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Citys Downtown
Below are 12 strategies that can transform your citys downtown into a thriving urban
district. For each strategy, youll see a concise explanation of how the strategy will make
your downtown more vibrant and one or two examples of cities that have successfully
implemented the strategy.
downtown development. Thats what Austin is doing with its Waller Creek project, a
major initiative that will rejuvenate the currently underutilized waterway that runs
through the eastern section of the citys downtown.
Or what about that massive freeway that runs along the edge of your downtown?
You could tear it down and build a park in its place like Portland did in its downtown.
Or you could sink it and cover it with a park like Dallas did.
Or you could sink it and cover it with a park and a convention center like Seattle.
Check out how Austin is using its defunct Seaholm power plant as the centerpiece of
a new mixed-use downtown development.
Or, take a look at what the private sector has done with a former elementary school
in Portland, turning it into a hotel/microbrewery (this one is not downtown-specific but
illustrates the strategy so well, I had to include it).
commerce is housed in the upstairs of a convenience store? (Yes, Ive actually seen
both of these examples in the wild!). Take a look at what San Angelo, TX did.
San Angelos regional economic development partners chose to a construct a new
consolidated facility in a strategic central city location to help spur further downtown
revitalization. And the added benefit from this decision is the synergies gained by
housing several cooperating organizations under a single roof.
On the other hand, a large public market can attract thousands of downtown
visitors on a daily basis. Seattles Pike Place Market is a great example of such a
public market. An estimated 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 annual visits are made to the
market.
center of their community. A major upside of this strategy is that it can help to turn
around the perceptions and reality of downtowns that have are not vibrant.
Perhaps the best example of this strategy is Oklahoma Citys Bricktown, a large
mixed-use entertainment district that has transformed OKCs one-time dead-after5pm downtown into what is now hailed as a 24/7 attraction. Bricktown, which makes
up the eastern section of downtown OKC, was filled with abandoned buildings as
recently as the 1990s. Today, thanks to major infusions of public and private
investments, the district is home to dozens of restaurants and bars, thousands of
hotel rooms, and a growing number of residences.
Kansas Citys Power & Light District is a similar success story (though on a smaller
scale than Bricktown) of a new entertainment district that breathed fresh life into that
citys downtown.
Why?
Unfortunately, the majority of U.S. cities impose parking minimums instead of parking
maximums, even in their downtown districts. This means that real estate developers
are forced to provide a minimum level of parking when building new downtown
offices, hotels, or residential structures, ignoring the market demand for parking.
While these policies are generally intended to enhance or maintain access to
downtown districts, they have the unintended side effect of fostering an overdependence on auto travel while making downtown areas less walkable and less
transit-supportive. Fortunately, there is a growing movement in large cities to
abolish minimum parking requirements in downtowns.
Austins city council recently enacted an ordinance that removes mandatory
minimum parking in the central business district.
And a few cities are really blazing a bold new path by not only removing parking
minimums, but actually going the extra step to establish maximum parking
standards which place an upper limit on the amount of new parking spaces
allowed in downtown areas. You can read a fascinating account of the
transformation of San Franciscos parking policies over the last few decades here. In
1985, San Francisco first began experimenting with the removal of parking
requirements for downtown commercial properties. Since then, San Francisco has
increasingly adopted public policies that are aimed at reducing the amount of parking
throughout the city, especially in the downtown area.
A relatively new innovation out of San Francisco is the SFpark pilot program, which
introduced demand-responsive variable parking meter pricing with real-time
information in multiple neighborhoods. A handful of other cities are experimenting
with similar variable-rate approaches to on-street parking, including New York with
its PARK Smart pilot project.
Bottom Line
Admittedly, this is by no means a complete listthere are dozens, no hundreds, of
different approaches to downtown revitalization. And you may have noticed that I
chose to focus primarily on achievable strategies that are very much within the realm
of the public sector. So, whats the big takeaway? Whatever state your citys
downtown is currently in, there are many actions that can be taken to boost
the vitality of your communitys urban core.
What is your city doing to make its downtown more vibrant?