Economic Jibba Jabba: Part the Two

Well, I ran out of things to say last night because it was late and my memory was getting sketchy. But now... more!

First off, a continuation of the downtown retail connectivity question. Riding the Link to work today I noticed (or re-noticed) the big enormous gap just north of BKB, stretching for what could easily be three or four shops. I am guessing, from what I know of the area, that this property is owned by UWT. What I don't know is what is there. Are these spaces being used for the UWT campus? Or are they for lease and just not getting used? I can understand the university wanting to use their property for their own purposes (if that's the case), but even so, this retail gap is absolutely slaughtering the chances of connection to further downtown segments, both those northerly and the aforementioned potential track up the hill to 19th and Jefferson.

I'm not espousing anything new here. It's pretty obvious that empty space is bad for business. But what can be done to improve the situation? What sort of business out to go in? One point made last night was the need for retail to fit with its neighbors so they can share customer base. So what have we got down there? We have alternative apparel retail (urbanXchange), wearable art (BKB), a moderate-sized bookstore (UWT) and a destination confectioner (Hello Cupcake). Not to mention the Subway/Taco Del Mar one-two punch, the Harmon, and a Starbucks. So I see two core markets: the mild counterculture and the business lunchers. Any number of things would be suitable: a used bookstore to offset the new product at UWT (though downtown already has a solid used bookshop at each end, so maybe not); another small lunch establishment (maybe a Better-Than-Subway sandwich shop or something); one idea that's bounced around is a newsstand, such as a Bulldog News or similar establishment, which I think would definitely appeal to the lunch-shoppers riding in on the light rail. Maybe even one of the glut of record stores (I mean real record stores, selling vinyl), tired of the excessive competition, could move down from 6th to mesh with the Buzzard/urbanXchange crowd.

Anyway, that's enough of that. On to other things.

Enough with the residential already!

People are talking about how the best way to draw businesses is to increase foot traffic, and too many seem to believe that the best way to have foot traffic is to make sure that people live nearby. I suspect that condo developers have been taking a cue from Seattle, who are in mid-development on a few major downtown condo projects (and by major I mean upwards of $1M per unit). Well guess what? We're not Seattle yet. Seattle downtown is already established as a Place To Be. Trying to mimic their residential placement is foolish. As Prium, among others, have no doubt discovered. I've brought this up elsewhere, but the people moving to be close to downtown are not established residents. Families aren't moving from North End houses to downtown condos. If you're trying to market these places to financial bigshots, you're getting nowhere. Financial big shots have cars. The people moving are people like me. People fresh out of college, just making career inroads at downtown businesses. We are the people who are used to that kind of cluster: having all of our work, food and retail options in walking distance. And we are renters.

If I thought I was staying in Tacoma long term, I'd love to buy a house or a condo. And yes, I'd love for it to be in that area because I would like to go as long as I possibly can without owning a car. But very few people are coming out of college ready to buy, or even knowing where they want to be, geographically, in five years. And it's geography that brings me to...

Accessibility. Public Transit. How we get from one bit to another bit.

Why would I want to buy close to downtown, rather than in a nice residential neighborhood that's more conducive to a future family? Transportation. Right now I live a short walk from one end of the Link, and work a short walk from the other end. The Link does a fantastic job of traversing downtown. Unfortunately, that's all it does. What is severely lacking is a way to get from anywhere else TO downtown in the first place. Yes, nearly all the buses in the city converge there. But compare how many business folk I see on the bus (or saw, when I took the 2 and the 57 to work) to how many I see driving in, parking by the Dome, and taking the Link to the financial district. There is a certain social stigma that comes with the bus system, which is unfortunate. It really is quite reliable and safe. But the Link, being shiny and new, and boasting a fairly consistent security detail, gives off a greater aura of safety to the people that want it.

