Blow up Downtown??

KCLofts · Post by **KCLofts** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 12:48 pm

An editorial from the 7/28 Business Journal:

Who says reviving Downtown can't be a blast?
Brian Kaberline

At the risk of being put on the Department of Homeland Security's watch list, I want to suggest a dynamite new economic development tool for downtown Kansas City. Dynamite.

Tired of driving by the now-permanent temporary fence surrounding the Law Building? Ka-boom!

Want to improve the look of the Professional Building almost instantly? Ka-boom!

President Hotel? Impeach it by implosion. The old Empire Theater? Bring down the curtains for good.

At first glance, it may not seem like a particularly positive way to get Downtown moving again, but it's like pulling a tooth that's gone bad or pruning dead tree limbs. We're talking about visible, virtually instantaneous blight removal.

Historic preservationists may not appreciate my idea, but that's because they assume every old structure is capable of being brought back to its glory days. That's like believing that every old Chevy up on cinderblocks is a valve job away from being a NASCAR contender.

Certainly, there are buildings worth trying to restore. It would have been a travesty had Kansas City's Union Station been bulldozed. On a broader scale, the Garment and Crossroads districts are full of old structures with simple, elegant character.

The difference is that these structures either had true historic significance or were contained to an area of like structures, not alongside newer office buildings or along main drags.

To prove my point, come into Downtown from the south. Pretend you're a convention-goer staying in a Crown Center hotel or a tourist getting off Interstate 670.

Go north on Main Street, Walnut Street or Grand Boulevard and really look around. Instead of being a front door to a vibrant downtown, it's like climbing over the trash can to squeeze in a side window.

Now, imagine a few vacant eyesore buildings gone and a patch of grass and maybe a bench or two in their places. Talk about leveling the playing field with the suburbs.

Sure it costs money to blow up buildings. The city probably will have to buy some buildings through eminent domain, and you certainly don't want to do the demolition on the cheap. The alternative, though, has proved costlier in terms of dollars and image.

The city has put itself in a position where it must bribe every significant new downtown tenant and developer by writing off taxes for the next decade or two. The discounts pull in some deals, but buying someone's interest in Downtown isn't the same as selling them on the advantages and charm of Downtown.

And what about those companies and property owners already Downtown and surrounded by dilapidated buildings? Putting art in a corner window doesn't mask a 10-story piece of crud.

Think of my creative destruction plan as an incentive for the people who've had to put up with the deterioration of their property values, with the mildew smell (or worse) wafting out of the plywood sheathing, with the torn-up sidewalks and half-ripped posters and doorways strewn with malt liquor cans and the faded "Property being developed by ..." signs.

Still need an incentive for prospective developers or downtown tenants? Try showing them a piece of property that is cleared and ready for construction. If it's a particularly valuable project, the city also can cut a deal on the price of the property upfront and recover its investment through taxes.

It's not a perfect plan. To be honest, it's closer to being a kick in the pants than it is to being a thoughtful model of policy. But it's an idea that will help those who care about Kansas City and its Downtown to see the forest by knocking down a few of the dead trees that have blocked our view.

Kansas City can't continue to believe that the answer to reviving Downtown is spelled T-I-F. Sometimes you can get a lot more bang from a load of T-N-T.

Reach Brian Kaberline at 816-421-5900 or bkaberline@bizjournals.com.

KCDevin · Post by **KCDevin** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 1:19 pm

ok hes gonna hear from me!

trailerkid · Post by **trailerkid** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 5:09 pm

He's an absolute moron...belongs out in the boonies-- not in a metropolitan city. Imagine if Europe had bulldozed and "ka-boomed" all their buildings because they weren't up to this idiot's standards. Buildings are living pieces of art and show us our history. This guy's thinking is typical American "if something isn't new then it isn't good." He should be thrown in the Missouri.

baystateroad · Post by **baystateroad** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 5:14 pm

HERE'S A BETTER IDEA

http://www.urbantools.net/holyoke.htm

(from the linked article)

...a new idea but one developed in the late 19th century by a Philadelphia-born economist named Henry George, who popularized the idea of taxing the value of land rather than the value of buildings. George was a popular reformer whose 1879 book "Progress and Poverty" was a worldwide best seller.

"George was opposed to income taxes, property taxes, sales and excise taxes because they interfered with the free market," says Jack R. Jones, a consultant for the Henry George Foundation. "He felt that the only fair tax was one based on the yearly rental value of land."

Over the years George's idea has attracted a variety of supporters on all sides of the political spectrum, from socialists to libertarians, and is popular today among tax policy experts and community groups upset about absentee landowners who let property deteriorate and speculators who buy and hold land without making improvements.

George's idea has been refined over time into what today is sometimes called a split-value tax, where land is taxed at a multiple anywhere from three to six times higher than buildings. The end results are those that George envisioned - that taxing land higher than taxing property discourages speculation and spurs owners to restore dilapidated buildings and to build on empty lots.

It's an idea that is particularly appealing to older industrial cities and a number in Pennsylvania have already had success with it. In Harrisburg, the city's 4,000 vacant buildings were reduced to 500 after that city adopted a land- value tax.

Harrisburg, Pa., which was ranked as the country's second most distressed city in the United States, adopted the land-value tax in 1979 and since then has increased its number of businesses from 1,908 to 5,600 and its tax base from $212million to $1.65billion. Harrisburg started by taxing land three times higher than buildings and has increased the ratio to 6 to 1.

