Downtown Revitilization

[PennState1985]

I'm sure most people here are from the "rust belt", an area built on industry that's now declining. How's your city's downtown? Is there a lot to do, places to eat and have a good time, is it a dead downtown with a few vacancies and where everything closes at 5 PM, or is it a truly dead downtown with mostly vacant buildings, empty lots, and crime?

Downtown Altoona is in the second category. It's a downtown with some vacant buildings and everything (except for a handful of places) closes at 5 PM. Most who come into downtown Altoona only come in nowadays to see the Mishler Theater, the Railroaders Museum, something with the Altoona Area High School, the Post Office, the Altoona Hospital, or maybe to visit family in one of the elderly towers, while eating somewhere or buying stuff somewhere nearby. Not too many people go downtown just to eat or shop these days. People who come into Altoona generally go to Plank Road or the Blair County Ballpark to see the Altoona Curve minor league baseball team. I live a couple blocks from the downtown (and if you ask some people, they'd say I actually live downtown), so I can see the entire skyline from my house.

The biggest downtown news story is that the old Kaufman's Wedding World buildings that had NOTHING wrong with them were demolished. Some of you may recognize the chain that expanded way too fast outward (which led to its demise). If your city has revitilization plans, what are they? Do the people care about downtown or do they just go elsewhere?

 

[jimotis4heisman]

you may find it interesting then that the columbus dispatch has just started an 8 day run of stories covering downtowns and development.

you can go to dispatch.com and read the stories.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

Columbus' central business district is getting better but is still kind of dead after 5pm. There's been a lot of condo conversions the last several years since the mayor passed a 10 year tax abatement for residential purchases in the downtown core, so street level development will probably be spurred as those condos fill up.

Directly surrounding downtown, however, is great. To the south, German Village is a very upscale, gentrified neighborhood with a lot of bars and restaurants mixed into the neighborhood. To the north, is the Short North and Victorian Village which has a great strip of bars, restaurants and retail that's growing north to meet campus. To the east, is Old Towne East which is still kind of mixed but, because it has a great stock of old houses, is gentrifying very quickly. To the west of downtown is the river.

It's not Chicago, but Columbus is one of the few Great Lakes cities that's developing a real upscale, residential downtown.

 

[Mike80]

Springtuckey barely has a downtown, but due to Wittenburg being right in downtown Springtuckey, the downtown areas (such as they are) are usually somewhat busy.

If you go north or east or west, you'll find people or college students doing whatever it is (going east on US 40 has a lot of restaurants and stores and stuff), west and north are mostly residential.

The south part of Springfield makes Detroit look habitable in some places.

 

[PennState1985]

Columbus' central business district is getting better but is still kind of dead after 5pm. There's been a lot of condo conversions the last several years since the mayor passed a 10 year tax abatement for residential purchases in the downtown core, so street level development will probably be spurred as those condos fill up.

Directly surrounding downtown, however, is great. To the south, German Village is a very upscale, gentrified neighborhood with a lot of bars and restaurants mixed into the neighborhood. To the north, is the Short North and Victorian Village which has a great strip of bars, restaurants and retail that's growing north to meet campus. To the east, is Old Towne East which is still kind of mixed but, because it has a great stock of old houses, is gentrifying very quickly. To the west of downtown is the river.

It's not Chicago, but Columbus is one of the few Great Lakes cities that's developing a real upscale, residential downtown.

Does the downtown have a sharp dividing line (either natural or some other physical boundary) or does it gradually recede like Altoona's? In Altoona it's a very gradual transition, for example, 13th avenue is mostly commercial/residential multistory structures with a very urban feel but with the occasional house or two, 14th avenue is primarily apartment buildings and stores, but with some houses, and 15th and 16th avenues are an even mix of apartment buildings, stores, and houses. Beyond that you find mostly houses with the occasional slightly taller building (like the apartment building on 17th avenue and 13th street). Here's a picture of Altoona's downtown skyline, let me know what you think?

