Summer 2005 issue

Revitalization meets W 2 Smart Growth hen the Smart Growth discussion began in the mid-1990s among citizens, public officials and planners, the primary focus was on managing growth at the urban fringe. The conversion of large amounts of farm and forest land to low-density development was a major concern then, as it remains today. But over the past few years, it has become more widely recognized that the revitalization of existing communities is also a vital element of Smart Growth, and maybe a more fruitful arena for focused attention. ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 There are obvious advantages to developing in existing communities — infrastructure is already in place, and meeting growth demand with infill and redevelopment could help reduce the gobbling-up of open countryside. But targeting older communities for growth and investment also offers great opportunities for improvement. These communities have experienced decades of disinvestment and often provide little in the way of retail services that are taken for granted in the newer suburbs. Growth — new housing and commercial development — can be used to complete these neighborhoods by offering a wider range of housing opportunities and by creating mixed-use walkable neighborhoods that meet an increasing market demand. We have tracked the increasing interest in walkable, mixed-use communities in the Smart Growth surveys undertaken by NAR as well as the surveys of others. Increasingly, consumers are saying they want to walk to destinations such as shops and restaurants, and they are willing to live in higher-density housing in order to achieve this lifestyle. Last year, 12 percent of all existing home sales in the country were condos, and condos appreciated more in percent of value than detached houses. As articles in this issue of On Common Ground illustrate, this demand is being met with new housing and retail development in the downtowns of cities large and small, in older suburbs that are creating new mixeduse downtowns, and in smaller Main Street towns. Make no mistake, the predominant development pattern continues to be low-density subur- ban expansion, and Smart Growth proponents still need to focus energies and budgets on preserving open space and improving the planning models for new suburban and exurban development. But investing in and strengthening older communities is a winning Smart Growth strategy for creating better neighborhoods and a wider range of housing options. For more information on NAR and Smart Growth, go to www.realtor.org/smartgrowth. On Common Ground is published twice a year by the Government Affairs office of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (NAR), and is distributed free of charge. The publication presents a wide range of views on Smart Growth issues, with the goal of encouraging a dialogue among REALTORS®, elected officials and other interested citizens. The opinions expressed in On Common Ground are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policy of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®, its members or affiliate organizations. Editor: Joseph R. Molinaro, Manager, Smart Growth Programs NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® 500 New Jersey Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20001 For more copies of this issue or to be placed on our mailing list for future issues of On Common Ground, please contact Ted Wright, NAR Government Affairs, at (202) 383-1206 or twright@realtors.org. Distribution: SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 3 58 Attractions of the Small Town 28 All Aboard! 16 4 New Life in the Old Burbs 52 The Code Word Is Smart ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 On Common Ground Summer 2005 6 New Downtown Housing Not just the biggest cities. by Martin Zimmerman 10 If You Rebuild, Will They Come? The revitalization of Main Street. by Brad Broberg 16 The Code Word is Smart Growth Building codes are reflecting the demand for revamping older structures. by John Van Gieson What Was Once Old Is Now New 22 10 22 What Was Once Old Is Now New Transforming greyfield sites into new communities. by Jason Miller If You Rebuild, Will They Come? 28 Attractions of the Small Town by Brad Broberg 32 No Vacancies Cities struggle to reclaim abandoned properties. by Jason Miller 38 Smart Growth Redo of Mid-Size Cities by Heidi Johnson-Wright 44 Commercial Comebacks by David Goldberg 52 New Life in the Old Burbs Diverse home buyers are reviving older, inner-ring suburbs. by Steve Wright 58 All Aboard! Streetcars lead the way to Neighborhood Reinvestment. by Christine Jordan Sexton 64 Smart Growth in the States On Common Ground thanks the following contributors and organizations for photographs, illustrations and artist renderings reprinted in this issue: Baltimore County Office of Communications, Boulevard Centro, Payton Chung, City of North Miami, Congress for the New Urbanism, Continuum Partners LLC, Kay Dannen of Shiels Obletz Johnson, Inc., Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., Alan Feinberg of Central Maryland Development, Inc., Flaherty and Collins Properties, Jill Freeman, Francesca Gambetti, Shiels Obletz Johnsen, Inc., Val Giannettino of Downtown Partners Inc. in Burlington, Iowa, Leslie Grower of Center City Commission, Emily Hall of Durkee, Brown, Viveiros & Werenfels Architects, Hillsborough Area Transit Authority, Hoyt Street Properties, Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority, Littleton Main Street, Inc., Alex MacLean, Rich McLaughlin, Ed McMahon, Urban Land Institute, Metro 2005, Darrell Moore, Myhre Group Architects 2004, Novare Group, Steve Rosenthal, Joe Schilling, Patricia Shetley of Patricia Shetley and Associates, Inc., Michael Stevens, DC Marketing Center, Douglas S. Storrs of Cornish Associates, LP Told , Development Company, Unity Council, Beth Van Der Jagt of Looney Ricks Kiss Architects and Wisconsin Department of Tourism. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 5 new downtown housing Not just the biggest cities By Martin Zimmerman he Upsurge To the relief and surprise of those who savor an urban lifestyle, the housing boom which has flourished in and near downtowns over the past decade shows no signs of abating. Equally unexpected is that this boom is common to cities of widely varying sizes and in all regions of the country. In cities with an industrial legacy, converted warehouses within easy walking distance of downtowns are attracting the young, affluent professional market. Hip and artsy districts are taking root with names like SoMa, Lodo, SoDo and DUMBO…all derived from Manhattan’s cast iron Soho district where it all began. Let’s call this Type I. Type II is characterized by the construction of new housing on close-in open sites. Type III is associated with the conversion of vacant but architecturally notable buildings such as department stores or office buildings. Type IV focuses on new infill projects. Type V has just begun to emerge in some of the bigger cities and consists of new luxurious high-rise condos planned for the over privileged. And what of the loft? Its popularity is so pervasive that it is being replicated in the three other types of buildings…and with no apologies to Soho. T Charlotte, N.C. 6 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 The Determinants However, to truly contribute to an urban lifestyle, downtown housing depends on a support system, i.e. a set of determinants. Based upon a study by the Brookings Institution, these are listed as follows: • Downtown political and business leadership must be pro-housing. • City financial subsidies must be allocated to housing. • Zoning must mandate high-density housing in conformance with compact, coherent districts based on the New Urbanist model. • Downtowns must express a rich blend of old and new architecture. • Downtowns must slow down the auto, minimize parking and give the pedestrian and cyclist priority. • Downtowns need to encourage and tolerate pedestrian-intensive activities such as farmer’s markets, street theatre, political leafleting and sidewalk vendors. This means the kind of spontaneous interaction that is impossible in the suburban malls. • Downtowns must be clean and safe. • Neighborhoods bordering downtowns should be attractive with unhampered access to downtowns by foot, car or bicycle. • A downtown management entity must coordinate the affairs of the various facets of a downtown. Springfield, MO Downtown Springfield sits within a city of 150,000, including two universities located a few minutes away. Throughout the 1980s and early 90s, downtown remained a fraction of its former size, the only evidence of housing being a few makeshift lofts and rooming houses. Things began to change in 1998 when a maverick developer bought a vacant building and converted it to five lofts. Over the next two years another 55 units were added and a local business pumped $3.2 million into a start-up brew pub. Soon other pubs and restaurants sprouted, a nonprofit Downtowns need to encourage and tolerate pedestrian-intensive activities. Community Development Corporation (CDC) was formed, a downtown plan was prepared and 13 banks pooled money for gap financing. All of this set the stage for the real housing surge. In the last three years another 166 units have been built, 60 are currently under construction and 86 are planned. This raises the total to just under 400. Rents have remained affordable in the $600-$1,200 range. In Springfield, virtually all of the housing is Type III — adaptive reuse of older buildings. “In bigger cities, inserting three- or four-hundred housing units of housing in the downtown does not make much impact. In Springfield it has had a major impact,” says John Simmons, director of the Urban District Alliance. Charlotte, NC Unlike other cities which stood helpless while businesses fled, Charlotte, in keeping with its corporate ethos, fought back with a vengeance during the 1970s and 80s. Such zeal came at a price as numerous historic structures fell to the wrecking ball, and the Brooklyn African-American community was leveled to make way for a sterile government center. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 7 By the 1990s a consolidation and redirection took place consistent with the determinants stated above, and several blockbuster projects were built. Foremost among these was the Nations Bank headquarters, a centerpiece for uptown (as referred to in Charlotte) which combined an elegant 60-story tower with a home for the Charlotte Symphony. Meanwhile, residential population remained static at 3000 units. In 1998 the housing upsurge began with a number of different projects moving forward simultaneously. The heaviest concentrations occurred in two projects — Hope VI and Gateway Village. In addition to replacing deteriorated public housing, the Hope VI effort mixed race, income and housing types to create a model neighborhood of 750 residences, now called the Garden District. Building setbacks, architectural scale and street presence were all conceived in accordance with New Urbanist principles. The Gateway mixed-use project combined 699 units of mid-rise housing with a Bank of America office facility and a New Urban campus for Johnson and Wales University. As a result, residential units increased in uptown from 3,000 in 1995 to 9,500 in 2005. In the past 10 months developers have unveiled plans for eight high-rises, including one that will soar to 56 stories. It looks like a goal of 12,000 by 2007 is within reach. Downtown housing is a long-awaited and muchheralded success. Other Cities Birmingham, Alabama – By 1998 this city had added 14 apartment buildings with six more planned. Initially rentals, there has been a shift to a 45-percent ownership level. Developers also have been working towards conversion of the John Hand building, one of Birmingham’s first skyscrapers, Planned housing development in Charlotte, N.C. into a mixed-use facility with a bank, residences, offices and a health club. Memphis, Tennessee – The creation of downtown housing in Memphis has been a mix of large and small projects. Mud Island, an ongoing effort which straddles the downtown zone, has grown to 2,600 housing units since the late 1980s, of which 75 percent are apartments. As of 2003 plans were afoot for another large undertaking mixing Hope VI subsidized units with market-rate units. Financing was being arranged through HUD ($35 million), City of Memphis ($18.1 million), private equity and loans ($58.5 million) and public and private grants ($14.7million). Other intriguing projects include the conversion of the imposing central rail station to housing and the Rivermark Apartments, converted from a Holiday Inn. Cleveland, Ohio – Despite an ominous population decline in the city overall, the 2000 census indicated a 51-percent growth in downtown housing to a total of 8,105 units. The regeneration of the Warehouse District has contributed to this change, where an investment of $133 million has paid off with 1,000 apartments and associated night life. 8 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 Mixed housing and affordable housing must exist. Conclusion Clearly downtown housing is a long-awaited and much-heralded Memphis, Tenn. success. But is that really the case? Upon closer scrutiny, it appears that unless several warning signs are heeded, downtown housing may fall short of its full potential. In too many situations, vital services such as grocery stores, hair salons, dentists or dry cleaners are missing. Houses of worship, branch libraries, YMCAs and public schools are also absent. Lower-income and family living is essential to bring balance to the current dominance of affluent singles and wealthy empty-nesters. Given the rise that has already occurred in land values, such a move will most likely require public subsidies. Before high-rises are built, their architectural qualities require design review. An ugly building that is three stories high cannot mar the skyline of a downtown as much as a slapdash structure rising 30 stories. Parking, when allowed to remain at or near suburban ratios, means less walking, biking or mass transit use and undermines aspirations for a 24/7 lifestyle. How downtowns will relate to suburbs is yet another issue. Even in larger cities, downtown populations will not likely exceed 30,000 residences while metropolitan regions are in the millions and still growing. Even more foreboding is a recent contingent of suburban developers who have jumped on the bandwagon with plans to construct loft condos “for people who don’t want to live in the city.” Nevertheless, the hope is that with each project completed, downtown housing will take another step toward overcoming the warning signs while continuing to enrich the urban experience in the process. Martin Zimmerman is an architect, planner and urban affairs journalist currently residing in Charlotte, N.C. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 9 If you rebuild, 10 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 will they come? the revitalization of Main Street By Brad Broberg A s former director of the National Trust Main Street Center, Kennedy Smith knows Smart Growth when she sees it — even when serendipity rather than strategy is driving the bus. A program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Main Street Center helps towns and neighborhoods revive declining business districts through a tried-and-true blend of design, development and restoration activities. Supported by public and private investment, the Main Street approach provides communities with a blueprint for reviving and preserving the unique history, architecture and vitality of old-fashioned downtowns. In most cases, says Smith, communities adopt the Main Street approach as a way to fight back against outlying shopping malls and superstores that have sucked the life out of their longtime commercial cores. However, like a box of Cracker Jacks, Main Street initiatives offer something besides the popcorn and peanuts of economic development. They also offer a prize — Smart Growth. By transforming downtrodden downtowns into desirable destinations, Main Streets not only give communities an economic shot in the arm, they also give them a new tool to manage both commercial and residential growth — whether they know it or not. “Every community comes to it from a different direction,” says Smith, now a principal with the Community Land Use and Economics Group. Some recognize the Main Street approach as a Smart Growth strategy and treat it that way. In most communities, though, the link between Main Streets and Smart Growth remains “a happy coincidence,” she says. