May 7, 2008
The Downtown Plan is alive and well, they say.
Who thought it was dead?
Some background: The El Paso Times did a short story on the business page about a week ago. The title was something along the lines of "Downtown Plan Redirected."
Well, something about that story didn't go over well.
I wondered why it caused such heartburn -- so much, in fact, that it moved Economic Development Director Kathy Dodson to write a piece for the El Paso Times editorial page Wednesday essentially refuting the story.
Here's a line from her piece that might be key (emphasis mine): "To clarify, no portion of the presentation represented any redirection of the plan or a shift away from retail development. Any concerns that retail development is not supported are unwarranted, and we recognize that it is integral to Downtown revitalization."
I have a little theory on that, but before I get to it, here's some background.
The Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone will hear and see a presentation on phase two of the Downtown Plan implementation. The TIRZ meeting is at 7:30 a.m. this morning (Thursday, May 8) on the 10th floor of City Hall.
You can view the 50-something page draft via the link at the bottom of this piece.
I haven't had a chance to digest it yet, so you'll have to forgive me if I missed something significant.
Here are some of the things I noticed on a first glance:
-- The report recommends formation of a management district that would be run either through an existing institution or a new one. "This entity could function through three key areas of responsibility," states page seven of the draft. Those areas are development (TIRZ capital program, parking, housing, etc), public services (Downtown Management/PID functions such as code enforcement, landscaping, security, etc), and events (festival support, marketing, etc).
The draft also suggests forming a Downtown Design Center and a Downtown Design Review Board. "Design takes many forms in downtown: the urban design of public spaces, the architectural design of buildings, and the aesthetic design of the important details of the urban experience such as signs, street furniture and public art."
-- The draft suggests a regulatory framework that encourages design standards. A "flexible use environment, complemented with a prescribed urban design environment, will provide a more market-sensitive context for mixed use development. Such reforms in the zoning environment must be coordinated with other key ordinance factors such as special privilege considerations, code compliance and historic preservation." (Page 8)
-- The draft discusses "linkages," making Downtown easier to get around through a variety of modes -- pedestrian, bicycle, transit and vehicles. This includes such recommendations as converting one-way streets to two-way, and increasing sidewalk widths (page 12).
-- Page 27 includes a summary of "catalyst projects" taking place right now. Page 30 discusses potential future projects. And page 36 estimates a cost for sidewalk widening and traffic management and other public infrastructure to support catalyst projects -- about $15 million of the estimated $103 million to $109 million the TIRZ will collect over its 30-year lifespan.
The catalyst projects are interesting because those are the projects meant to create a critical mass of opportunities -- live, work, play -- that will bring people Downtown, which will bring investment which will bring more people and more investment and so on.
One of the catalyst projects is to be what is called "lifestyle retail," which is essentially a mall built to resemble a small town or neighborhood main street. Malls were based on that model, with the walkways between shops replacing streets and placed under a roof, usually in the middle of a giant parking lot. If you think about a mall without a roof, and apartments and offices on the upper floors, it starts to resemble a neighborhood shopping district. That is lifestyle retail.
That catalyst project in the Downtown Plan is a rectangle bounded north and south by Paisano and Overland streets, east and west by Kansas and El Paso streets.
To create the lifestyle retail district contemplated by the Downtown Plan -- 600,000 square feet, with a store anchoring it on First Street, which currently dead-ends at Stanton -- likely would bring up the issue of eminent domain, upon which the plan may or may not hinge, depending on who is speaking when. And, fairly, depending on how well the plan progresses without it.
If someone wanted the city to get behind such a project, any hint of a question about the project's importance might be cause for concern. There are subtle cues, like the Times' quote of planner Scott Polikov, president of Gateway Planning Group (emphasis mine): "'Eventually, significant retail will be visible Downtown, but office and residential (projects) are a fundamental building block' … 'The plan 'can build on South El Paso (Street) retail, instead of trying to ignore it.'"
And that could explain Dodson's pains to report, notwithstanding any contrary impression, that "concerns that retail development is not supported are unwarranted, and we recognize that it is integral to Downtown revitalization."
But what if it isn't?