 

[DEBuckeye]

The south part of Springfield makes Detroit look habitable in some places.

Impossible.

 

[buckeyehottie]

This is a huge issue here in Fort Wayne!! Last year, our city council voted to move our baseball stadium downtown. We do have a skyline, but very few restaurants stay open after five. The plan was presented by a construction company, not a city planner. Also included are a new hotel, shops, and condos. The condos have almost sold out, but they had a really hard time attracting a hotel, I think what we are ending up with is a Courtyard.
Naturally, this is very controversial here. This is not economic development, it is economic relocation. The downtown stadium has worked well in Dayton b/c is was a brand new franchise, and the stadium is right by I-75. Our city fathers elected eons ago that I-69 be routed on the west side of the city, away from downtown. There are three major shopping malls/districts in Fort Wayne: NW, NE, and SW of downtown. The area b/t downtown and these shopping districts is populated with abandoned car lots, aging shopping centers, and strip clubs.
Also, the city schools are failing, and the population is shifting to the suburbs where the schools are much better.
Why do you think downtown development is such a touchstone? I am not old enough to remember the glory days of a vibrant downtown, and is is REALLY important?

 

[Fungo Squiggly]

Does the downtown have a sharp dividing line (either natural or some other physical boundary) or does it gradually recede like Altoona's?

In general, the major highways provide a dividing line from the taller buildings to the residential areas. Headed south, crossing over the interchange puts you in Gemran Village/Brewery District. North across 670, east across 71. Generally speaking, of course....

The downtown sucks. It's a ghost town on the weekends. My wife works in the Vern Riffe building (building where the governor has his office) and there is just nothing down there on the weekends. Come out of show at one of the downtown theatres and get the hell out of dodge. Downtown nightlife = nil.

I can't imagine wanting to live downtown. What's the point if you still have to drive to get anywhere....I could see living in the Arena or Brewery district, but downtown? No thanks.

I'm very interested to see what they do to mprove the area. If they turn City Center into something attractive and popular again, that would be a great first step.....

I'll also be interested to see what the Clippers' new ballpark does for the Arena district. See if that place will stay a little busier during hockey off-season.

All that being said, it's not within light years of being as bad as Detroit.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

I can't imagine wanting to live downtown. What's the point if you still have to drive to get anywhere....I could see living in the Arena or Brewery district, but downtown? No thanks.

A 10 year property tax abatement for one. I think street level (shops and restaurants) will grow to meet the needs of those in the condos. My office used to be on the corner of Gay and 3rd, and before I left three years ago, started to see a little bit of it begin to develop. What downtown really, really needs to do with City Center is put in businesses that cater to those living in the area rather than try to make it a shopping destination for the city. Off the top of my head, a Whole Foods, A Home Depot, a Best Buy and a Walgreens would, I feel be very successful and would serve not only the downtown condo dwellers but also German Village, Victorian Village and Old Towne East.

One thing about Columbus is that people don't walk. I lived in German Village and wouldn't think about walking to downtown much less the Short North, yet in Chicago don't think twice about walking twice that distance.

 

[cincibuck]

In the early 1960s Columbus had exactly one building taller than 15 stories, the La Veque - Lincoln Tower... maybe 40 - 45 stories. Since the entire area surrounding the city was bull dozed super flat during the ice age, and since you could spot the LV - L Tower several miles away, we called it "the city with a hard on." As students we swore it was where you would stick the nozzel if you were going to give the world an enema. World's Biggest Cow Town was another popular phrase.

The good fathers had the wisdom to incorporate well beyond the city's then geographic borders right after WWII, unlike Cleveland, Cincinnati and Dayton, and thus never got land locked (for tax revenue purposes) the way those other Ohio cities did.

The boom from the mid 60s on has been significant and the city is fast overtaking Cincinnati as the #2 city in the state. The concert venue, Veterans Memorial, is due for a total and complete overhaul. Downtown is deader than a door nail after 6PM despite several huge hotels, but you don't have to go very far in any direction to find excellent restaurants and interesting bars, especially if, like me, you are loath to spend time and or money in corporate eateries/drinkeries, e.g. Applebees, O' Charlies, BW3.