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 11 In Connecticut, for instance, the power company started a statewide Main Street program because it wanted to spark growth in places where it already provided service and douse demand for new connections outside of town, says Smith. “They were Smart Growth advocates without realizing it,” she says. Either way, if done right, Main Street initiatives promote key principles of Smart Growth — including spreading as Main Street initiatives — both new and old — begin to include more housing, says Smith. And why not? Downtown residential growth not only offers a potential alternative to sprawl, it generates more customers for downtown merchants, she notes. Consider Burlington, Iowa, population 26,500. Perched on the banks of the Mississippi River in the southeast corner of the state, Burlington was If done right, Main Street initiatives promote key principles of Smart Growth. Burlington, Iowa density, walkability and infill — with both a carrot and a stick. The carrot is a rejuvenated business district that attracts people and development alike and makes the entire community more prosperous and appealing. The stick is a set of zoning regulations that force — or at least strongly steer — development toward Main Street rather than letting it ooze to the outskirts of town and beyond. Smith can point to many communities that are making all the right moves, using Main Street strategies to rekindle traditional business districts while at the same time fostering Smart Growth. It’s a two-birds-with-one-stone game plan that’s once a bustling steamboat port and booming railroad hub. But that was 100 years ago. Over time — and under pressure from a new shopping mall — the city’s once-thriving downtown slowly declined. Burlington’s nadir came in 1980 when the once prestigious Hotel Burlington — or the H tel Burlingto as locals dubbed it after letters started disappearing from its sign — closed, says Smith. Fed up with being boarded up, Burlington launched a Main Street initiative in 1986 that steadily turned downtown around. In the beginning, that meant restoring downtown’s retail pulse by forming public-private partnerships, recruiting 12 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 hundreds of volunteers and encouraging community-based investment to redevelop hundreds of once-proud properties in need of some TLC — and tenants. Now, however, it’s time to reassess where new opportunities lie, says Val Giannettino, executive director of Downtown Partners Inc., which manages the town’s Main Street program. “We have to reinvent ourselves,” she says. Taking its cue from a statewide push to promote downtown living, Burlington is adding more and more housing to its downtown mix, says Giannettino. Yes, she admits, uttering Iowa and downtown living in the same breath sounds akin to associating Manhattan with corn fields, but that doesn’t bother Burlington. “We have a downtown that would welcome all kinds of people,” says Giannettino. “We have tons of room to grow.” The story of Schramm’s Department Store symbolizes Burlington’s possible new future. After anchoring downtown Burlington for more than 150 years, Schramm’s closed in 1996 and sat vacant until a developer converted it into a mixeduse building with commercial tenants below and 13 upscale condominiums — featuring expansive views of the river — above. “When people tour the building, they are blown away,” says Giannettino. The Schramm’s project followed in the footsteps of downtown Burlington’s first big residential project — the use of tax credits to help convert the Hotel Burlington into 75 units of senior housing in 1998. Now, with the help of a $615,000 federal grant, three downtown property owners are converting the upper floors of their commercial buildings into a dozen affordable housing units, says Giannettino. The tax credits and grant, while welcome, point to one of the biggest hurdles facing many Main Street towns as they pursue residential growth. “The greatest challenge is cost,” says Giannettino. “There is a short list of people here with the money to do those kinds of projects.” The other challenge involves geography. Burlington is not within commuting distance of a metropolitan area or its suburbs and offers limited ways for people to earn a living. Still, the potential to absorb residential growth downtown is enormous as numerous classic brick warehouses stand empty along the river waiting for a second life. “We’re poised and very ready for growth,” says Giannettino. Littleton, NH, is another Main Street town where housing is becoming a bigger part of the downtown mix. In Littleton’s case, demand is strong as a housing crunch — fueled in part by the area’s recreational attractions — has created a Littleton, N.H. We have a downtown that would welcome all kinds of people...and tons of room to grow. robust residential market, says Ruth Taylor, director of the community’s Main Street program. Littleton, a 220-year-old town outside White Mountain National Forest in the northwest part of the state, launched its Main Street program in 1997 after being hit hard by the loss of manufacturing jobs. At one point, residents saw 17 vacant storefronts every time they went downtown. With community-funded facade improvements, special events and market research providing the initial momentum, the Main Street approach soon helped pull Littleton out of its tailspin. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 13 We like to see a mix of uses downtown and housing is part of that. Littleton Main Street, N.H. Having regained its commercial health, downtown Littleton is entering a new stage as the hot housing market and a glut of office space are driving the conversion of upper-floor offices into apartments, says Taylor. “More would be great,” she notes. Still, density can be a hard sell in a state where “zoning almost doesn’t exist” and the official motto is “Live free or die,” says Taylor. A proposal to build clustered housing within walking distance of downtown was rejected at the town meeting two years ago, she says. The decision came despite the fact that sprawl is a very real threat, says Taylor. “Unless you’ve lived in a city, you don’t understand the value of dense housing,” she says. Founded in the 1840s by Dutch settlers, Holland, Mich., is a Main Street town with a diverse and growing mix of downtown housing options, including housing for students and staff from Hope College, two large senior-housing complexes, a pair of upscale condo communities and numerous apartments above storefronts. “We like to see a mix of uses downtown and housing is part of that,” says Phil Meyer, director of community and neighborhood services. Also in the mix are a growing number of new restaurants and galleries complementing traditional retail and service business — a trend symbolized by the opening of a brew pub in a former hardware store. Located just west of Grand Rapids a few miles from the shores of Lake Michigan, Holland, population 33,000, kicked off its Main Street initiative in 1984 to counter competition from a series of proposed outlying shopping malls. “Downtown was, I wouldn’t saying dying, but it was tired and struggling quite a bit at the time with the changing patterns of shopping,” says Meyer. Things heated up — literally — in 1988. That’s when the Main Street Committee spearheaded a comprehensive public-private streetscape project beautifying downtown’s main drag and installing a network of pipes below the pavement that provide radiant heat to keep a five-block area of downtown ice- and snow-free during the winter. One of the challenges facing any Main Street initiative is the need to provide ongoing support. In 14 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 Holland, a Downtown Development Authority (DDA) appointed by the city council supports the Main Street initiative by assessing property owners to provide management and maintenance services. The DDA also collects an assessment to provide free customer and employee parking. In addition, assessments to fund marketing and promotion are collected via a state-authorized principal shopping district. Proof that Main Street initiatives provide a vehicle for the long haul came recently when a shopping mall that had once threatened downtown Holland and inspired the downtown’s revitalization went bankrupt. “They lost out not only to downtown, but also to another shopping mall built further away,” says Meyer. Brad Broberg is a Seattle-based freelance writer specializing in business and development issues. His work appears regularly in the Puget Sound Business Journal and the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce. THE NATIONAL TRUST MAIN STREET CENTER is the nation’s clearinghouse for information, technical assistance, research and advocacy related to commercial district revitalization and preservation — all based on the center’s trademark Main Street Four-Point Approach. Design: Enhance the physical appearance of the commercial district by rehabilitating historic buildings, encouraging supportive new construction, developing sensitive design management systems and promoting long-term planning. Organization: Build consensus and cooperation among the many groups and individuals that have a role in the revitalization process. Promotion: Market the traditional commercial district’s assets to customers, potential investors, new businesses, local citizens and visitors. Economic restructuring: Strengthen the district’s existing economic base while founding ways to expand it to meet new opportunities — and challenges — from outlying development. Source: National Trust Main Street Center of the National Trust for Historic Preservation (www.mainstreet.org). SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 15 The Code Word is Building codes are reflecting the demand for revamping older structures SMART growth By John Van Gieson 16 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 he historic city of Newark, New Jersey’s largest, had fallen on hard times. Racked by a deadly riot in 1967, Newark spiraled downward into decay, poverty and crime. Its population plummeted from a peak of 473,000 in 1950 to about 273,000 currently. But today, Newark is going through a remarkable renaissance assisted in large part by a New Jersey building code facilitating renovation of older buildings. Known as the “Rehabilitation Subcode,” the new code in Jersey was designed to remove the barriers that made revitalization of vacant and underutilized older buildings prohibitively expensive and ridiculously complicated. In the Garden State, a densely populated state where half the housing stock was built before 1959, that’s a very good idea. “The Rehabilitation Subcode has led to a ‘rehabilitation renaissance’ in New Jersey,” said Susan Bass Levin, commissioner of the state’s Department of Community Affairs. “Because the Rehabilitation Subcode eliminates unnecessary regulatory barriers to the reuse of existing older buildings, projects throughout the state that were once overlooked by developers are finding new life and expanding housing and job opportunities for New Jersey residents.” Smart building codes promoting rehabilitation of older buildings have become a valuable Smart Growth tool. Maryland adopted a smart building code based largely on the New Jersey experience, followed by Rhode Island, New York and other states. Cities that have adopted smart buildings codes include Wilmington, Delaware; Wichita, Kansas; and Kansas City, Missouri. Existing building codes typically impose requirements that make sense in new buildings but may impede reuse of older buildings. “Local codes and regulations often act as impediments to Smart Growth, urban revitalization and livable communities,” said Ed T SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 17 McMahon, a senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute. “Developers who would protect the environment or restore a historic building are often stymied by inflexible regulations.” “While these laws differ in their specifics, they all share a recognition that while older buildings need to meet standards for safety and accessibility (just as new buildings do), they can be evaluated and regulated differently,” McMahon said. Smart Growth advocates, building code organizations, historic preservationists and home builders all extol the virtues of smart building codes promoting revitalization of older buildings, but the movement has been relatively slow to catch on. Concerns that rehabilitation codes may compromise the safety of older buildings is also a factor, but smart building code advocates say it shouldn’t be. “All of the rehabilitation codes that I know of have very high standards as far as safety requirements go,” Hopkins said. Given the slow pace at which rehab codes are being adopted, it will take years before other states catch up to New Jersey. Toward the end of the last century, Newark appeared headed for a place on the scrap heap of wasted cities. To its advantage, however, Newark had a large supply of fundamentally sound old buildings that with the right tools could be convert- Smart building codes promoting rehabilitation of older buildings have become a valuable Smart Growth tool. The best available information on the number of jurisdictions using smart building codes comes from the International Code Council (ICC), which adopted its model International Existing Building Code in 2003. Shortly after New Jersey adopted its new code in 1997, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development developed its model code, the Nationally Applicable Recommended Rehabilitation Provisions (NARRP) for use by other jurisdictions. The ICC drew heavily on HUD’s model code in developing its code for rehabilitation of existing buildings. The National Fire Protection Association has also developed a model rehabilitation code. “With the endorsement of the two national groups at the core of code writing, we’ll hopefully see more state and local jurisdictions adopting rehabilitation codes,” said Johns Hopkins, executive director of Baltimore Heritage, a historic preservation organization. The ICC reported that four states have adopted its existing building code: Michigan, Montana, New Mexico and West Virginia. Local governments have adopted the ICC code in 12 other states. HUD spokesman Brian E. Sullivan said it comes as no surprise that local officials have been slow to adopt new building codes promoting rehabilitation of existing buildings. “Adoption of a new code format takes many years to be fully accepted in the thousands of local jurisdictions that adopt codes,” he said. “Also many communities have not adopted an existing building code but rely on their regular building code.” 18 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 ed into the centerpieces of a dynamic, revitalized city. The New Jersey Rehabilitation Subcode helped to provide those tools, along with the opening of the $187 million New Jersey Performing Arts Center in downtown Newark in 1997. For the first time in years, New Jersey residents had a reason to reconsider Newark. Many existing homes have been or are being rehabilitated in the city’s residential areas, and several major redevelopment projects are planned for downtown Newark, including: •Clinton Street Lofts, a 10-story Beaux Arts office building constructed in 1906 that is being converted into apartments renting for $800 to $1,375 a month. •Hahne-Griffith, an old department store and next-door office building that are being converted into 266 apartments. •National Newark Building, the city’s tallest at 465 feet, an Art Deco office building that opened in 1931, that was converted into a high-tech office tower where cheaper rents are luring tenants across the Hudson River from New York. •1180 Raymond Boulevard, a vacant 448-foot Art Deco office building being converted into 195 market-rate apartments and 315 apartments for Seton Hall University Law School students. The National Newark and 1180 Raymond Boulevard renovations are projects of Cogswell Realty Group, which is spending $180 million to renovate the historic skyscrapers in the heart of Newark. Cogswell has taken the lead in investing in the new downtown Newark. The Rehabilitation Subcode was an important factor in redeveloping Newark, Jersey City and other New Jersey cities, said William M. Connolly, director of the New Jersey Division of Codes and Standards. In the first year after the code was The New Jersey code was specifically designed to remove barriers...that were discouraging renovation of old buildings. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 19 adopted, rehabilitation spending in the state’s five largest cities increased by 60 percent, compared to 1.6 percent the previous year. “The (1180 Raymond Boulevard) project architect told us that without the new code it would not have been feasible,” he said. The New Jersey code was specifically designed to remove barriers, such as requiring renovators to widen hallways, that were discouraging renovation of old buildings. It creates four distinct categories, repair, alteration, addition and change of occupancy, with separate rules for each. New Jersey, along with many other jurisdictions, used to apply the “25/50 Rule” to rehabilitation projects. If the estimated cost of the rehabilitation work was less than 25 percent of the building’s value, building officials had flexibility to determine the extent to which the project had to comply with building codes. If the value was between 25 and 50 percent, all of the rehabilitation work had to conform to the building codes. If it was greater than 50 percent, the entire building had to be brought up to code. The old New Jersey code went even farther, requiring full compliance with light, ventilation, egress and fire safety provisions if the rehabilitation involved more than 5 percent of the building’s floor space. There was a certain amount of flexibility in the old code, but flexibility is frequently incompatible with bureaucracy. “Codes are ultimately enforced by human beings and some peoples’ interpretations vary and that’s what it is,” Hopkins said. “That aspect of it has not Local governments that embrace the code are rewarded with financial incentives. 