner. It’s unfortunate, but not too late.
I’ve noticed that most of these posts include mention of converting streets to pedestrian zones. Yet, I’ve never heard of this being seriously discussed for downtown Alexandria. Imagine the possibilities of a true market square like you find in Europe encompassing everything from the Bently to the Commercial Building from 3rd street to the levee (minus city hall and the adjacent parking lot).
One thing we need to realize is that downtown redevelopment is not a one-focus endeavor; we need a holistic aproach. If not one that deals with the issues of the entire community, at least one that deals with the immediate area.
For one thing, even though the nature of both are very different, we need to look at the Pineville side of the river as an integral component of any downtown scheme. That side of the river actually has the best land for on-the-water development (especially from a marina point).
If anyone on here has been to Nashville and visited Opry Mills (formerly Opryland), it’s a great mixture of convention space, restaurants, and outlet mall. It even has a Basspro Shops store with a boat delearship (which would be a fixture that I think would add value to the riverfront and especially to a river marina). This sort of thing would be an ideal development for the riverbank oposing downtown Alexandria.
I’ve often thought we should rename Jackson to Rue Principal de Louisiane (‘Louisiana’s Main Street). The idea is as much symbolic as it is logical. The entire street (Lodi to Jackson Ext to Jackson across the River to Pineville Main St to Donahue Ferry) really is our community’s Main Street. And, going across the river from South to North, it bridges not only the cities of Alexandria and Pineville, but also the cultures of East, West, South, & North Louisiana.
Aside from Pineville though, another area with great potential that has been seemingly ignored is Bolton Avenue. When that was the main street of the old ‘West End’, it was the place to be in Cenla. It’s an area we should be looking at developing as best we can. A downtown cannot develop as an island.
As someone who has spent several years both pre and post Katrina living in New Orleans where the nice/tourist areas are all surrounded by anti-development I can tell you it doesn’t work.
I don’t have any total solutions, but I would echo the sentiments elsewhere on this board: get as much input as possible, don’t be greedy, and more than anything get people downtown and give them a reason to stay there.
How can a council and administration be concerned about the heart beat of downtown when it voluntarily severes an artery.
Yes, I’m talking about the permanent closing of Upper Third St. and the sell-out to Rapides Regional.
Futhermore, how many businesses have their own stop sign for their parking lot to have equal right-of-way to a public main flow street? This should have at least been a hard curve with no stopping of traffic flow with a turning lane for the hospital parking lot.
Yes, I know we need the boost and expansion that the hospital offers as it will better serve the community.
However many other city’s manage with elevated walkways and parking.
Not at the expense of the small businesses as on Upper Third st..
Which, by the way, is in the Community Revitalization Zone.
So much for revitalizing.
So, can the city,without spending countless months and dollars hiring firms to do studies, or maybe when the city finally gets an engineer, at least make it a little easier to get to downtown and address the bottleneck on Upper Third St. and the massive One Way confusions where daily you meet up with someone going the wrong way.
You know, things like where the 3rd St. right hand land just all of a sudden ends over the blind spot of a bridge. If it is beyond getting permission from Rapides Regional to make a curve out of their 3 way stop then maybe they could allow the City to put in place a right and left turning lanes?
Brian
I agree with Drew Ward’s comment: “… another area with great potential that has been seemingly ignored is Bolton Avenue.” And I would include Lee Street as well. I have a business at Bolton & Lee, and every day I see a desperate need for economic development. Drew is correct, there is POTENTIAL in this area. Unlike downtown, the Bolton/Lee area has PEOPLE and COMMUNITY: it is surrounded by residential areas, it has pedestrian traffic as well as vehicle traffic. There are big problems here – drugs, crime, poverty, etc. But there are also hundreds of honest, hard-working people who live and work in the area. If anyone is working on economic development of the Bolton/Lee Street area, I’d like to get involved.
Faye Cupples
RiverTown Flea Market (in the old John Ward Hardware Building)