Our fellow feeder the Tacoma Urbanist has an update on the status of potential expansion to the system. I've got a rather lengthy comment on there of my vision for this, which I will not bother reposting here. Suffice to say that giving people a light rail running from TCC down through 6th ave, Stadium, and into downtown is exactly what we need. We don't need more residences in downtown. We need the people who already live in the existing residential neighborhoods to come down and fill the sidewalks. And for them to come, they need the perception of ease (whether an extended Link stays free, or whether we implement a computerized ticket system so infrequent riders don't need to carry exact change) and the perception of safety (I'm not saying create the illusion of safety, but make apparent the fact that it is already safe).

All of this comes down to one core point: we don't need to infuse downtown with residents. We need to infuse it with reasons to come, and ways to come. No matter where they live, people will go anywhere for their needs if it is easy to get there and made worth going. The constantly packed parking on 6th Ave. should make it apparent that those businesses are not thriving because of the people who live within walking distance.

Anyway, all of these ideas, all this chatter, is rather pointless unless we do one thing (well, two things):

Find the people who care. And then find out how to make everyone else care.

AE and the City of Tacoma have done a great job of finding the people who really care about improving downtown, and the city as a whole. It was pretty clear that everyone at the discussion last night was really passionate about making this work, though each for their own reasons. So we have this core of people willing to make their opinions known. But these aren't the people we need to draw. We're all already in downtown, living, working, supporting businesses. And we're decreeing what we believe will improve it based on our own opinions. But what about everyone else? What about the people who don't care that they're running off to Seattle whenever they want to have fun? How do we make them care about Tacoma? Some of that is simply finding out exactly what they're going to Seattle for and then having that in Tacoma. But more important is finding out what neither has and then bringing in that. What can we do to make the people who moved here for the cheap housing and nothing more see that the more is what matters?

That's the big question that needs answering. And I can't answer it. I'm one of the ones that already loves it here. The answer is out there, among the people that aren't coming to your focus groups, that aren't filling out your online polls, that might not even be voting. We're trying to make people want to come to Tacoma when we have a chunk of the population that barely cares about staying in Tacoma. Make it a place for them, and you'll make it a place for everyone.

Economic Jibba Jabba (look out, kids... it's a long 'un)

I took part in the AngelouEconomics Young Professionals focus group for the development of an Economic Development Plan for Downtown Tacoma at the Varsity Grill tonight. Despite the project leaders' best efforts, there did end up being some fairly interesting discussion.

Okay, that's a bit harsh. Their PowerPoint slides raised a few questions that sparked many a random tangent, which was really the whole point of it.

Anyway, there was quite an assortment of folk there. I won't bother pretending that I know there names, but offhand I took note of urbanXchange Lady, Puget Sound Pizza Guy, a few City of Tacoma people, a gentleman from the Business Examiner and a woman, formerly of the Museum of Glass, now of the LeMay Car Museum. Not to mention the ever-present Blogger133. So just there, in about half the attendees, you have representatives of retail, dining, journalism, government and the arts. Not to mention a decent balance between lifelong natives, transplants and a few born/moved/returned.

I won't rehash the whole evening for you, but there were a few points made worth mentioning (with, of course, expansion provided by the fact that my mind is incapable of reporting anything without inserting every bit of commentary that pops in during writing).

What keeps people away from Tacoma? Too long a memory, and too vague a definition.

There is a pervasive belief that Tacoma is dangerous, violent, a poor environment to raise a child or even to walk the streets at night. And the fact is, there was a time when this perception was not far-fetched. Hilltop after the WASP migration to University Place, downtown Tacoma, Parkland: these places have all, at one time or another, been centers of gang violence, drug problems, etcetera. I will grant that. What everyone else needs to grant, however, is a capacity for change. This is, now more than ever, a community of people who really care about making their city a place worth living in. And the easiest way to accomplish this is simply to do it: don't just reside in the city, but live in it. The fact of the matter is that the best means of reducing crime is to have witnesses. Bring up the legitimate and legal nightlife activity in a region and you will reduce the drugs and violent crime. And we've done that. How much criminal activity do you see on 6th Avenue? How much improvement has there been in the violence plagued northern end of Pacific with the transplant of businesses like Paddy Coyne's and The Matador? We've even got happening nightspots in the heart of the dreaded Hilltop (which, by the way, I walked through many a day and evening when I lived at the top of 19th, never once feeling unsafe). We are a city that is full of growth and promise, ignored because people remember what it once was.