The city benefits from its great transportation cross roads location, from state bureauacracy (which the good citizens of the town always bitch about even as it lines their pockets), from a very diversified business/industry base and from the power of a major research and academic center at Ohio State.

It is often pulled back by its close ties to Southeast Ohio, home of folks who liked things just the way they were back in 1928 and wonder why people wanna mess around and change things so gall darned fast.

 

[PennState1985]

This is a huge issue here in Fort Wayne!! Last year, our city council voted to move our baseball stadium downtown. We do have a skyline, but very few restaurants stay open after five. The plan was presented by a construction company, not a city planner. Also included are a new hotel, shops, and condos. The condos have almost sold out, but they had a really hard time attracting a hotel, I think what we are ending up with is a Courtyard.
Naturally, this is very controversial here. This is not economic development, it is economic relocation. The downtown stadium has worked well in Dayton b/c is was a brand new franchise, and the stadium is right by I-75. Our city fathers elected eons ago that I-69 be routed on the west side of the city, away from downtown. There are three major shopping malls/districts in Fort Wayne: NW, NE, and SW of downtown. The area b/t downtown and these shopping districts is populated with abandoned car lots, aging shopping centers, and strip clubs.
Also, the city schools are failing, and the population is shifting to the suburbs where the schools are much better.
Why do you think downtown development is such a touchstone? I am not old enough to remember the glory days of a vibrant downtown, and is is REALLY important?

Altoona has a skyline too, but mostly of historic buildings as you can see. The tallest downtown buildings are the hospital, the cathedral, the Penn Alto Hotel, the Black and Yon Building (despite being only six stories tall, each floor is around 20 feet high), and the Green Avenue and 11th Street Towers.

Bringing a stadium in downtown is a good idea. We had a really nice one called the Cricket Field, where Babe Ruth hit a homerun several blocks. But the city didn't wanna pay for upkeep so now a slightly run down shopping center and a few medical complexes sit where there once was a nice ballpark.

Actually, from my experience, city schools and neighborhoods are a mixed bag. Some are really nice, while others are run down and deteriorating. Altoona's schools are among the top in the state, despite being in a very "inner city" location, most of them on the edge of the downtown. But I don't know if a city whose population (including overspill outside of the city limits) is roughly 82,000 would be big enough to use as an example.

Yes, revitilization of downtown and surrounding neighborhoods is important. Without those, the city will eventually collapse, and so will the suburban economy. Sure, there'll be shopping centers and malls, but if the city collapses, there won't be any good jobs (nobody wants to live in a location where the only jobs are at Wal-Mart or Sam's Club), so the suburbs will collapse too. We're starting to already see that with Detriot. The city is starting to collapse economically and now the suburbs around the city, which used to be really nice, are becoming as delapidated as the inner city itself.

Downtown development is important because the people who live in a city need things to do, places to go. The solution isn't to build malls downtown, I'll use Altoona's Station Mall as an example, which was built near an apartment tower and the Boyer Candy factory. The downtown mall is now almost a dead mall with only six stores remaining (a bank, a dollar store, and a few restaurants plus a pharmacy) with one anchor store remaining, a BiLo supermarket. Parking isn't the problem either because nobody has to turn around and go home because of no place to park downtown (with shopping centers, you have to walk pretty far to get to the store after parking anyway, every bit as far if not farther than parking downtown), look at downtown Buffalo, covered with parking lots but still dead as a doornail.

The main reason downtown development has failed in most places is because they refuse to advertise downtown businesses, they focus too much on making more parking lots and office jobs, and they have way too much red tape for a new business to want to come in. I think if we eliminate the red tape, advertise, combine retail and office focus with a lot of apartment buildins downton, and build one parking garage instead of five parking lots, we'll start to see some progress.