20 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 Smart Growth cannot work if you cannot build, if people cannot reuse, and if people cannot redevelop. changed with Smart Codes; it’s still enforced and interpreted by human beings, but what we said we were setting out to do (in Maryland) was codify common sense.” Maryland built on the New Jersey experience in 2000 when it adopted a building rehabilitation code known as Smart Codes. Local governments that embrace the code are rewarded with financial incentives. The Maryland incentives include priority for participating in state funding programs, historic preservation tax credits, and refunding up to 20 percent of the cost of rehabilitation. “It made huge numbers of projects feasible that were not feasible before the refunds when into effect,” said Harriett Tregoning, chair of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute. She is the former director of the Maryland Office of Smart Growth. Even political groups are endorsing smart building codes. In an article on its Web site, the New Democrats Online concluded, “In order to save our stock of historic housing, state and local governments need to make it possible for builders to convert old buildings to new uses. Ultimately, Smart Growth cannot work if you cannot build, if people cannot reuse, and if people cannot redevelop.” John Van Gieson is a freelance writer based in Tallahassee, Florida. He owns and runs Van Gieson Media Relations, Inc. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 21 22 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 new Transforming greyfield sites into new communities What once was old is now By Jason Miller n the evolution of retail, shopping malls as we know them represent the end of an era. Increasingly, underperforming or obsolete malls — a.k.a. “greyfield” sites — are going the way of the dinosaur and being replaced by mixed-use neighborhoods, which allow residents to reach many of their daily needs by simply taking a short walk from their residences. Shops, restaurants, transit links, parks, offices, cultural buildings such as libraries and other needs of modern life are situated near residential choices that include single-family homes, apartments, condominiums and live/work buildings. Greyfields are becoming an increasingly common sight in the American landscape, the most common iteration of which is the conventional strip mall whose anchor tenant has moved out or whose bottom line has succumbed to the pressures of competition from discount stores, Internet commerce and newer malls in newer suburbs. In its 2001 study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) reported that 19 percent of the nation’s 2,000 regional malls were in greyfield status or vulnerable to becoming so, having sales per square foot of $150 or less (one-third the rate of sales at a successful mall). Other studies have estimated between 4,000 and 5,500 smaller greyfield malls nationally. Resources for revival The CNU maintains certain principles for success when transforming greyfields into desirable places: • Evolve the site from a single structure into a district with subdistricts • Establish a street pattern • Reorient activity to face the street • Connect with the surrounding community • Integrate multiple uses • Design for human scale • Include housing • Customize to fit local needs But following these principles can be a challenge for municipalities that are uncertain how to proceed or unaware of the resources available to them. One such resource is the third phase of the CNU greyfields study, slated for release in summer 2005. I Left and above: Belmar in Lakewood, Colo. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 23 Following up on the first two phases, which identified the greyfields problem and presented case studies on in-progress projects, the third-phase report aims to serve as a guide for property owners, developers, city officials and other community leaders to use in analyzing greyfields in their neighborhoods. The report encourages an openminded approach to greyfield redevelopment, stating that a mixed-use neighborhood is not always the best strategy for renewal; often, renovation or reuse are more feasible approaches. For more information on the study, visit the CNU Web site at www.cnu.org. Greyfield projects are booming, according to New Urban News, a New Urbanist newsletter based in Ithaca, New York. In late 2003 it counted 43 infill, greyfield and brownfield developments in its annual list of New Urban projects. The more mature greyfield redevelopment projects are the beneficiaries of committed local city governments, and are following New Urbanist principles to much success. Belmar Lakewood, Colorado One of the more sweeping greyfield transformations in the nation, Belmar is a mixed-use renovation and redevelopment of the failing Villa Italia mall in Lakewood — Colorado’s fourth-largest city. Composed of 23 city blocks (104 acres), Belmar has The market at Belmar become a bustling, vibrant downtown district for Lakewood, which had no such district before the renovation effort began. The recipient of a 2005 CNU Charter Award, Belmar is approximately 40 percent complete at press time, with build-out scheduled for another seven to 10 years. It represents the cumulative will of the city of Lakewood and its residents, who clamored for a downtown, an identity for the city, says Will Fleissig, director for planning and design with Continuum Partners LLC, the project’s developer. “The community had a very clear vision about what it wanted,” says Fleissig. “And now the vision has national implications. We took a 1.4-millionsquare-foot mall and worked with the city to downsize the retail and make the site denser without creating a burden on the existing street — the transit lines allowed this. If you can increase a site’s density by two or three times while not increasing the burden on the adjoining roads, well, that’s what we need to be doing in America — especially in the inner-ring suburbs.” In order to get out of the ground, however, Belmar needed more than political and community will. “To create a downtown, you need to create some kind of structured parking, and that can be difficult to afford,” says Fleissig. “The city worked with us on investment that allowed for the new sales tax revenues from the project to be garnered for the roads, the trees, the parking. It was a perfect financing solution — and it worked.” Greyfield projects are booming, according to New Urban News. 24 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 Belmar in Lakewood, Colo. Local response to Belmar has been encouraging, says Fleissig. “We’re seeing quite a bit of reinvestment around the site — a resurgence in development in the vicinity. There’s at least a half dozen of these types of development nearby, trying to leverage our success.” Belmar has only recently opened up its first residential offerings, but even in these early stages, the home-buying public likes what it sees, says Steve Jones, a REALTOR® with Denver-based Kentwood City Properties. “We’re presently selling 12 loft-style condos in a mixed-use building, a more modern style and type which is pretty much the first of its kind in Lakewood. Out of those 12 units, we’ve closed four and have four more under contract. “The response has been really good, and even though some people look in and find the modern loft concept a little too harsh, the people who have bought these properties are just blown away by having someone offer something this contemporary in Lakewood. The buyers tend to be young, single, professional people who can’t afford to live in downtown Denver, but want the feel of an urban loft.” The Belmar loft condos are selling for $239,000 to $255,000. All are 1,020 square feet and offer one bedroom with a study or a den, plus a bathroom, private outdoor spaces, garage parking and additional storage. It feels like a real downtown — and it’s only been created in the last year. “The people who visit on the weekends are overwhelmed at how many people are out and about, enjoying the space,” says Jones. “In my opinion, five years down the road, Belmar is going to be used as a model across the country for how to do a huge infill project out of a mall. It feels like a real downtown — and it’s only been created in the last year.” Santana Row San Jose, California Santana Row started with a bang. In August 2002, barely a year into its construction and a mere month before its scheduled grand opening, an unexplained fire erupted, torching 34 apartment units in the development. It was the largest fire in San Jose history, and it put a damper on Santana Row’s momentum, pushing the grand opening out to the end of 2002. Borrowing its name from Santana Park, a nearby half-acre park that eventually will be incorpo- SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 25 A place where residents can live, eat, shop, stay, and play — without ever getting in their cars. rated into the project, the 42-acre Santana Row is the largest mixed-use project ever built in San Jose. At $1 billion, its price tag bears that out. In its past life, Santana Row was the Town & Country Mall, a conventional, single-story strip mall that had suffered from reduced patronage and sales tax revenue. In March 1997, Maryland-based developer Federal Realty Investment Trust (FRIT) purchased the property, razing the mall and beginning construction in 2001. This paved the way for a new, mixed-use development that FRIT contends will provide a “unique mix of shopping, dining, entertainment and living, designed to enhance the individual experience.” So far, that prediction has held true. Modeled after a typical European urban space, Santana Row boasts high-density, mixed-use buildings that house every urban amenity imaginable — including the 213-room Hotel Valencia and a 12-screen cinema. The raw numbers alone are impressive: • 558,000 square ft. of retail (680,000 sq. ft. at completion) • 501 residential units, of which 219 are condos (1,201 residential units at completion) Retail options at Santana Row are decidedly upscale, but many offer their wares to residents for a discount. Walk down the pedestrian-friendly main street and you’ll see more than 100 stores, with names such as Gucci, Diesel, Ann Taylor, Burberry, Anthropologie, and Crate & Barrel. The Santana Row, San Jose, Calif. 18-plus restaurants — many from San Francisco, like Blowfish Sushi and the Straits Café — are getting great reviews, and a traditional farmers’ market helps to leaven the scene with a bit of down-toearth flavor. Cutting-edge technology inclusions mix well with the elegant European ambience here. The residential dwelling units offer broadband Internet access, wireless capabilities, 500-channel DirectTV, and multi-line phone service. A high-tech, 24-hour fitness center hosts residents. At the same time, two parks are just a stroll away, outfitted with outdoor chess, an outdoor theater, splashing fountains and eye-candy landscaping. These condo properties were available for sale mere days before this article went to press. But with wall-to-wall amenities only steps away from residents’ doorsteps, few can doubt the sales potential. Already, Santana is generating sales tax revenue for the city of San Jose and the numbers are rising steadily. Like most redevelopment projects of its scale, though, Santana Row has not been without controversy. While some observers hail it as a model for Smart Growth, others have criticized it for competing too aggressively with San Jose’s newly revitalized downtown — just 3 . 5 miles away — and another neighboring retail concern, the Valley Fair Mall. But Santana Row’s retail tenants dispute this concern, saying those claims are unwarranted, that the development is filling a retail niche that will attract a different market segment: one that will respond to Santana Row’s promise of a place where residents can live, eat, shop, stay and play — without ever getting in their cars. Bayshore Glendale, Wisconsin Built in 1955, the Bayshore Mall in Glendale, Wis., is about to get a new lease on life. In need of serious renovations, the mall struggled to compete in the changing marketplace of southeastern Wisconsin. Since many residents in the area leave the state and travel to the Chicago area, where there is a 26 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 Santana Row, San Jose, Calif. wider variety of retail options, developer Steiner + Associates saw an opportunity to bring upscale retail to the region. In addition, Glendale, a community minutes from downtown Milwaukee, was in need of its own town center to attract visitors from all over the state and bring Glendale a better sense of community. The owner of the mall, Dallas-based Corrigan Holdings, partnered with the city of Glendale’s Community Development Authority, which provided crucial public funding to move the $300million project through the planning stages and into the construction phase. “This is an exciting time for the city of Glendale and its surrounding communities,” says Glendale Mayor Jay Hintze. “Over the next few years, Bayshore Mall will be transformed into a community gathering place — a town center that we’ve never seen before. The evolution of the new Bayshore Mall will be exciting to watch and will have a tremendous impact on the city of Glendale and the entire North Shore area.” When complete, Bayshore will combine its open-air, town-square-style components with a revitalized, enclosed mall component, offering 1.2 million square feet of retail space. Retail choices will range from large anchor tenants like Boston Store, Sears and Kohl’s Department Store to many smaller retailers. Bayshore will include 180,000 square feet of office space and 150,000 square feet of entertainment space, including several restaurants and a possible comedy club and/or art theater complex. Also included in the mixed-use project is a residential component that will consist of 81 townhouse condominiums and 120 upscale apartments. A one-acre “town square” park will also grace Bayshore, providing a suitable locale for public gatherings, concerts and possibly ice skating. At press time, Bayshore had begun its construction phase. The project is slated for completion in fall 2006. Reclaiming the land Belmar, Santana Row and Bayshore are just three examples of a nationwide effort to transform troubled properties into vibrant places where people want to live, work and play. As malls and other large-scale developments buckle under their own unsustainable weight or unforeseen market forces, more opportunities should arise for knowledgeable city officials, developers, community leaders and REALTORS® to reclaim the land, fix the mistakes or simply move a property toward its next incarnation — hopefully, one that will last longer and contribute more to its community. Jason Miller is a freelance writer, editor and publishing consultant based in St. Paul, Minnesota. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 27 Small towns are drawing population, but they too must practice Smart Growth By Brad Broberg attractions of the small town Growth advocates, Feinberg and Tittas are passionate about fostering redevelopment — social, economic and physical — in the small cities west of the Washington/Baltimore metro area. “These are great old towns that have sort of been preserved in amber for decades,” says Feinberg. “They are places that were once real places that have fallen on hard times and they need to reinvent themselves.” One such place is Hagerstown, MD. A blue-collar city of 37,000, Hagerstown sits smack dab in front of the sprawl that is spreading westward from the coast. Not long ago, Hagerstown took a giant step toward reinventing its future when the University of Maryland chose downtown Hagerstown as the site for a new branch campus. “That’s the best economic engine you could have,” says Feinberg. n the ebb and flow of American population trends, many older towns and small cities have been treading water. However, as many people now search for lifestyle options, those communities are in a position to play a leading role in managing growth. So says longtime planner and designer Alan Feinberg. Feinberg is convinced that helping “overthe-hill” towns and cities become more desirable places to live can spell the difference between continued — and wasteful — consumption of open space and a more thoughtful and sustainable approach to growth. Together with veteran contractor Nick Tittas, Feinberg founded Central Maryland Development Inc. (CMD) to practice what he preaches. As Smart Walworth County, Lake Geneva, Wis. I 28 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 They are places that have fallen on hard times…they need to reinvent themselves. Optimistic about Hagerstown’s potential, CMD purchased a 4,000-square-foot building at a key downtown location and is converting it into a combination office/condominium. It is the first of many such projects CMD hopes to tackle and/or encourage others to tackle in downtown Hagerstown. Not long ago, CMD convened the “Hagerstown Initiative,” a gathering of more than 20 planning and development types who sympathize with CMD’s vision — not just for Hagerstown but for the country in general. “There are enough examples all around to see the problem with just doing it the way it’s always been done — it’s not dense enough and it doesn’t pay for itself,” says Feinberg. “Water lines, sewer lines, schools…it just doesn’t cover the costs.” The same dynamic driving Feinberg’s efforts in Maryland — the outgoing tide of metro populations — is at work at many other places around the country. In many cases, it’s occurring in similar counties — those on the edge of major metropolitan areas. Walworth County, Wis., is one of those places. Squeezed between Milwaukee and Chicago — both less than an hour away — the county’s many lakes and rural charms have long made it a popular vacation escape for metro residents. Now, more and more of them are starting to make Walworth County their permanent home. The county’s population of 97,000 is expected to grow by 25 percent over the next 15 years, which will put pressure on the agricultural open space