Opinion/Editorial

Leadership by Afterthought (Printable Version , E-mail to a Friend )
With the chronic lack of planning and weather vane direction of city hall, it's time to shift downtown paradigms
by Michael D. Bates

There have been some surprising reactions to what I wrote a couple of weeks ago—my suggestions on how to go about getting adequate funding for further improvements for downtown Tulsa.

Watching the public comments at last Thursday's City Council meeting, it got me to thinking about the approach Tulsa has taken to downtown revitalization over the last 15 years. The facts on the ground have changed in recent months, and perhaps it's time for our strategy to change as well.

To recap: There's not much funding for downtown or near-downtown neighborhoods in Mayor Bill LaFortune's Third Penny plan, a plan that spends the next six years of our sales tax for city capital improvements. Downtown Tulsa Unlimited has a wish list of 14 projects costing $101 million, and about half of that is classified as "critical," but LaFortune's plan only has about $3 million for downtown, and all of it is for land acquisition.

Here's the approach that I endorsed: Given that we're in campaign season and that downtown funding isn’t on the radar screen for most voters, was to pass a 14-month extension of the current tax, pay for the list of unfunded projects that were approved in 2001. That buys a year to work with a new Mayor and City Council and to argue for funding the most strategic needs for downtown and core neighborhoods. It also gives more time for the public to see results from all the previous public investment in downtown.

While many downtown advocates saw the sense in that approach, some attacked it on the grounds that that $3 million, tiny as it was, could not be put at risk - the current plan had to be allowed to go forward. One e-mail described the 14-month extension as "politics at its most destructive."

What's in that $3 million? You won't see it spelled out in the official proposal, but insiders know that most of it will pay to acquire land for a hotel across the street from the new arena (between 2^nd, 3^rd, Cheyenne, and Denver), and the rest of it will purchase the Matthews Building in the Brady Arts District for use as a Contemporary Arts Center. (Also, it's claimed that LaFortune's Third Penny proposal has money we have to have in order to build sidewalks around the new arena.  I would have thought that for $141 million, sidewalks would be included.)

Both of those projects are in line with the city's approach to downtown revitalization-provide a direct public subsidy to kick-start private investment in downtown. The 1996 Third Penny package included $4 million for downtown residential development. There was another $4 million in the 2001 package. The idea was to encourage some pioneering investors to rehab downtown buildings for loft living.

Once a couple of projects were completed and successful, the private sector would be willing to do more of the same kinds of projects without requiring public subsidy. Ultimately, you'd create a critical mass of people living downtown, which would result in retail and entertainment development. Downtown would once again be a lively 24/7 urban center.
Here's the key element of the strategy: At some point, the private sector would become the engine behind downtown revitalization. The market would then decide how much new housing would be created and how many new restaurants and grocery stores and hotels would be opened, and the government could focus on encouraging revitalization in other parts of the city.

With Maurice Kanbar and Henry Kaufman's decision to purchase a quarter of downtown Tulsa's office space, intending to create a Soho-like community, and with other significant private investments, I think we've reached that point.

Does it make sense to provide a taxpayer-funded subsidy to build a hotel right across from the arena, when the Snyder family is using its own money to renovate the historic Mayo Hotel, just two blocks away? And what if Kanbar and Kaufman decide to convert one of their buildings to a hotel? Why should taxpayers subsidize competition with those who are investing their own funds?

Does it make sense to use city tax dollars to purchase a warehouse building for a contemporary visual arts center, when Kanbar and Kaufman, both generous patrons of the arts, have plenty of empty space at their disposal for such a center? It seems to me that there are some synergies that could be explored.

A contemporary visual arts center might fit very well in the kind of community they intend to develop. Even though we've become accustomed to thinking of the Brady area as our arts district, the market--in the form of Kanbar and Kaufman--is putting hundreds of millions of dollars to create an arts district closer to 5^th and Main. Has anyone talked to them about it?

There would be an extra benefit to keeping taxpayer funds out of the visual arts center: artistic freedom. The visual arts center won't have to deal with complaints about content if the funding is entirely private. But if tax dollars pay for a facility, the fuss over the first controversial exhibit will make last summer's zoo brouhaha look tame by comparison.

Don't misunderstand me: Public investment in downtown is still needed, but it needs to be focused on basic infrastructure--restoring streets to two-way traffic, rebuilding and expanding the capacity of the water and sewer system, dealing with stormwater issues, fixing broken sidewalks and damaged bridges. In the last 10 years alone, taxpayers have invested over $200 million on projects intended to stimulate downtown economic activity. Now that the private sector is responding, let's allow the magic of the market to work.