"It's not a magic bullet but does provide a key economic incentive," says Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed, currently serving his sixth term. "It removes a major disincentive for improving property - higher taxes."

Reed says the land-value tax along with other incentives has helped add millions of square feet of new office space, housing, retail and restaurants to downtown Harrisburg.

(me again) I don't know what's in place in kc now. Essentially what you're doing is making the land much more costly to hold--almost prohibitively so--unless you have something sitting on top of it of great value with which you can then pay that increased tax bill.

Good2Great · Post by **Good2Great** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 9:52 pm

The guy's a genius. That crap should be ripped down and rebuilt. Enough of the urban core hand holding and Perter, Paul & Mary sing alongs in the name of preservation.

Tear the trash down and build a NEW building with less headaches and more useable space.

LONG LIVE THE BIZ JOURNAL WRITERS!!!!!!

KCDevin · Post by **KCDevin** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 10:30 pm

if the buildings are out of shape, non-historical, etc... They should demolish them, providing they build something taller, you build up and provide more space for parking, and parks

Electric_Cactus · Post by **Electric_Cactus** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 10:49 pm

When I lived in the Dayton/Springfield Ohio area (which was up until two years ago) I seem to remember them adopting the "kaboom" attitude towards things. Dayton was and still is largely a ruin of industrial waste. But...they tore down a few warehouses and an old Lazarus department store, and then built a ball field for a AAA baseball team, hosted a major fireworks display by the river, and on and on. Funny thing happened. People started to come down. The solution wasn't going to be fixing up old buildings. It was getting them out of the way and making publicity for the new ball park and a performing arts center (sound familiar?) All of this makes me wonder how far the Mayor and City Counil here will go with trying to preserve old buildings in Kansas City. Certainly....we have history and art there. But what good is it if people will not invest in it or even come downtown to enjoy it? The folks on this group would. But it's going to be mighty hard to change the perceptions of 70% of the suburbanites surrounding the City. I would say that article in the Biz Journal represents the perceptions of a lot of suburban Kansas Citians.

trailerkid · Post by **trailerkid** » Fri Aug 01, 2003 12:03 am

I'm sorry Cactus, but WAKE UP!!!

You're basically saying that we should develop downtown and the city for suburbanites. Leveling great historic buildings so the Jones' who live at 189th and Quivira won't feel threatened by "all the big buildlings" is stupid.

The bottom line is that most suburbanites have views just like this writer. That's why every suburb in this city has tons of vacant strip malls and empty shopping centers. Instead of taking responsibility and fixing their area of town, they abandon it for something newer and then bulldoze the old stuff later.

KCDevin · Post by **KCDevin** » Fri Aug 01, 2003 12:05 am

why would ppl be afraid of downtown anyway? (although you werent saying that literally)
why do people even hate skyscrapers? just a thought

SonicBoi · Post by **SonicBoi** » Fri Aug 01, 2003 12:35 am

It's not the skyscrapers they hate. Ppl are usually a little scared out of theie comfort zone. Also, many times downtowns are associated unfairly with high crime levels and muggings. This is mostly due to movies and tv shows.

Electric_Cactus · Post by **Electric_Cactus** » Fri Aug 01, 2003 7:33 am

I'm not saying the destructions of some of those buildings is right or wrong. I was simply stating a scenario where such a demolition worked for a midwestern city. Personally, I do not agree with the article. I am all for preservation if at all possible. But to those who tell me to "wake up.." look at our economy. This is capitalism. The reason we don't have a European style city that preserves all it's old buildings is because we, as capitalist Americans, tend to seek to find a use for things so that they turn a profit. That's what people want to see out of those buildings/lots. Profit. If renovating that Hotel President is not going to be profitable for someone, then it'll probably be blasted. Right or wrong, that is the bottom line.

Post by **bahua** » Sun Aug 03, 2003 7:27 pm

Yay, A Georgist!!

Henry George: greatest economist of all time.

Post by **mean** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 11:35 am

So true. Nothing but love for George. If KC adopts a Georgian policy, which it most assuredly will when I'm mayor, nobody will be able to stop us. Watch out, Chicago!

Post by **bahua** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 3:54 am

If KC adopted a Georgian economic policy throughout the entire city limits, it is staggering to think of what is possible. I honestly believe that the city's population would go from 450,000 to millions in a matter of ten years. The reason: 400 square miles(almost double that of Chicago) of sprawl that would all of a sudden have no reason to continue to be so. The city would become world-class, and surpass most cities in the country in urbanity, culture, and wealth.

phxcat · Post by **phxcat** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 9:12 am

If Kansas City adopted a Georgian economic policy the people who have no concept of economics except that anything that sounds like it may actually work is socialist, therefore evil, and that pure, unfetered capitalism is the only good system because its American. Just ask what people think about spreading the wealth in MLB!

People are stupid, and at some point we have been taught to belive that capitalism and democracy are the same thing, and that socialism and communism are the same thing, and although most don;t really know what each of those are, they can sense something that sounds like it may be somewhat socialistic and stand up against it.

Post by **bahua** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 9:31 am

Henry George's economics are purely capitalistic, and could hardly be construed as socialist, except maybe in their outcome.