surrounding the county’s cities and villages, says Michael Cotter, director of the county’s land-use and resource management department. “As a rule, the county wants to retain its agricultural character,” says Cotter. “I think that most people have that interest at heart. The (municipalities) are very interested in attracting growth and doing infill.” To help make that happen, Walworth County’s various jurisdictions — cities, villages, unincorporated townships and the county itself — have formed a committee to work on their state-mandated comprehensive plans together to ensure they are not at cross-purposes when it comes to discouraging sprawl and encouraging Smart Growth. In the meantime, the county has passed a Conservation Subdivision Ordinance that provides incentives to developers who build clustered housing such as the Sugar Creek Preserve, a 52home subdivision that leaves 175 acres as open space. Compared to Walworth County, Chaffee County, Colo., would seem to have little to fear from sprawl. The nearest large city, Pueblo, is 100 miles away and Denver is 140 miles away. Nevertheless, growth is a pressing issue. Nestled between the 14,000-foot peaks of the Rocky Mountains, Chaffee County sits in the high -and-dry Arkansas River Valley and has been growing at a rapid pace as more and more people discover its natural beauty and recreational attractions. While the county’s actual population gain may seem small — an increase from 12,684 in 1990 to more than 17,000 today — the percentage gain is not — 34 percent. Certainly, Chaffee County has plenty of room within its 1,015 square miles to accommodate many more residents, but that’s not the point, says Kathy Leinz, co-county administrator. “We don’t want to lose the quality of life that people have SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 29 come and stayed here for,” she says. Chaffee County is working closely with the county’s three towns to pursue a new land-use strategy intended to ensure most of the county’s wide open spaces remain wide and open. “We want to focus growth around the towns, says Don Reimer, planning director. The problem — not just for Chaffee County but for outlying counties everywhere — is that people don’t necessarily want to live in or around a town when they move from a metro area. “They want acreage,” says Ken Johnson, a demographer and professor of sociology at Loyola University of Chicago. Johnson is the author of “The Rural Rebound,” a special report for the Population Reference Bureau that describes the rise, fall and rise again of rural populations in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Between 1990 and 1998, 71 percent of the nation’s rural counties gained population, reported Johnson. The total gain was 3.6 million people, who Johnson described as a mixed lot of “retirees, blue-collar workers, lone-eagle professionals and disenchanted city dwellers.” Since that time, the rate of growth has slowed, but the trend continues, he says. While Johnson’s research targeted county population trends, he also gained considerable insight into the realities governing the ability of small towns to capture growth and curb sprawl. “It depends on how powerful the planning boards and community leaders are about addressing what’s happening to their land, says Johnson. Not only that, but small towns must provide people with reasons to live there — especially jobs if the towns are located beyond commuting range from a metro area. “Would they like growth? Yes,” says Johnson. “Are they going to get it? Probably not without amenities.” One way some small towns are making themselves more attractive is to use the Main Street approach to bring back the traditional. In Hercules, Calif., a Bay Area suburb of 20,000 that never had a traditional downtown, public-private partnerships are creating a Town Center as well as a 167acre Waterfront Quarter featuring four neighbor- The county wants to retain its agricultural character… most people have that interest at heart. Hagerstown, Md. 30 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 Oktoberfest in Lake Geneva, Wis. We don’t want to lose the quality of life that people have come and stayed here for. hoods with narrow tree-lined streets and distinct architecture. “If you’re looking for a placeless California bedroom suburb implementing Smart Growth… this is it,” said Steve Lawton, Hercules planning director, in a case study published on the Local Government Commission Web site. And then there’s the Chaffee County town of Buena Vista, population 2,500. There, the brothersister development team of Jed and Kate Selby have purchased 40 acres along the Arkansas River and are building a New Urbanism community in an Old West town, mingling various types of housing, businesses and — since the Selbys are avid kayakers — a whitewater kayak park. Called South Main, the community has room for 800 new residents. “We’re pretty excited this has come along,” said Jerry L’Estrange, the community’s town administrator. “It puts a significant amount of housing in a confined space and helps negate some of the sprawl.” About 20 years ago, Chaffee County began allowing ranchers to subdivide their land as long as each parcel is at least two acres — any smaller and the parcel must be connected to municipal water and sewer services. Now, that decision has come back to haunt the county in the form of sprawl. “The precedent was set a while back and it’s hard to get the pendulum to swing back.” says L’Estrange. “For some of these ranchers (the opportunity to subdivide) is their retirement fund.” Together with the county, Buena Vista and other cities have been working on intergovernmental agreements that would encourage a more concentrated approach to ranch-land development and ensure that less of the landscape is freckled with homes. “What we’re trying to do is guide development,” said L’Estrange.“We want it to stay out of the hillsides and open ranch spaces. Tourism is probably the county’s number one industry. If we begin to look like everybody else in the country, who will want to come and visit us?” Brad Broberg is a Seattle-based freelance writer specializing in business and development issues. His work appears regularly in the Puget Sound Business Journal and the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 31 acant properties belong high on the list of things most likely to damage a neighborhood — sometimes irreparably. An empty house or building decreases surrounding property values, reduces tax revenues, raises municipal costs, attracts crime and poses a fire hazard. Add to these quantifiable challenges the very real psychological damage done to residents living in distressed neighborhoods and you have a formula for blight in every sense of the word. The problem is pervasive. While the northeast and Midwest U.S. have higher levels of vacancies, there are isolated and scattered pockets of abandonment in virtually all cities or metro areas — even in fast-growing cities like Las Vegas, San Diego and Tucson. Strategies and solutions The problem of vacant properties is dire, but several key organizations and progressive cities and states have joined forces to find solutions. One of the foremost players is the National Vacant Properties Campaign (NVPC), which is run by Smart Growth America (SGA), the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). Formally launched in July 2003, the NVPC advocates a synergistic approach to vacant properties, says Joe Schilling, professor in practice at the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech in Alexandria, Va. and one of the original founders of NVPC who now directs the research and policy programs for the campaign. “Once each year, we try to gather together roughly 100 people — practitioners, local government or community development organizations, private sector folks, academics, researchers and public officials. At first we just wanted to share with them the purposes of the campaign and also brainstorm ways they can get involved, and get guidance from them about what they think the campaign should be doing and how best they could use its resources to help them revitalize vacant properties.” V NoVac Cities struggle to reclaim 32 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 “Based on their input, we’ve solidified a fourfold mission: 1. Build a connected network of practitioners, policy makers and researchers. We want people to know there are other people working on the same problem. 2. Collect the latest information, research and best practices, and act as a clearinghouse for that information. 3. Develop a communication infrastructure — a Web site (www.vacantproperties.org), listserv, e-newsletter and more. 4. Provide technical assistance; i.e., guidance on what strategies and tools a particular community should use to revitalize vacant properties. “A lot of the practitioners tend to focus on the technical aspects of vacant property revitalization. Others look at the problem through the lens of broader policies related to Smart Growth, community development and regional equity. Intellectually, they recognize that these elements are all connected, but they tend to look at vacant properties through one lens or the other. Part of our mission is to give them that big picture, saying, you really have to look at both of those dimensions of vacant properties to be successful.” Various approaches can be taken to deal with vacant properties, such as demolition and rehabilitation, brownfields initiatives, historic preservation and Smart Growth tax incentives, infill development and adaptive reuse. Generally speaking, code enforcement programs are one of the more successful tactics ancies abandoned properties By Jason Miller SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 33 currently being used. “The thinking here is that if you bring a building up to code, it will remain occupied,” says Schilling. But Schilling cautions against adopting code enforcement in a vacuum. “That’s kind of the rub right now in a lot of cities,” he says. “Don’t just do enforcement alone; it needs to be done in conjunction with housing rehabilitation programs and resources” in order to achieve lasting success. Stubborn challenges But even with solid resources at one’s fingertips, it can be a challenge to begin the process of reclaiming an abandoned property. Determining property ownership is often the most difficult element, says Jennifer Leonard, director of the NVPC. “Even if you find the person who you think owns the property, they may have passed away and not had a will. If you find people who simply walked away from the property, they might think they don’t own it anymore. The picture isn’t always this bleak, but that’s usually one of the big hurdles.” Not surprisingly, a lack of public funding sometimes complicates the situation, says Schilling. “Outside of the EPA’s brownfields money, there’s very little dedicated federal funding.” Some form of public funding is arguably imperative, however, since development in urban settings is typically more expensive than development on a greenfield site. Title problems, possible environmental clean-up costs, reluctant lenders — all affect the ability of a private developer to turn a profit or even break even. “Public funds are necessary in order to help support the infrastructure for reclaiming the property,” says Schilling. “Then, when you get to the stage of reuse, you need some public funds in order to support the urban pioneers — the community development corporations, the small developers — the sorts of people who are the first people back into a distressed neighborhood. Public funds will help these pioneers to redevelop those first few properties and get a foothold so the market can take over.” Successful REALTOR® involvement in Baltimore In Baltimore, Md., a coordinated public-private partnership is playing out. Over the past 50 years, the population there dropped from 950,000 to 675,000, leaving nearly 16,000 vacant structures concentrated in a handful of areas. In the wake of this, the city tried a variety of redevelopment efforts, each one attended by frustration on behalf of the private sector in its inability to wrest control from the city’s hands, says Bob Pipik, director of asset management in Baltimore’s Department of Housing and Community Development. “The transition began when Mayor O’Malley was elected in 1999,” says Pipik. A local group, Baltimore Economics and Efficiency Foundation (BEEF), took a hard look at city government functioning and identified property disposition as something that was harder than it needed to be. They recommended to the Mayor that we should work with local REALTORS®. At the same time, members of the Greater Baltimore Board of REALTORS® (GBBR) were complaining about the abandoned properties, says Jody Public funds are necessary in order to help support the infrastructure for reclaiming property. 34 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 Landers, GBBR executive vice president. “That’s one of the reasons we got involved in the Selling City Owned Properties Efficiently (SCOPE) program,” he says. “Members were saying, ‘I drive through the city and there are all these vacant properties — we need to do something about them.’” Landers jumped on the opportunity, and the SCOPE program, designed to create a simplified and cost-effective process for putting vacant, city-owned properties to use, was born. “The BEEF folks and other local groups put money on the table, and started hammering away at the bureaucracy, trying to introduce private market efficiencies into this situation,” says Pipik. “We had to pull apart the various steps that go into city government selling a piece of property.” A process for city acquisition and REALTOR® selling of the properties was formulated and approved. Properties were identified; REALTORS® were selected. The rest, as they say, is history. “The first round was 42 properties, of which we sold 36,” says Pipik. “We learned a lot of lessons during that first round, some of which were painful. But we also discovered that people want to buy these houses. Baltimore is in the middle of a tremendous upsurge in property values — we’re still catching up with the rest of the eastern seaboard. And we’re getting lots of interest from nonprofits, churches, handymen and more.” Pipik reports that the second round of sales — 45 properties — went more smoothly; at press time they’ve sold five and are on track to sell another 21. Of particular note is Reservoir Hill, an older historical district that was struggling with abandonment and the attendant plummeting property values. “The average sale prices went from $71,000 in 2002 to $250,000 in 2004,” says Landers. “When we started selling the houses, we were getting offers between $10,000 and $50,000. During the latest round, which are all under contract right now, there were a few that went for $100,000. “Now we don’t have to do anything more. The private market is working now; it needs no babysitting.” Dovetailing with the SCOPE program — unintentionally, says Pipik — is Project 5000, the name The private market is working now; it needs no babysitting. given to Mayor Martin O’Malley’s vision to acquire 5,000 derelict properties and turn them around. O’Malley concedes that some of the properties will need to be demolished or consolidated with other properties, but he feels strongly that if the city steps in and acquires them for resale, the market will respond. Currently, all 5,000 of the flagged properties are now coming under the control of the city of Baltimore, says Pipik. “At least a couple hundred are slated to be sold through the SCOPE program — although that is not our only method for dispersal. We have a nice ‘pipeline’ of properties; we should have enough product to continue doing this through 2007.” “So far, of the 50-plus houses that have settled, the average sale price was $13,000; the net revenue to the city after paying commissions was about $550,000,” says Landers. “For these properties, the city is paying REALTORS® a commission of $2,500 or eight percent of the sale price, whichever is greater. And since the average sale price for this next batch of properties that are under contract and pending settlement is $33,000, the city will end up netting SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 35 The Land Bank helps us manage, maintain and approve tax-foreclosed properties. problem with abandonment is it’s a contagious disease. It infects neighboring properties,” says Kildee. To fix the problem, Michigan made county treasurers responsible for tax foreclosures. “In 1999 we eliminated private tax-lien speculators by rewriting the tax-foreclosure law. The new law prevented private individuals taking up to seven years to foreclose on a property; it allowed the county treasurers to foreclose after two years of unpaid taxes. This created a much more efficient way for the county government to get control of these properties.” But without a better way to then dispose of properties, the new system could potentially have become simply a more efficient replica of the old system. “So in 2002 we formed a Land Bank — a sort of quasipublic entity that acquires, assembles and then disposes of vacant and abandoned properties. We worked toward legislation that formally created a Land Bank Act, which resulted in the most progressive Land Bank law in the nation that was signed by our governor in January 2003. “The Land Bank helps us manage, maintain, and approve tax-foreclosed properties, then dispose of that property only when the result of a pending sale is a property that makes a contribution to the surrounding properties.” The next piece of the puzzle was amendments to the Michigan Brownfield