There is also the question of definition. Someone made a very interesting point: Seattle is known by its neighborhoods and suburbs. Tacoma's suburbs are known by it. Say someone gets gunned down on Capitol Hill. People, local media, whomever, will talk about violent crime on Capitol Hill, safety conscious visitors will avoid the area and relegate their travels to downtown, or the U District, or Ballard or Fremont. Now picture a similar slaying in, for example, Spanaway. Nobody knows Spanaway, so it is reported as Tacoma. Killing in Lakewood? Tacoma. In UP? Tacoma. Can't really tell these places apart (apparently), so we'd best just avoid Tacoma altogether.

Who needs major retail? We've got minor retail.

There's been a lot of talk about revitalizing downtown by bringing in some major retail chain. Clothing stores, bookstores, anything to bring shoppers to the area. There are a couple of fundamental problems with this plan.

1. It's difficult to revitalize an area with major retail when even the minor retail struggles due to a lack of foot traffic. You say the retail will bring the foot traffic? I say they'll take one look at the neighborhood as it stands and bow out. No non-regional business is going to want to be a part of our "We sure hope this works" plan to boost the area.
   
   
2. The greatest potential resource we have in downtown Tacoma is our small-scale retail businesses. Locally owned, locally run, places like urbanXchange, like Buzzard Disks and Stadium Video, like King's Books. These places are the core of what currently makes up downtown. They all survive because people love them and will patronize them despite the neighborhood (or the perception thereof). People will go to the Stadium District for King's, to Pacific for the eXchange, to 19th and Jefferson for Buzzard. This is the beginning of what we need.

So we focus on the small retail. What's the trouble? There is no link between these businesses. The most viable retail options in downtown are completely disconnected. UrbanXchange and Buzzard Disks are, from a top-down view, barely two blocks apart. And, I'd hazard a guess, they draw a broadly similar clientele. But how many people, knowing one, will spontaneously discover the other? Part of this is in the urban landscape. With no streets linking Jefferson to Pacific from 21st to 17th, there is no geographic encouragement. All that exists to lead a patron of The Rock, Buzzard or The Swiss further into the heart of downtown is the UWT stairway. But it suffers from the next problem: continuity of business. People don't mind walking if there is consistently something to see or potentially do. Walk down 6th Avenue and there is a constant stream of restaurants, record shops, galleries and the like. Every time you reach something worth stopping at, something else catches your eye another half block down. Simply the act of trying to park to go to Asado or Masa or whichever new restaurant is trendy this week and then walking to your destination is enough to introduce you to three new restaurants and two wine shops, that will bring you back the next week. We have quality retail options, nightlife options, restaurant options, and nothing to lead you from one to the other.

The most consistent tract of downtown is right around UWT, where we have the Harmon, the Xchange, Hello Cupcake, BKB, and maybe, if you peek your head up around the end, Two Koi. All carefully segregated on one side of the street from the museum strip. And the truth is that they don't need to be led to. No one is going downtown for a cupcake, looking up and saying "wait... there's a museum down here?" What we need is for the museums to be the leaders. but with a nice big median down Pacific, there are just as few people visiting the Museum of Glass who will look across the street and say "There's a cupcake shop? Sounds delicious!"

