pash wrote:In what sense do suburban office parks give a boost to the surrounding neighborhoods? I suppose things might seem less desolate—there will be more car traffic, etc. ...
But do people who work in these places even venture beyond the parking lots during the working day? Do they, say, get in their cars and drive to the nearest Chili's for lunch on a regular basis? I've never worked in a place like that, but I always imagined they have their own cafeterias, etc., since it would take so long to trek out to your car and drive a couple of miles just for lunch. (That's how it was when I worked in somewhat isolated urban offices in other cities—if there's nothing right down the street, everybody stays in the building.)
In other words, is there really any eco-dev benefit at all from this sort of thing? Or is the benefit to the city pretty much just what's left over from the property and earnings taxes after you net out the incentives it took to get them there in the first place?
I work in a suburban office area in Houston known as the Energy Corridor. Most of the larger companies do have their own cafeterias that are even quasi subsidized by the company (cost less for comparable food than a restaurant) but it is amazing to me how many people do get out and hit the local restaurants. The caveat is that there is some critical mass in that corridor with 3-4 major oil companies, a major hospital, and oil service companies and a lot of smaller companies. There are plenty of restaurants already in the area - good restaurants, not just a Jack in the Box or McDonalds. That's the difference between where I work or even College Blvd and the Bannister Mall area. There's nothing in the Bannister Mall area and I cannot see retail/restaurants moving in based on Cerner's projections. Maybe if there really were 15,000 employees there - but those projections are almost never realized.
As far as employees living nearby, I really doubt if that happens. This is KC. Driving from point A to point B is probably easier in KC than any comparable sized city in the country and certainly easier than here in Houston. Traffic nightmares in Houston, traffic peaks and lows dictate many people's schedules, make it worthwhile to live near the place of employment. The energy corridor, suburban as it is, has seen huge growth in high rise condos and apts recently driven by people sick of having a 10 mile journey take an hour during peak and near peak traffic times. Back to the Bannister Mall site, I can't see people who make a good wage wanting to live in an area that offers practically no amenities when it only takes them 20 minutes to get there from nearly any point in the metro at any time. Saving 10 minutes on a commute is not a compelling reason for most people to move. My view is that this development will be full of people who go there in the morning, rarely venture out of the office, and leave the area at night.
It would be great for KC to breathe some new life into these areas but I don't think KC metro's business capacity is such that the city can afford another "node" when the urban core itself sitting undeveloped, ungentrified, and still losing jobs and built environment (ie Hawthorne Building).