Redevelopment Financing Act, which were put into place simultaneously with the introduction of the Land Bank Act and were fully supported by the Michigan Association of REALTORS®. The brownfield act amendments are significant because they rewrote the definition of a brownfield to include any property owned by a Michigan Land Bank, regardless of the condition or location. The act allows an entire inventory of a Land Bank to be treated as a single contiguous entity; even though the parcels are scattered around each county, they’re looked at as a single brownfield district. This “clumping” approach allowed Kildee to borrow $4.9 million to clean up all the properties owned by the Land Bank. Tax Increment Financing (TIF) then provided a method to pay for public improvements — such as over $1 million. So the city is ecstatic. “The REALTORS® are making the program work. Every day now I get calls from other REALTORS® outside the area who want to find out how they can participate in the program. It’s open to small and large REALTORS®, minority owners — everyone has an opportunity to participate. All the properties have to go on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), so everyone has an opportunity to submit investors and buyers for these properties. It’s become completely market-driven.” Flint on the rebound The birthplace of General Motors (GM), Flint, Mich., was a thriving, self-contained economy. In 1978 there were 76,000 GM jobs alone. But as GM lost market share and trimmed its workforce over the years, Flint struggled under the blows to its economy. The city went from 193,000 residents in 1970 to just under 120,000 today — and 14,000 GM jobs. “So 73,000 people left Flint — and they didn’t take their houses with them! That’s significant abandonment,” says Dan Kildee, Genesee County treasurer and the CEO of Michigan’s First Land Bank. Genesee County is rounding the corner on the issue — having assimilated itself into the southwest Michigan economy — and is posting improved housing-growth numbers. But the road to recovery was a challenge. The old tax-foreclosure system allowed private speculators to acquire properties through foreclosure, then allow them to remain vacant and abandoned. “The 36 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 site preparation, clean-up, etc. — by borrowing money and then paying off the loan with taxes generated from the improvements. Under the auspices of the brownfield act, Genesee County created a scattered-site brownfield TIF district, and used the taxes generated to help clean up all of the properties. In spring 2003 the clean-up and environmental remediation work began. Their first project? A mixed-use redevelopment of an abandoned department store in downtown Flint. Empty for 25 years and tied up in the old tax-foreclosure system, the building had 22 different title interests. “It was a nightmare,” says Kildee. “No developer would undertake that challenge.” “But with the new act, we took control of it in one day. It’s a four-story building right on the main street in Flint, literally in the most visible block downtown. We foreclosed on it in 2003, put a plan together, and now we’re a quarter of the way through a $3.8 million redevelopment. That building is itself a metaphor for what the Land Bank can do in neighborhoods all around the city.” The Genesee County approach is similar to Baltimore’s SCOPE program in that REALTORS® take over after a renovation is complete. “We love REALTORS®; they’re our sales force,” says Kildee. “It’s especially important to have REALTORS® who understand the product and are willing to work with us on this.” Jill Freeman, a REALTOR® with Re/Max Town and Country in neighboring Swartz Creek, Mich., sells rehabbed houses for the Land Bank, as well as new construction. “The Land Bank is my most important client. The stuff they’re putting on the market is top shelf. The properties chosen for renovation are rehabbed from top to bottom. They do beautiful work; I haven’t had any problems selling these homes. They’re beautiful homes and they’re very affordable. “We’ve had so many promises made by state government in the past. But now they’ve removed the red tape so it’s easier to remove eyesores from the community.” Consider the possibilities The steps that Baltimore and Flint are taking are progressive and in some ways controversial. Public-private partnerships have been a source of contention in the political aisles for some time now and show no sign of changing. “You see this metamorphosis being repeated elsewhere in the country,” says Jody Landers of the Greater Baltimore Board of REALTORS®. “There are real benefits to be had from entering into partnerships where the private sector makes the investment of time, resources and expertise, and the public sector comes in to address the problems of abandoned properties. There are cultural differences on both sides of the public and private table, but you can work through them if you’re willing to compromise. “The problem of abandoned buildings is massive, but you can do something about it, and the market can work.” Jason Miller is a freelance writer, editor and publishing consultant based in St. Paul, Minnesota. There are real benefits to be had from entering into partnerships. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 37 Smart Growth Redo of Mid-Size Ballpark District, Memphis, Tenn. 38 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 Cities By Heidi Johnson-Wright REALTORS®, planners, developers and nonprofits are working together to revitalize urban centers and create attractive Smart Growth neighborhoods SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 39 Thea’s Landing, Tacoma, Wash. rom Tacoma to Memphis to Providence and beyond, people are rediscovering urban living. Yet that doesn’t mean that mid-sized cities don’t have to struggle to compete with the lure of the suburbs. REALTORS®, urban planners and developers are coming up with plans and incentives to revitalize urban centers. Frequently, areas experiencing resurgences are centered on enticements that lure people back, such as dedicated affordable housing, adaptive reuses of old buildings and brownfield conversions. These types of jewels help transform crime-ridden, beleaguered eyesores into attractive, sustainable communities. Today, visitors to Tacoma, Washington’s Foss Waterway find a prosperous residential and commercial sector, highlighted by Thea’s Landing, a successful mixed-use development. Such was not always the case. Before the city of Tacoma acquired the Waterway in 1991, the area was owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. The railroad leased out parcels dotted with oil tanks and shipping warehouses. The 1970s and 80s brought an exodus of industrial users, resulting in a blighted brownfield that qualified as a Superfund site in 1983. The city saw the Waterway’s potential, acquired it and invested considerable sums in cleaning it up. Public input via charettes and public hearings helped craft a community-wide, stakeholder-supported vision, which included the desire for retail, commercial and residential uses. F “The overall waterway development concept was approved during an extensive one-and-ahalf year citizen review process, where things like density, scale, open space and parks were considered,” said Bart Alford, community initiatives supervisor with the city of Tacoma’s Economic Development Department. “Mixed use was key. The city didn’t want just a nine-to-five environment; it wanted actual residents living there,” Alford said. The city was also concerned about ensuring public access to the waterway. It held back a band of land — anywhere from 20 to 100 feet in width — for public parkways and esplanades. Tax incentives also played a role in the redevelopment’s success. The developers benefited from a state program that waived property taxes for a 10-year period. Developers were also able to apply for up to $10 million in accelerated depreciation on buildings they built. “Thea’s Landing was a pioneering development for downtown Tacoma. It was risky yet exciting,” said REALTOR® Judy Mayfield, a Designated Broker for Carino & Associates Real Estate Services, who was the site sales manager for the Thea’s Landing condos. “New restaurants, coffee shops, galleries, the new Tacoma Convention Center, hotels and banks are popping up throughout downtown Tacoma. It is incredible!” Mayfield said. Thea’s Landing made history as the first development to include multi-family, marketrate housing in the neighborhood as well as in Tacoma’s downtown core. This has attracted residents to the condos and studio, one- and twobedroom apartments with retail that includes a deli/coffee shop, a martini bar, a florist, an upscale dog supplies store and a frame shop. The convenience of local bus service, as well as the 40 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 nearby commuter train system which connects to a light rail system linking the entire region, are also draws. “There was no housing available before in downtown Tacoma; now there’s urban housing, high-end and affordable. The tenants include young professionals, students, military personnel and empty nesters, who want to take advantage of Tacoma Opera and other cultural opportunities,” said Angie Lausch, principal and property manager for Glacier Management, Inc., which manages Thea’s Landing. Included among these opportunities is the Museum of Glass, which is connected to downtown Tacoma and its emerging cultural district by a 500-foot-long pedestrian bridge, created by renowned glass artist and Tacoma native Dale Chihuly. “People have really welcomed the change,” said Lausch, who explained that Tacoma has, in the past, had a bit of an inferiority complex compared to neighboring Seattle. “Tacoma had always been second to Seattle in terms of an urban environment,” she said. But with its now vibrant downtown and reborn waterfront, Lausch believes that “Tacoma is coming into its own.” Memphis is best known for the Blues and the King, but a minor-league baseball stadium anchored an urban comeback in the city of Beale Street, Sun Studios and Graceland. Memphis’ vibrant urban core that is now home to the Redbirds AAA franchise was once an area frequented only by adult movie patrons and downtown workers seeking daytime parking. Although the downtown had been rebounding some since 1981 when the historic Peabody Hotel reopened, “(i)t was Memphis, Tenn. the ballpark that poured jet fuel on this,” said Frank Ricks. Ricks is principal of Looney Ricks Kiss, the architects and designers of record on the ball park project, as well as other projects in the surrounding district, including dense, low-rise apartments, some with ballpark views. Initially, Redbirds’ co-founder Dean Jernigan wanted to build the home for the franchise in the suburbs. Co-founder and wife, Kristi, pushed instead for downtown Memphis. “Three factors brought about the turning point,” said Carol Coletta, host of public radio talk show Smart City™ and pres- ident of Coletta and Company, a firm that specializes in civic project development and execution, process design and facilitation, marketing and public relations. “The dynamic couple driving the team (the Jernigans) favored the downtown location. The city and county mayors and council were behind the decision to locate downtown, so there were no political figures angling for it to be in the burbs. And the business community was supportive,” said Coletta, who lives in a downtown Memphis loft. A 25-year property tax freeze and a Federal Historic Rehabilitation Income Tax Credit helped Mixed use was key. The city didn’t want just a nine-to-five environment; it wanted actual residents living there. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 41 lower initial development costs. The city and county contributed $8.5 million to finance the land purchase. The city also donated in-kind to the project in terms of infrastructure and relocation of utilities. But the lion’s share of the project’s funding was procured by the Jernigans. “This was an atypical situation. Because this was a largely privately-financed project, the public was not an active participant in the process,” said Ricks. That’s not to say that garnering public support didn’t play a role. Since groundbreaking preceded procurement of all of the financing, Memphisites generally viewed the big muddy hole in the ground that sat fallow for a year with skepticism. The ballpark is a community gathering spot that the city didn’t have before. Ricks’ agrees that the jumbo ballplayer — dubbed “Nostalgia Man” — has reached iconic status, and contributed to the park becoming something of a “town green for the city.” “The ballpark is a community gathering spot that the city didn’t have before — that ‘common place,’” he said. In Providence, Rhode Island’s downtown in the early 1990s, there was no “common place” where people gathered. The classic, old department stores had closed their doors and the banks moved away. No one was living downtown since virtually no residential units were available. A partnership of forward-thinking business and civic leaders, however, saw the untapped potential. With the city’s support, they hosted charettes tasked with envisioning a new future for the city’s downtown core known as Downcity. Community stakeholders and elected officials came up with a redevelopment plan resulting in recommendations for urban design, parking and 200 residential units needed to support retail busi- A local alternative newspaper sponsored a contest to suggest how to fill in the hole. One suggestion was to “put a group of Elvises in the hole and make it a tourist attraction,” Coletta said. Not only is AutoZone Park itself a triumph, but it has spurred further infill and renovation in the downtown core. This includes the Peabody Place entertainment and retail center, a riverfront master plan and FedExForum, a $250 million basketball arena — also designed by Ricks’ firm — that is home to the Memphis Grizzlies NBA team. Memphis’ legendary Beale Street runs between the two sports centers. “The ballpark is on the street; right up to the street, no setback. In the heart of downtown. There’s a public plaza on the main corner with a huge oversized ballplayer over the entrance. The ballplayer became a landmark, an icon,” said Coletta. ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 42 Now there are people where there were none. You can just feel the change. nesses and achieve a level of activity that leads to a self-perpetuating revival. To provide residential units, redevelopers were motivated to invest in historically significant properties such as the Alice Building. An architectural jewel accented with swags, garlands and cornices, it was built in 1898 as a department store. In 1929, it became a mall of small shops. When the building closed in the late 1990s, it had just one tenant. When the building’s redeveloper, Cornish Associates, L.P purchased the Alice Building, it ., could see the building was perfect for loft style apartments with first-floor commercial uses. “When we first explained what we intended to do, people looked at us like we were a little crazy. But public support was generally there early on,” said Douglas Storrs, senior associate at Cornish. “We convinced the business leaders and kept them updated on the projects. They invested political capital and supported us.” “We negotiated tax stabilization agreements with the city that set a lower tax rate in the early years of the project. The city gets less revenue early on, but sparks development,” Storrs said. The demographics of the Alice Building residents have proven very diverse. They include graduate students, downtown workers and people who work from home, as well as older folks who have primary homes outside of Providence, but come into the city for performing arts and entertainment events. “A significant number of people that live in the Alice Building’s loft units are sole-source proprietors — lawyers, architects — and use them as live/work units,” Storrs said. Storrs is a fan of the federal historic tax program. “It’s a very good program that can be replicated on the state level. You invest money in the building, and then you receive tax credits. You then sell the tax credits to corporations from which you receive funding. The State of Rhode Island has also adopted a state historic-tax program,” he said. Since Downcity is a designated historic district and an arts and entertainment district, it attracts a creative community. If an artist produces a product in the district — a painting, a sculpture — and sells it, he doesn’t have to pay a state sales tax on it. In a 10-year span, downtown Providence has experienced a major renaissance. The Alice Building is but one of a group of older, historically-significant buildings to be converted to mixed use. No longer a blighted area, downtown is a thriving urban core with housing, jobs and cultural amenities. The first floor of the Alice Building has commercial tenants which include a restaurant that’s a coffee shop in the morning, a sandwich shop at noon and a jazz club in the evening. There’s also a book store and a gallery. ”Within the same block, five buildings have been redeveloped as mixed-use residential with first-floor commercial. A sixth is currently in process, which will result in the creation of over 200 apartment units,” said Stephen Durkee, principal partner with Durkee, Brown, Viveiros & Werenfels, the architects of record on the Alice Building. Nearby, other businesses, such as upscale restaurants and a boutique hotel, have started up. “Now there are people where there were none. The lights are on. You can just feel the change — a new level of energy. It all started because of the first few projects,” said Durkee. “Now Providence is a ‘24-hour city.’” Heidi Johnson-Wright frequently writes about Smart Growth and sustainable communities. She and her husband live in a restored historic home in the heart of Miami’s Little Havana. Contact her at: hjohnsonwright@yahoo.com. The Alice Building, Providence, R.I. