From Tim Anderson, President WDAC via JD Milburn at Wisconsin Main Street. You might find some good nuggets here. Got this from a think tank I participate in from time to time. The benchmarking sounds interesting.
Downtown Development
Downtown development is the promotion of development, redevelopment, and revitalization of the central business districts and adjacent areas in a city. Commercial and residential growth in the suburbs has contributed to the decline of downtown. Downtowns traditionally are the centers of both business and culture. Developing downtowns, therefore, involves a range of activities, including marketing for both business and tourist attraction, building or improving infrastructure, clean-up initiatives, property redevelopment and reuse, and retention programs. The purpose of these initiatives is to create an attractive environment to increase the number and variety of businesses downtown and bring in shoppers and tourists.
Since downtown development encompasses multiple activities designed to meet complimentary goals, it requires partnerships among local government, chambers of commerce, and public-private partnerships – such as business improvement districts and convention or tourist bureaus – in order to succeed.
Trends in Downtown Development
Safety and crime prevention encourage downtown visits. Strategies that are used include:
- Security surveillance equipment
- Public advice on using public transportation safely
- Environmental design that deters crime, such as improving street lighting
- Positioning of 911 boxes in the streets and other areas
- Security guards
- Ambassadors, which give people important information, such as directions
- Arts districts – with their galleries, cinemas, opera houses, artist housing, and theaters – are emerging as an important revitalization tool and are continuing to grow in popularity in downtowns of all sizes.
- Mixed-use downtown developments that include retail, residential, and entertainment, create downtowns that are busy around the clock all week long.
- Retailers are showing a renewed interest in central business districts (CBDs), due to the potential size of untapped markets.
- Large scale projects are developed to stimulate lagging areas. For example the new convention center in Washington , DC is expected to generate $14 million in economic stimulus each year.
- Waterfront development utilizes neglected or under-utilized downtown waterfronts to provide recreation, business, commercial, and residential areas. Baltimore ’s once desolate Inner Harbor has been developed into a thriving commercial and tourist area.
- The redevelopment and preservation of railroad stations to attract business near the stations and help to revive surrounding downtown areas.
- Some communities are moving away from developing large projects such as sports stadiums (attracting people only on game days) towards smaller-scale projects.
- Communities develop open space to create improve the quality of life in urban cores.
- Hotel construction in downtown areas meets the growing demand for accommodation from people on business, and also acts as a spur encouraging tourists.
- Integrating transportation and land use in downtown areas produces a more efficient transportation system whilst reducing congestion and pollution:
- Creating and extending cycle routes
- Developing more integrated mass transit systems
- Building pedestrian friendly streetscapes
Market research has become a key component of downtown developments. Understanding local markets helps to decide which potential projects will meet local demand and receive support.
Information technology businesses are moving into downtown offices with large open plans to nurture team work and collaboration.
Downtowns have also developed fiber optic infrastructures to support IT businesses. Maps of fiber optic cable help businesses locate near to fiber cable in downtown areas.
Funding for downtown projects has become more widely available and easier to obtain, due to public, media and government interest shown in CBDs.
Benchmarking and Evaluating Downtown Development Programs
Downtowns need to be diverse, dynamic, and livable spaces. To evaluate a downtown development initiative means taking all these components into consideration. Downtown redevelopment includes both physical and perceptual changes.
Since downtown development requires many partners and affects many people, neighborhoods, and businesses, evaluators need to look at who is involved and the nature of their relationships, as well as what gets done.
Many cities and towns have established downtown development strategic plans. Since each community has its distinct vision for its downtown, requiring different packages of programs and investments, it will be hard to make direct comparisons between community efforts. Evaluation of such a complex undertaking, therefore, should focus on the degree to which communities have achieved their goals.
Quantitative Measures
- Number of jobs created/retained
- Number of housing units developed
- Cost per job created/retained
- Vacancy rates for retail and office space
- Absorption rates for retail and office space
- Quality of available space (ratio of A, B and C office buildings)
- Crime rates
- Number of positive press hits on downtown activities, improvements
- Tourism rates (number of hotel nights, conference attendance)
- Culture (attendance at performances, museums, special events)
- Private-sector leverage
- Percent of jobs held by local residents/low income persons
- Average salary of jobs created
- Spinoff private investment
Qualitative Measures
- Number of actors involved in the downtown development strategy and the quality of their relationships
- Types and degrees of public-private interaction
- Stated project goals and the degree to which they have been achieved (e.g. crime reduction, increased retail sales or tourism development)
- Community engagement in the process
- Perceptions of downtown (cleanliness, accessibility, safety)