Toellner Tells it

A Modest Proposal Regarding Citidel Plaza

I haven't had much time for Kansas City politics lately (thus, the few blog postings), but I have been following with some casual interest the Citidel Plaza project in KCMO. (And atip of the hat here to TKC, who has actually used his blogging time wisely by doing a good job of covering this strory -- it's a shame he doesn't put his writing skills to this good of use all the time.)

The proposed project is for a shopping district at 63rd and Prospect.  For those not initiated with 63rd and Prospect, the neighborhood has has long been in a neglected part of the city. The 64132 zip code has a poverty rate of 29% (more than double the state average. 13.7% of the population has an income 50% below the poverty level (also more than double the state average).  The zip code has lost nearly 20% of its population since 1990.

Everyone on the council knows the Citidel Plaza project is a loser financially for the city. There is no way a shopping center in that location is going to pay out in the TIF money they need to build it. And given the current economic situation of the city, taking on more TIF losses doesn't seem like the most responsible thing to do.

But politically it's a loser too. No one disputes that something needs to be done to help this area....which is, at this point, overgrown with weeds and the blight is becoming a haven for crime. Denying redevelopment TIF money to a blighted and forgotten part of town is not good either.

But it doesn't take much driving by the area to realize that the Citidel Plaza area may be the least of the area's problems.

Drive two blocks west and you get to your first abandoned office building.

 If you drive another 2 blocks, you get to another shopping center that sits about 1/3 full of businesses.

If you go another 2 blocks, there is a shopping mall/center that is pretty rough looking, and appears to have several open sites:

And two blocks later, you get to the now-empty building that used to house the Cleveland Chiropractic College:

Given all of this vacancy along 63rd Street, I find it hard to believe that building more buildings is actually in the best interest of the area.  Maybe the answer should be, that instead of building another shopping center, maybe we should provide an incentive for people to fix up and fill the empty building space that blights the area. Maybe once we can get these buildings remodeled, and filled, maybe then, the new shopping center might make sense. But building more buildings for shopping, while others sit empty just blocks away, doesn't make sense: financially or logically.

Helping these buildings get improved and inhabited would likely require less subsidy than the Citidel Plaza project.  And it would also be helping benefit the neighborhood that badly needs it (which will help the city council politically by not turning their back on the area -- not to mention, it would be the right thing to do). Besides, even if they build the Citidel project, they're likely going to have to subsidize this blight anyway (especially when they can't compete with the new development that has tax incentives). 

Maybe it's a horrible idea.  If it is, tell me why. But it seems like better solution for the neighborhood, and a better financial situation for the city.

Three more years before the economy is normal?

The Sacramento Bee has a new interactive map that has the rate at which the nation's top economists believe the city will be back "normal" unemployment levels. 

Kansas City is currently projected to be back to normal levels by Q1 2012. 

While that seems like a really long time to wait, the only metropolitan area in Missouri that is slated to be back sooner is Columbia -- which is already back to pre-recession unemployment levels. St. Louis isn't predicted to be back until Q3 2013.

Most of the top places for getting back on track are in Texas locations: El Paso, Austin, San Antonio.  The Great Lakes areas: Chicago, Milwaukee, the entire state of Michigan, Northern Ohio are looking at 2014 and beyond.

That's a long time to wait for a large number of people -- but it could be worse. It looks like we'll still be dealing with this economic situation during the next mayoral election -- which may shape many campaign platforms.

Hat Tip: PSFK

Telling Signs

I caught this sign over the weekend down at 3rd and Grand. My assumption is that a local business owner (Corner Cafe) is using one of the street closing signs to put his own sign up to encouract people to call the Action Center. This "construction" has been going on now for at least the past 5 months, and I don't see a lot of progress being made. Apparently the business owner doesn't either.