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 43 C 44 l ia rc s e k mac om b e m o eto onc orhoods turn ers re an neighb Goldberg Retail d urb id s By Dav ne shun er suburb ld and o ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 n the last few years, a veritable stampede of Americans has returned to city and older suburban neighborhoods in search of shorter commutes and fun things to do, only to spend Saturdays in the place they thought they’d left behind: the newer suburbs. It turned out that doing a week’s shopping at lowerthan-stratospheric prices meant schlepping out to where the grocery chains can build their preferred massive footprints. To make a run for building supplies or home-life sundries you had to queue up for the ol’ exit ramp. For years, the less-than-preferred demographics and physical constraints of inner-city neighborhoods kept retailers at bay. Residents of older suburbs, meanwhile, saw their options shrink as the strip centers of the 50s, 60s and 70s fell out of favor and the chains chased affluence out to the next cornfield. As close-in areas draw new residents, however, a new generation of mixed-use, higher-quality shopping environments is starting to emerge. It’s not happening by accident. Savvy local governments are going after it, realizing that for urban and inner suburban neighborhoods, attracting retail and achieving the right mix of shopping and residential hold the key to revitalization, stability, walkability and livability. But for the first time, they’re finding retailers to be receptive. From Atlanta, where one of the largest redevelopment projects in the city’s history will bring IKEA and a host of other retailers to the heart of the city, to Chicago, with the first multi-story Home Depot, to Washington, D.C. and its retail renaissance, major retailers have discovered urban neighborhoods in a major way. “There are a couple reasons why this is a growing market,” said Cindy Stewart, director of local government relations for the International Council of Shopping Centers. “The suburbs are saturated and developers and I St. Louis Park, Minn. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 45 retailers are looking for new markets, and those really are old markets that may be undergoing a rebirth. And the other is that when you go out to the green space there are a lot of growth management laws in place that make those projects more difficult to do.” According to Stewart, the fastest-growing sector of her retail association’s membership is in the public and nonprofit sectors — local governments and community organizations working on commercial restoration. In addition to larger cities, many of them are older suburbs trying to redevelop strip corridors not just as a place to shop, but as a place to be: mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods with a Main Street feel. Below, we visit four places with interesting twists on the retail revitalization story: Washington, D.C., a large city that partnered with business to create a marketing center that is drawing retail back to revitalize neighborhoods that have been woefully under served; Fruitvale Transit Village in Oakland, CA, where a nonprofit, community-based organization in a large city has taken the lead in revitalizing a commercial corridor; St. Louis Park, MN, an inner-suburban city that created a vision for a new town center and hired a retail developer to pull it off; and Baltimore County, MD, a suburbanized county that has created an innovative program to redevelop its aging commercial corridors into revitalized mixed-use centers, putting community participation at the fore. Washington, D.C.: Retail revitalization in Columbia Heights In many ways, Washington, D.C. is a clear success story. The capital city has stopped its population loss, with 41,000 housing units built or added to the construction pipeline since 2001 and many formerly-distressed neighborhoods on the upswing. Still, city officials found that the population remained somewhat transient, in large part because basic goods and services continued to lag behind. Attracting retail, then, has become a critical means of stabilizing those neighborhoods and making them lively and livable. That led Mayor Anthony Williams and a partnership of D.C. business players to create the Washington, D.C. Marketing Center, whose job it has been to lure back skeptical retailers, said Michael Stevens, the center’s CEO. After meeting with industry representatives, the public-private The suburbs are saturated and developers and retailers are looking for new markets. St. Louis Park, Minn. 46 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 Fruitvale Transit Village, Oakland, Calif. The cosmetic improvements [in Fruitvale] created the impression that things were happening. nonprofit built a huge database, he added. “We compiled all the retail opportunities into a single resource, and posted them on our Web site. We have profile sheets, one page front and back, with contact people, maps and photos for 39 neighborhood clusters and 128 neighborhoods. We know the demographics and traffic counts.” Even that wasn’t enough when it came to marketing a neighborhood such as Columbia Heights. The Census and other conventional market analyses still showed it to be a bad bet for business. That’s when Stevens brought in Social Compact, a nonprofit that performs “drill down” analysis to gauge the true buying power of urban neighborhoods. “The neighborhood, because of the population density, had a tremendous amount to offer in buying power because it wasn’t adequately served,” said Karin Ottesen, president of Social Compact. The analysis found that the neighborhood had thousands more households and neighborhoods than the Census counted, and way more disposable income than anyone imagined. Less than a third of the aggregate buying power of the 78,000 residents was being spent locally, meaning that $424 million each year was being spent outside the Columbia Heights market. That information helped the city put together a deal to build Tivoli Square at the corner of 14th Street and Park Road. The project includes a Giant Foods — an urban rarity at 53,000 square feet — and the restoration of the classic and long-dormant Tivoli Theater. An additional 25,000 square feet of shops are lining 14th St., and 28,000 square feet of office space occupies floors above. Tivoli Square so changed the tenor of the retail environment that the area has attracted the largest retail project in D.C., which will mix regional and national retailers, such as Target and Bed Bath and Beyond. Soon to begin construction, the 465,000 square-foot project will include restaurants and a health club. For more information, please see: http://dcmarketingcenter.com. Oakland, Calif.: The Fruitvale Transit Village At one point in Oakland’s heyday, the Fruitvale district’s International Boulevard was the equivalent of a second downtown. But that all began to change when a rash of highway building drained much of the population to the suburbs, said Arabella Martinez, the recently retired head of the district’s Spanish-speaking Unity Council. By the early 1990s, when Martinez had SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 47 The district went from a vacancy rate of about 40 percent in 1990 to one percent now. returned from a stint in the federal government, “Fruitvale had become a very unattractive neighborhood and it was just filthy dirty,” she said. Having founded the Unity Council in the 1960s to promote Latino opportunity throughout the Bay Area, she found the organization’s own neighborhood so benighted that she felt compelled to make a cause of its resurrection. “As a first step, we decided that we absolutely had to change the commercial district,” she said. Not only was International Boulevard dilapidated, but the district was getting little benefit from a nearby BART rail station that was unconnected to the commercial district and surrounded by nothing but parking. To make matters worse, BART was planning yet more parking in a poorly-conceived garage. The Unity Council rallied the community to demand something better and have a say in what that might be. After the numerous community sessions, the Unity Council decided to try to develop a transit village on BART’s parking lot. Martinez’s group reasoned that a plaza lined with appealing shops and restaurants, designed to serve both the neighborhood and transit commuters, would both link the commercial district to the transit station and provide a venue for community festivals. The addition of housing units would help add life and customers to the streets, and planned office space would bring jobs to the district. But few officials and lenders would believe the project had a chance until International Boulevard itself began to get the facade and streetscape improvements that had been recommended by a university study team. “The cosmetic improvements created the impression that things were happening, that the area was on the upswing,” Martinez said. In addition, a business improvement district was created to pay for street cleaning, monitor crime, police liquor outlets and remove graffiti. In order to assure lenders of anchor tenants, the Unity Council arranged to move their own offices and several other community-service organizations into the office space. Negotiating the parking in order to replace BART slots and serve the stores and offices proved another lengthy and difficult process, Martinez said. Picking the right mix of retail also was important, and required community input. Restaurants came first, in part because they draw people to the streets at night, when visitors feel less secure. “We allocated only 20 percent of space for national chains,” Martinez said. “There were enough fastfood restaurants in Fruitvale.” Today, with the phased construction all but complete, the area has been transformed. “You see tremendous numbers of people shopping, and you don’t see all the security bars on the storefronts. The district went from a vacancy rate of about 40 percent in 1990 to one percent now.” “All evidence is that the strategy to focus on the retail worked,” Martinez said. “I have to say, I’m living my dream.” For more information, please see: http://www.fruitvalevillage.net/ or http://www.unitycouncil.org/transitvillage.html. 48 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 Baltimore County: The Renaissance Redevelopment Pilot Program Like a lot of suburban areas that mushroomed after World War II, Baltimore County, MD is pocked with over-the-hill commercial corridors that can’t compete with newer developments eating their way into the county’s much-loved countryside. As County Executive Jim Smith sees it, that dynamic has to change in a hurry. “I don’t think our county can thrive without a renaissance of the older neighborhoods and local business districts in the beltway communities along I-695,” said Smith. At the same time, conventional development is not creating the future residents want, he added. “Walkable, mixed-use communities are something that a lot of people want. But our conventional suburban zoning is not set up to give them that,” Smith said. “I know that it is more expensive and difficult to develop in older areas than in a lush, green cornfield. Therefore I knew we were going to have to have incentives to attract business to these places.” Enter the Renaissance Redevelopment Pilot Program. Established earlier this year after more than a year of public discussion, the program sets up “opportunity areas” where developers are free to mix retail and residential without navigating dozens of regulatory hurdles. The catch — though it’s more likely an advantage — is that the developer’s master plan has to be developed through a seven- to 14-day charette, a public design workshop whose end product becomes the official template for the project. Plans also are to be accompanied by a “pattern book” that establishes the design features that the community and developers agree they’d like to see. “We have to have a way where the developers and communities can come together early and collaborate on a vision for a particular site,” Smith said. “The developer can then move forward, and the community can believe that the plan they’ve worked on will be built.” Under the enabling legislation, the plan must be approved by 80 percent of participants in at least two charette sessions. Those can include any interested citizen, as well as the development and design teams. Though the program is still too new to have generated its first project, the county recognizes developers are likely to need other incentives beyond liberalized zoning rules. The Renaissance program will be augmented by other strategies, including tax abatement and redevelopment grants, and potentially, the county’s first use of tax People really wanted to have a place in their community where they could go and just hang out, a real town center. Baltimore County, Md. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 49 St. Louis Park, Minn. What’s really attracting people to live there is the mix of retail, because that enhances their lives. increment financing. All are likely to be necessary to rejuvenate aging strip corridors, said deputy planning commissioner, Jackie MacMillan. “You can only upgrade strip centers so many times. The county has a number of shopping centers that are very under-used or completely abandoned. So we have all this under-used land, and we have to find a better way to use that.” For more on the program, please visit: http:// www.co.ba.md.us/Agencies/planning/renaissance/ index.html. St. Louis Park, MN: A new town center at Excelsior & Grand Though it was born as a streetcar suburb of Minneapolis, for most of its life St. Louis Park has had a drive-through downtown. The town of 44,000, located seven miles west of downtown Minneapolis did most of its growing in the decades after World War II, and grew mostly houses and strip centers along corridors such as Highway 100. By the early 1990s, when the main commercial strip had declined to a collection of pawnshops, check-cashing storefronts and barely solvent retailers, the city fathers and mothers decided it was high time for a downtown. “People really wanted to have a place in their community where they could go and just hang out, a real town center,” said Richard McLaughlin, the architect and town planner who in 1996 conducted one of the first public-design workshops for the area around the intersection of Excelsior Boulevard and Highway 100. From that exercise emerged the concept of a shopping district surrounding a town green, with housing options included. St. Louis Park began piecing together 16 acres for redevelopment and put out a call for interested developers. To their disappointment, they found very little expertise in combining retail, civic uses and housing. Their first developer, a mass-production homebuilder, could not figure out how to make the project work, even after scaling back the town green and removing the proposed civic building. In 2000 the city hired TOLD Development Company, which was experienced in retail and redevelopment, but not residential. But the developer was convinced that getting the retail atmosphere right would be the key to success, said TOLD Principal Bob Cunningham. They pushed ahead, breaking ground just after 9/11 on 100,000 square feet of retail and an eventual 660 housing units. Their faith paid off, Cunningham said. “What’s really attracting people to live there is the mix of retail, because that enhances their lives,” Cunningham said. “We’ve built 338 apartments; we’ve never dropped below about 94 percent occupancy. We finished 124 condos just recently and there are only two units left.” The 50 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 retail is a mix between locally-owned and national chains. It includes a daycare, a Pier One store, a pair of sit-down restaurants, a fast-food Mexican restaurant, Panera Bread Company, Starbucks and locallyowned boutiques. The key to the project was the town’s willingness to assist in building structured parking and allowing less of it because some could be shared among uses. The city also used tax-increment financing to help pay for the town green and streetscapes, including brick pavers for sidewalks. Financing was perhaps the trickiest part, TOLD said. “Lenders are still either apartment, condo or retail lenders. Most don’t do mixed use. But this is a product type whose time has come. They’ll get it and jump on the bandwagon, they’re just not there in force yet.” For more, please see: http://www.excelsiorandgrand.com/main.html or http://www.stlouispark.org. David A. Goldberg is the communications director for Smart Growth America, a nationwide coalition based in Washington, D.C. that advocates for land-use policy reform. In 2002, Mr. Goldberg was awarded a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University where he studied urban policy. RETAIL IN THE CITY: SOME TIPS FOR GETTING IT — As head of the Washington, D.C. Marketing Center, Michael Stevens has been instrumental in luring retail back to the city’s underserved neighborhoods. Here are his tips for other communities: • First of all, local executives and council have to buy in. It takes money, other resources and human capital. • You need an organization that will be the information clearinghouse