Something that didn't come up (largely because I'm just thinking of it now) is a means to actually connect these shops. Because that downtown stretch has the potential to be busy. And the bit of Jefferson between 19th and 21st is likewise fairly happening. It's the connection so that the two can feed each other, whilst fostering new development, that's the rub. Since the odds of the UWT stair suddenly being lined with shops are fairly minimal, we need another link. So why not track down from The Swiss to Two Koi? With the restaurant and Tacoma Art Supply peeking up around the corner there, it's like Pacific is calling out to the rest of downtown. All there is filling the space (as far as attracting foot traffic goes) is the Old Spaghetti Factory. The whole area across from that edge of UWT feels ripe for a conversion to retail and nightlife.

From there, it's just a matter of spreading the retail strip further down Pacific in either direction, particularly north toward the financial district. That far northern tip is just starting to bloom, but again, it's not connected to anything. There's a big gap of banks, Starbucks, and Quizno's (among the few Starbucks that is not only not open late, but not open on weekends, because it caters to the financial crowd, because, well... there's nothing else down there worth catering to). Not a simple matter, necessarily, but feasible.

Moving on...

What economic undercurrent drives Tacoma? Independent media.

Another fine point made by Business Examiner Guy. We have the BE. We have the Weekly Volcano. And now we have this, an indie media outlet that isn't even run as a business. While I, like some others on the feed, would be uncomfortable with the term Citizen Journalist (too many implications of journalistic ethics and sensibilities, when people should take us for what we are: people writing what we think), the truth is that we, as bloggers, are our own media outlet. We can report news, promote events, point out new businesses. We can spread information. We can affect government change by virtue of our readership and the quality of work we put out there. We can even nudge, if not full-on drive, the economy. Not like the Volcano or another newspaper via ad revenue and salaried employees, but by guiding people. Heck, sometimes we're TOO good at our jobs, promoting new business nearly to death. What's more, we have events calendars, discussion forums, video galleries, and hell, even our own political cartoonist. feed>>tacoma IS independent media at its liveliest, and can be (has already been, even) a great tool in pushing the economic development in the area forward.

This ties into points made by others: the creative community in Tacoma is off the charts. The feed is full of very talented writers, professional and otherwise. School of the Arts is full of incredible kids who genuinely want to stay in Tacoma and be a part of this world. The local music scene is rife with a treasure-trove of talent just wishing they had an outlet. Look at the success that in-tacoma.net has had with 253hiphop in such a short span. Give people a chance at media exposure and they will thrive. And when the artistic community thrives, the nightlife will thrive, and it will bring the community along with it.

I could have sworn there were more things I wanted to say, but I spent so much time writing all this that I forgot the rest. Ah well, maybe it'll come back to me. That's all for now. It was getting too long anyway.

Izenmania to Focus on Downtown Tacoma

Downtown Tacoma is on the blogging brain, and with good reason. We seem to be inching closer and closer to having an awesome downtown. So now it is time for this humble blogger to do his part.

The city's Community and Economic Development Department has brought in AngelouEconomics to help develop an Economic Development Strategic Plan for the area. From the project website:

In order to provide a blueprint for increased investment, the City of Tacoma's Community and Economic Development Department is partnering with AngelouEconomics, an Austin-based economic development consulting firm, to develop an economic development strategic plan for downtown Tacoma. AngelouEconomics is the largest independent economic development consulting firm in the U.S. and specializes in creating strategies for communities seeking high impact investment and targeted, managed growth solutions.

The Angelou people are in town this week conducting a number of focus groups on the various business and residential groups impacted by downtown development. Yours truly will be participating in the Young Professionals focus group later in the week.

The ultimate goal is:

The development of AngelouEconomics' downtown economic development plan will coincide with the development of the Downtown Comprehensive Plan headed by the Community and Economic Development Department's Planning Division in partnership with VIA Architects in terms of reviewing the long-range planning and zoning of the downtown. The overall vision for downtown will be defined consistently for both plans and will be supported by a combined public outreach effort (interviews, focus groups, visioning sessions, online surveys). By integrating the two plans, the City of Tacoma will have a robust and meaningful downtown strategic plan.

Here's hoping that somewhere in here they get done planning and actually start doing. Will report back on Thursday with my account of the experience.