Delayed construction projects can be very harmful to small businesses who lose visibility from the street, street traffic, pedestrian traffic, or in the case of the Corner Cafe, their parking lot get used for a street because the real street is closed (ps, you jerks doing this know who you are and should be more considerate to the business owner, just go a 1/2 block and make the loop).

KC needs to be sure projects like this -- whatever it is they are doing -- don't drag on for months needlessly.  Leaving big empty holes is not a solution to the problem of metal plates in the city.

P&L District Then and Now

Last week's post sparked a bit of conversation as I noted that in spite of the tax shortfalls in the P&L district in downtown KCMO, that the city is much better off with the district than with the abandoned area of town that preceded it  that was little more than multiple blocks of surface parking. Some kind readers sent me a couple of photos to help prove my point.

The first is an arial view from Google Maps of the area now occupied by the P&L

It's mostly just a bunch of surface lots. Meanwhile, here's a view from 14th and McGee looking Westward -- you can see the Empire Theater (which was abandoned at the time).  By the way, this photo is very copywrited -- so if you want to use it you're going to have to contact some folks at city hall to get usage rights. 

There actualy were 4 or 5 pretty cool buildings in this 5-6 square block area.

Meanwhile, I went down to the P&L and tried to take the exact same picture from the same angle today. I'm not in the exact same spot -- because the exact spot is somewhere inside the Sprint Center.  But this is about the right angle.

Note -- I took this at about 9:30 on Saturday morning -- thus the few people that were out and about. But regardless, it seems really obvious to me which area would be more appealing to a new company looking to relocate to Kansas City.

It certainly isn't perfect...but I think it's a huge improvement over where we were in 2003 in that part of downtown.

Kansas City Economic Growth

Earlier this week, Blog KC pointed me toward a report from Kevin Collison at the Star on the growth of economic development in downtown Kansas City. 

According to numbers from the Downtown council, since 2001, the "downtown" economy has grown 45% since 2001 vs 33% growth metro-wide.  By category:

Business License Tax - +49.7%

Restaurant Tax - +97.1%

Hotel Tax - +92.3%

Sales Tax - + 22.4%

Earnings tax - +121.8%

The Downtown Council argues that this increase is great for the city and that the massive investment in the downtown infastructure (much through TIF financing) is paying off with large growth in downtown.

Critics have stated much of the movement has been within the city -- attracting businesses, jobs and entertainment dollars from the suburbs so that it's more displacement revenue than real revenue growth -- and that projects like the Sprint Center and Power & Light District have been very costly to the city and taxpayers.

However, it should be noted that the metropolitan area's total growth compares pretty favorably to the nation as a whole. 

The reality is every major metropolitan area is investing significantly in rebuilding their downtowns...including most of the cities with the largest growth (Portland, Omaha, Dallas, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, and Denver) investing in things like new arenas/sports stadiums and light rail services in their downtowns. What KC is doing is necessary just to stay in competition with these cities.

Meanwhile, I saw an interesting article from out of Columbus this week. Columbus taxpayers are going to be forced to make a decision soon on whether they are going to provide funding for the upkeep of Nationwide Arena - -which was responsible for bringing Columbus an NHL Franchise, a renovated Arena District, billions of dollars in additional investments in the area and $850 million in visitor spending in the past 10 years.

In spite of the increased cost to taxpayers, the author argues that the city is in much better shape now than before the Arena and Arena district in Columbus were complete.

It's hard to read the article and not see the similarities between the Columbus Arena District and our Power & Light District. While the financials on our P&L District have yet to pay out - -and maybe never officially will -- it is really hard to argue that Kansas City is in a much better position for long term growth in terms of tourism, new companies, and new residents, with a new arena and entertainment district in the South Loop area vs multiple blocks of surface parking, a drive in bank and an abandoned old movie theater that resided there before.

But the next step is to continue to use these taxpayer-funded initiatives to spur growth in private investments.

(Note: I couldn't find a picture of the P&L area prior to the new district being built. But this picture pretty accurately portrays how I remember it looking).