and first point of contact for retailers. Caution: Creating it isn’t easy. • Develop a retail attraction plan: Do you need grocery-anchored or department-store-anchored centers, or neighborhood corridors? • Retailers are looking for a deal. Incentives: Land, tenant finish-out funds (we use TIF funds); tax abatements; and/or job training funds for local residents. • Identify and market your opportunities: Suburban markets have a finite number of sites now and there is a backlash against “big box.” • Cities need to know: True household income in neighborhoods, what’s really being spent in the cash economy, accurate population counts and aggregate buying power. A NEW RETAIL DOCTRINE — Though change has been building for several years, one of the strongest signals yet of a fundamental shift in retail doctrine came in a session of the International Council of Shopping Centers last December. It was there that Robert Stoker, senior real estate manager for Wal-Mart, declared that, “We’ve reached a stage where we can be flexible. We no longer have to build a gray-blue battleship box.” Wal-Mart is not alone, of course, either in its new willingness to adapt to more urban environments or in its long resistance to veering from a formula that has held since the 1960s: A single-story building on a major arterial road surrounded by asphalt. “In 1960, if you had 200,000 square feet of retail, it would have a footprint of about one acre in a multi-story building,” said Ed McMahon, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute who has written several arti- cles on commercial design trends. “Until very recently, that same 200,000 feet would be in one story and cover three to four acres, fronted by 20 acres of parking.” With many suburbs saturated with “big box” and other retail, we’re now seeing two divergent trends, experts said. In the low-density exurbs, the new stores and their parking lots are larger than ever so as to draw motorists from many miles around. At the same time, retailers now see the virtue of high-density markets with plenty of customers close at hand. But capturing it requires resurrecting and updating the designs from the earliest days of department stores — multi-story stores in buildings with locally-compatible architecture. Target stores were among the earliest to adapt. The company’s flagship store in Minneapolis is four stories, and the chain has two-story stores with structured parking in Atlanta, Gaithersburg, Md. and several other places. Home Depot recently opened a three-story in downtown Chicago. Wal-Mart itself as a two-story store in a mixed-use setting in Long Beach, Calif. and will occupy two floors of a mixed-use high-rise in Rego, N.Y. Mixed-use, urban projects are popping up all over these days, said Cindy Stewart, director of local government relations for the ICSC. “You still see lifestyle and power centers, but retailers going after that urban market are going into projects that also have housing, because there’s such a strong need for both.” Being part of a neighborhood raises triggers, a range of design considerations from architecture to placement of loading docks to masking the parking decks. But it can be worth it: Foot for foot, urban stores often out perform their suburban counterparts, Stewart and others said. Increasingly, retailers are recognizing what McMahon calls the place-making dividend: “People will stay longer and spend more money in places that actually earn their affection,” he said. “Strip shopping centers are retail for the last century,” McMahon added, “and mixed use is the retail environment for this century.” SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 51 New Life in the A ndrea Floriman was born in the Dominican Republic. Her husband grew up in Honduras. When they searched for a home for themselves and their three children in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolis, they focused on Arlington County, Virginia. Residing in its charming 3-bed, 2-bath home for less than a year, the Hispanic-American family matches a trend that is happening all over large-population centers in the U.S. Immigrant populations are settling in first-ring suburbs that offer the best of both worlds for diverse populations. While empty nesters and hipsters are gobbling up expensive units in high rises and lofts in the core city, and young families are accepting hour and longer commutes to buy a new home in farflung exurbia, many immigrant families are choosing the inner-ring suburbs. “Buying our house was the most incredible experience we have ever had,” said Floriman, whose family purchased a below-marketcost house through AHC, a non-profit developer of low- and moderate-income housing in the Beltway area. “We never dreamed we’d get to be homeowners in Arlington. We had the option of buying a house way out in West Virginia — some people live way out for cheaper housing — but we wanted to be right here in the center of everything.” In Arlington, Virginia, a tiny urban county of fewer than 200,000, the foreign-born population leaped by 44 percent between the 1990 and 2000 census. IDI Group, an Arlington company that typically builds luxury high rises, is working hard to serve the blue collar, Spanish-speaking population in an apartment complex it is converting to condominiums. 52 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 Diverse home buyers are reviving older, inner-ring suburbs By Steve Wright Old Burbs SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 53 create a cluster of workforce housing. “Everybody talks about affordable housing, but almost nobody is doing anything about it,” said Heller, the assistant to the president of IDI. “With the price of land in the inner ring, it is very difficult to deliver an affordable product for immigrants and others who provide the workforce to support our business, government, airport, etc.” While some minority and immigrant home buyers take advantage of affordable housing programs, many more go the “market-rate” route and find and purchase a home by working with a real estate agent. And for many of these buyers, the place of choice for their home purchase is the older suburbs of major cities. Joel Kotkin, a California-based writer and consultant who is an internationally-recognized authority on global, economic, political and social trends, observed this ethnic trend to the old-growth suburbs several years ago. The inner-ring suburb provides good housing stock, decent home prices and easy access to the central city. IDI purchased a 58-unit, low-rise, 1950s apartment complex inhabited almost entirely by Hispanic-Americans who work in greater D.C.’s industries. The company has packaged county and state programs with its own incentives to turn present renters into condo owners for only $2,000 dollars out of pocket in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country. The combination of below-market first mortgages, low-interest second mortgages, principalpayback-only third mortgages — plus a pre-conversion discount of $20,000 off the purchase price for renters who buy the unit they’re living in — will “A lot of these folks still have strong ties to the center city — they have places of worship there, they have jobs there, they own a small business downtown. The inner-ring suburb provides good housing stock, decent home prices and easy access to the central city,” he said. Kotkin said diverse buyers are turning some formerly-boring bedroom communities into places that are more urban and exciting. “These streetcar suburbs were built with quaint downtowns, nice backyards, beautiful houses. They often have much more character than the outer- 54 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 ring suburbs. In LA, you don’t get the best Indian or Thai food downtown, you find it in ethnic enclaves in the older suburbs.” Huntington Park is exactly the kind of suburb that has seen a huge population shift in the past few decades. Founded in 1906, the town grew up southeast of Los Angeles because the Pacific Electric Railway extended its line there at the turn of the century. Until the 1960s, Huntington Park was primarily populated by whites, said Jack Wong, a Los Angeles-based urban consultant who served as the city’s Community Development Director for 16 years. But the nearby Watts riots caused many original residents to move during the turbulent 60s and virtually all the non-Hispanic whites left the city after the Rodney King riots happened not far from the city in the early 1990s. “Where there once were vacant storefronts and unsold homes, the Hispanic merchants occupied the vacant storefronts and Hispanic residents rented and purchased the apartments and homes,” Wong said. Realtor Jessica Maes became the first Hispanic and first female mayor of Huntington Park in the late 1990s. She has seen a lot of economic stability come to the city where more than 95 percent of the 60,000-plus residents are Hispanic. She said affordable housing, a local government representative of the population and proximity of a half-hour drive or even shorter train ride to the center of Los Angeles has made Huntington Park popular with people of Mexican, Peruvian, Salvadoran, Venezuelan and other Latino heritages. “With Hispanic homebuyers, you rarely see foreclosures. Families are close knit and no one would allow a relative to lose a house. Everyone would chip in to save it during a tough time and the person who benefited would do the same for them when he is back on his feet,” said Maes, who was born in the U.S. to Mexican-American parents and whose husband was born in Mexico. These streetcar suburbs often have much more character than the outer-ring suburbs. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 55 A rapidly-growing Asian-American population is turning abandoned retail strips into bustling marketplaces. In historic Quincy, Mass., a rapidly-growing Asian-American population is turning abandoned retail strips into bustling marketplaces and taking neglected housing stock with good bones and restoring it into residences worthy of a bygone era. “In the last decade and a half, there has been a 150-percent increase in the Asian population — the city of Quincy even has a fulltime liaison to the Asian community,” said Dean Rizzo, executive director of the nonprofit economic development corporation. “Quincy is a town where Chinese like to move because of our good transit system — it’s only 15 minutes by train to Boston’s Chinatown, the city is convenient to everything. The South Shore businesses have difficulty competing with suburban malls and big-box retail, so there is opportunity in vacant properties for Asian restaurants, shops and markets. “For many immigrants, the first place to settle is in Boston proper — Chinatown. But the next move is to save up money to buy a house in Quincy, where the housing price is affordable and 56 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 you don’t need a car because there are two excellent transit stops,” said Betty Kit-Fong Yau, a native of Hong Kong who has lived in Quincy for more than two decades. Yau, a community activist, marketing professional and host of a program on Boston Chinese Radio, said immigrants flock to Quincy because it is close to places of worship in Chinatown and it is better to commute by transit to Chinatown than to drive there, because there is very little parking in the Chinatown area and what is available is very expensive. “The town is very good about receiving minorities, outsiders. Quincy is a very accepting area to Asian people,” she said of the city of less than 100,000 that is best known for its history and its behemoth of a shipyard that used to employ tens of thousands in its heyday. In South Florida, the city of North Miami has become the first city in America where the majority of elected officials — the mayor and two of four council members — is Haitian-American. North Miami developed overnight in the great Miami-area land boom of the 1920s. For decades, the city remained an inner-ring suburb of Miami to the south. Most of the population was Anglo. Because of governmental and economic instability, tens of thousands of Haitian people moved to Miami from the early 1980s through the present. Little Haiti, emotional and spiritual center of Miami’s Haitian Community, is located only five miles south of the suburb of North Miami. Jean Monestime, a Haitian-American, is president of MJM Capital Realty in North Miami, where he also serves as a city councilman. He said as immigrants get an economic foothold, they move from renting in Little Haiti to buying in North Miami. “In the past couple decades, North Miami’s affordable business and residential corridors became very popular with Haitian entrepreneurs seeking inexpensive commercial space and families seeking modest suburban homes of good construction. Today, nearly one third of its 60,000 population is of Haitian descent. “Haitian-Americans bought into the idea of the American dream and they see it in terms of home ownership being one of the biggest accomplishments in a family’s life,” said Monestime, who worked his way through college until he earned an MBA and opened his own full-service real estate firm. The city of North Miami is working hard to cre- ate an arts district of galleries, restaurants, nightlife and more to its former mainstreet. To restore an aging business corridor into a vibrant area and to take advantage of a renowned contemporary art center in its downtown, the city has created incentives to lure arts-based businesses to its self-dubbed “NoMi Arts District. “North Miami is attractive because of smaller, more affordable homes in proximity to Little Haiti. When they buy a home, they don’t want to be too Home ownership is one of the biggest accomplishments in a family’s life. far from Little Haiti’s churches and culture,” said Monestime, who is working to boost the NoMi district. “Many Haitian people are working in Miami Beach, downtown Miami or South Broward County and North Miami is within close proximity to all those employment centers,” he added. “This community is close to those jobs and the Haitian churches and at the same time it offers better schools for their children. Now they even have local representation, with seven HaitianAmericans serving them between city, county and state government.” Steve Wright frequently writes about Smart Growth and sustainable communities. He and his wife live in a restored historic home in the heart of Miami’s Little Havana. Contact him at: Stevewright64@yahoo.com SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 57 ALL ABOARD! By Christine Jordan Sexton STREETCARS LEAD THE WAY TO NEIGHBORHOOD REINVESTMENT 58 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 “A ll aboard’’ may be the new clarion call for American cities eager to revitalize their downtowns. That’s because city planners and officials are discovering that streetcars are the most desirous and efficient way to help move people in and around urban cores. From Portland’s trendy Pearl District to Little Rock in America’s heartland to Tampa’s historic Ybor City, streetcars, with their rhythmic clang, clang, clang, are making a comeback. They are helping to redevelop and revitalize downtowns all across America that just 20 years ago were losing population and economic development opportunities to the sprawling suburbs. Streetcars are rail transit vehicles designed for local transportation powered by electricity received from an overhead wire and trolley pull, hence the term “trolley.” They operate in the downtown and a smidge beyond it, picking up and dropping off passengers at almost every street corner. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 59 Tampa, Fla. The trolleys are designed to fit the scale and traffic patterns of the city. Eighty cities in 37 states have shown an interest in developing or expanding their streetcar system as an alternative to new roads, according to Congressman Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon who is pushing to have a new funding program called Small Starts for smaller mass transit projects in an overhaul of the federal transportation package. Charles Hales, national director of transit development with the consulting firm HDR, says streetcars are appealing for many reasons, not the least of which is they are an option for all cities because the costs of building and operating streetcars is lower than any other form of rail transportation. “Maybe you have to be Atlanta or Washington D.C. to think big and heavy or Denver or Minneapolis to think light rail, but there are lots of smaller cities that would just be fantasizing about light rail that can realistically think about a streetcar system,” said Hales. Additionally, while buses often are used by the transit dependent, rail service attracts those who could drive, but choose not to. Getting a driver to jump on a trolley means there’s one less car con- gesting streets. Virtually all towns and cities had streetcars in the early 20th century. As Americans became more affluent during the economic boom following World War II, they started buying more automobiles. They also started moving out to the suburbs, which offered them bigger houses and bigger yards where their children could safely play. Dovetailing with this trend to leave the city was a movement by transit officials across the nation to begin advocating the use of buses, which were less expensive to bring on line because they didn’t run on tracks, hence the demise of the streetcar. Portland launched its streetcar system in 2001 and is the only city to use modern streetcars in that they don’t resemble antique designs. The trolleys are designed to fit the scale and traffic patterns of the city and are integrated with the city’s other mass-transit options, which includes the city’s MAX Light Rail System. Unlike trolleys, light rail lines can operate beyond the downtown and run at increased speeds between stations that are set more than a mile apart. The Portland streetcar meanders through a 4.8 mile loop from Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital in Northwest Portland through the Pearl District and 60 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 Portland, Ore. onto the campus of Portland State University. The streetcars averaged 6,320 daily rides each weekday last winter and 6,100 weekend rides each weekend. Thanks to Portland’s success there are now more than 80 cities in 37 states that have shown an interest in either developing or expanding streetcars, including Miami, Fla., which is examining the merits of connecting downtown Miami to “Midtown Miami,” a 56-acre development planned for Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood just north of the Performing Arts Center. Portland’s city-owned and city-operated streetcar cost about $55 million to construct but has helped generate about $1.5 billion in redevelopment in the downtown core, according to Hales, who describes the project as “the most successful municipal investment in the United States. No other investment has paid off that handsomely.” The Portland streetcar was included in part of the city’s growth management strategy, which was Thanks to Portland’s success there are now more than 80 cities in 37 states that have shown an interest in either developing or expanding streetcars. to create 15,000 new housing units and 75,000 new jobs in the urban core. The city used rail to help direct redevelopment dollars on two large parcels of land near the central city, one of which was a former railroad yard. Instead of developing the land into office space, developers working with city officials decided to build new medium- to high-density SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 61 The development community worked closely with the streetcar initiative, agreeing to voluntarily tax itself. housing and to use the streetcar as the transit tool to take people from their homes to work. Hales said the development community worked closely with the streetcar initiative, agreeing to voluntarily tax itself. The real estate tax equals about $2 per square foot of land. While paying increased taxes isn’t something anybody wants, Hales said, real estate along the trolley line has gone up in value 50 percent more than similar properties that are not on the streetcar line. “These people have gotten the deal of the century. We could have taxed them five times higher than what we did and they still would have gotten a wonderful rate of return on their property,” he said. Portland REALTOR® and ReMax Hall of Fame Producer John Cooper agrees. He says his clients enjoy the Pearl District because of the varied transportation options which make the area very livable. “I don’t know if people use it,” Cooper said of the trolley “but they sure like the idea of being able to walk out and get on the streetcar that’s going by.” Central Arkansas Transit Authority launched its $20 million streetcar project called River Rail in November 2004. It runs 2.5 miles between Little 62 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 Rock and North Little Rock through the river district, taking riders to Alltell Arena, the River Market, the Argenta neighborhood and Historic Arkansas Museum, among other places. A nine-tenths of a mile expansion which would allow the trolley to go to the Clinton Presidential Library is slated to be completed by February 2006. Ridership there has exceeded projections, according to Central Arkansas Transit Authority officials, and will top the 80,000 mark during the first year of operations. Two additional Heritage trolleys, which resemble vintage streetcars, have had to be ordered to help meet the demand in Little Rock. Meanwhile, Tampa introduced its TECO streetcar in October 2002 as a way to shuttle people, mostly tourists, along a route that runs from the historic Latin quarter known as Ybor City to the city’s downtown and the burgeoning Channel District. One of the stops includes the arena that is home to the city’s National Hockey League franchise. The 2.5 miles of track, along with the costs of the Heritage streetcars, were about $35 million to construct. Unlike Portland streetcars, which travel with traffic in the street, the Tampa streetcars have their own right of way. The Tampa route starts in Ybor City, which looks much as it did at the turn of the 20th Century when it was a cigar-manufacturing hub. Ybor is just northeast of downtown Tampa and has been a hotbed of economic development, with $200 million plus in public and private investments being funneled into the area. Its population grew by 42.5 percent between 2000 and 2003 and over the next 20 years it is expected to grow by 172 new residents and 105 new housing units annually. The Channel District, which is just south of downtown, served as a cargo warehouse area for the Tampa Port Authority (TPA). However, the TPA’s decision to shift activities in the area from warehousing to cruise lines helped free up land. Recognizing its value, the TPA worked with private companies to redevelop the area. Since the trolley appeared in 2002, there has been more than $230 million in announced residential lofts and condominiums. Today, we are promoting ourselves as one destination because the streetcar connects us all. The Channel District area also has a $49 million entertainment complex called Channelside. Paul Yares, marketing and business development director for Tampa Downtown Partnership, said when Channelside initially opened in 2001 it had a lower-than-expected occupancy. After the appearance of the trolley, which stops directly in front of Channelside, the number of tenants in the commercial building increased significantly. Hillsborough Transit Authority Public Relations Director Jill Cappadoro said the plan is to eventually have the TECO Street Trolley — which shuttled 425,000 people in 2004 — run upward of 10 miles. The trolley attracts development dollars, she said, because the streetcars must run on track, which means there is a permanent commitment to the line. The streetcar has brought more than development to the area, though. Cappadoro said Ybor City and the Channel District once competed for tourists and the money they brought into the area. “Today, we are all sitting together at the table and promoting ourselves as one destination because the streetcar connects us all.” Christine Jordan Sexton is a Tallahassee-based freelance reporter who has done correspondent work for the Associated Press, the New York Times, Florida Medical Business and a variety of trade magazines, including Florida Lawyer and National Underwriter. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 63 Compiled by Gerald L. Allen, NAR Government Affairs smartGrowth in the states ALABAMA CALIFORNIA COLORADO In acknowledgment of widespread concerns that poor and minority neighborhoods lack sufficient protection from industrial pollution, the Alabama Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted for an ‘’environmental justice’’ bill, which would require the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) to check the level of all pollutants affecting ‘’subpopulations’’ within a half-mile, one mile and three miles of any plant seeking a pollution permit or its change or renewal. The bill defines subpopulations as clusters of residents who make less than $15,000 a year or have other than the majority race, color or national origin. Should ADEM find their local pollution higher than elsewhere in the same county, a plant would have to ensure remedies or its permit request would be denied. The bill would also require ADEM to create an Environmental Justice Division in place of its current program. California Business, Housing and Transportation Secretary Sunne McPeak asked San Jose to plan an additional 60,000 housing units, about half in still under-developed areas, making clear that the state would help the city meet its Smart Growth goals of urban and transit-oriented development and consequently release the $760 million it promised in 2000 for a BART line extension from Fremont to Santa Clara and San Jose, some 18 miles south. Addressing the area’s housing summit in Santa Clara, the secretary voiced strong support for legislation to make the state’s affordable-housing push more effective, and indicated that planning for more housing could change the recent Federal Transit Administration’s opinion that the proposed San Jose line wouldn’t have enough riders to warrant about $1 billion in federal aid. After the secretary’s speech, San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales expressed confidence that the city’s ‘’housing plans in terms of Smart Growth are going to meet and exceed any others in terms of the community supporting BART.’’ Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) will spend $48 million to help preserve large land parcels throughout the state, including the 55,000acre Laramie Foothills/Mountain to Plains Project. The foothills project received $11.5 million from GOCO, enough money to complete several key transactions, including the purchase of the scenic Red Mountain Ranch. In addition to the funds provided by GOCO, Fort Collins, Larimer County and the Nature Conservancy, among others, have already committed $13.7 million toward the giant effort. The land covers 200 square-miles of untouched plains, prairie grasses and natural rock formations north of Fort Collins between U.S. 287 and Interstate 25, stretching up to the Wyoming border. GOCO was created in 2001 by voters in the state to protect Colorado’s rapidly dwindling open spaces from population pressures. 64 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FLORIDA MASSACHUSETTS Car sharing is becoming a popular alternative in dealing with the trafficplagued and parking-short Washington, D.C. region. Washington, D.C. is the nation’s only area where two car-share companies (Flexcar and Zipcar) compete, and the market for both companies has exploded in the last four years, with more than 14,000 members so far; almost half of them signed up last year. Both companies provide a fleet of cars for a monthly usage fee that includes the cost of gas, insurance and maintenance. Both companies have cars parked in designated neighborhood spots, which can be reserved by phone or online for a half-hour and up. The sharing plans have proved so popular that local governments in the region, including Arlington County and the city of Alexandria in Virginia, are providing 20 pick-up-drop-off spots near Metro subway stations and are planning to add more this year, even though some object to giving prime public parking spaces throughout the region to private businesses. Oakland Park is using grants, tax revenue and an $18.5 million loan from the Florida League of Cities to transform the area’s 150-acre central business district from an industrial wasteland into a thriving, around-the-clock “Main Street”, with apartments above shops, tree-shaded sidewalks and outdoor cafes. New regulations and design guidelines will make builders comply with the “Main Street” plans and share costs for public amenities. One developer plans to transform an old Sears warehouse site which he purchased four years ago into 300 townhouses, condos and lofts. After the Westborough Planning Board rejected a developer’s offer of 13.7 acres for open space as insufficient to allow higher density for a planned 300-unit condo village at a post-industrial tract across from the MTBA commuter rail station, he offered the town a 24-acre site much better suited to its needs, this time gaining full support from the advisory Open Space Preservation Committee (OSPC). The new site meets all 11 OSPC criteria, including ecological and habitat value, recreational and development possibilities and relation to other natural and wildlife areas. Under the town’s Transit Oriented Village (TOV) Smart Growth bylaw, which lets the Planning Board grant density bonuses up to 10 units per acre, the developer could be allowed to build 240 more units on his tract near the train station. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 65 smartGrowth in the states (continued) MINNESOTA MISSOURI NEVADA Ramsey, Minnesota, some 20 miles northwest of central Minneapolis, is embarking on construction of a 322acre, mixed-use and high-density Town Center, which will offer 2,300 varied housing units, 700,000 square feet of retail, 460,000 square feet of offices and 26 acres of plazas, parks, trails and open space, along with a transit center likely to serve the Northstar Commuter Rail in the future. The project, slated for completion in six to eight years, will have a 30-acre core with City Hall, police station, restaurants, a movie theater, a Winter Garden and possibly a performing arts hub. In addition to the PACT charter school, which began classes last fall, the new urban neighborhood will also provide residents with medical service, community and fitness centers and an ice arena. Projected to pour $3.5 million in annual taxes into Ramsey’s general fund and reach a total value of $1.1 billion, the development is made possible by the city’s contribution of $32 million for infrastructure, public facilities and regional improvements, with Anoka County promising $4.2 million for roads. A consulting team has been hired to advise Kansas City planners on what would be the first major overhaul of Kansas City zoning and subdivision ordinances since 1954. The planners are in the “reconnaissance phase” of their work, but by July 2005 they hope to have a conceptual blueprint that people can respond to at workshops and presentations. The timetable then calls for actual code recommendations to be ready by March 2006, followed by public hearings and final City Council consideration in two years. The consultants intend to give developers in Kansas City clearer guidance to what is permissible and reduce the uncertainty involved when planners have discretion to make decisions on a case-by-case basis. They also want to expand the menu of what is allowable when it comes to housing. The Las Vegas Regional Transportation Commission Advisory Committee has begun meeting to form the initial plans for the Las Vegas Light Rail System. The initial 33-mile segment of the socalled CAT Rail would link Henderson with downtown Las Vegas, running later through the city’s north to the Motor Speedway and both Nellis Air Force Base areas, with other spurs possible in the future. This segment of light-rail system, which could be built between 2009 and 2012, could cost about $900 million dollars, but a $300 million bus-based, rapid-transit system is also being considered. The 22-member advisory committee will consider various options, routes and goals for Las Vegas area transit; officials expect to finalize a concept in late 2005. 66 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2005 NEW JERSEY NORTH CAROLINA WISCONSIN After approving preservation for North Jersey’s Highlands region in June of 2004, lawmakers in Trenton swiftly passed its counterpart — legislation speeding up development in most other areas of the state. The so-called “fast-track law” requires the state to rule on building permit applications within 45 days or approval is automatically granted. The new law has been described by some environmental groups as the most damaging legislation the state has passed in 30 years. Supporters of the law, who are considering amendments to redress concerns of opponents of the legislation, cite a legal opinion from the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services that says the fast-track law won’t impede local zoning decisions. Union County commissioners recently abolished the county’s density bonus policy, leaving six proposed subdivisions in limbo. Under the density bonus policy, developers who added features like stormwater management, curbs and sidewalks, open space and streetlights in their subdivisions could build up to 15 percent more units on a tract than they otherwise could. The affected developments contain 1,879 lots, including 201 bonus lots, on more than 1,500 acres. Opponents to the policy, adopted in 2001, stated that the density bonus rewarded developers while straining the county’s infrastructure. The county planning board also discussed incorporating some of the features required under Smart Growth into the county’s “clustering” provision, which encourages developers to set aside common open space in their subdivisions, allowing them to build the same number of homes on smaller lots on the rest of the land. The De Pere School District is willing to spend almost $860,000 on a 22-acre site to build a neighborhood elementary school in Ledgeview, Wisconsin, about two miles southwest of central De Pere. The proposed location is amid several planned subdivisions and a town center under construction which fits comprehensive Smart Growth plans of both municipalities and will allow school access without cars. County planners have proposed redesigning the traffic patterns around the school to better control traffic, to promote pedestrian uses, and to build the school in a location where kids can easily reach it on foot and by bike. The purchase of the new land will be accomplished by using the Wisconsin State Trust Fund Loan Program and by repaying the debt through sale of property that was originally intended for the school, but was deemed problematic due to an underground petroleum pipeline and area traffic congestion. SUMMER 2005 ON COMMON GROUND 67