The Center City Commission has picked its next executive director and Memphis proves once again that we use the term, “national search,” as loosely as we do “downtown renaissance.”
Both are more rhetoric than reality, as yet another national search for the leader for a public or quasi-public agency ended up picking someone who just happened to be sitting at the table a few weeks before. It’s a wonder that anyone ever applies for any job in Memphis when we made a grand gesture of announcing that a national search will take place.
The process for selecting the successor to Jeff Sanford always seemed insulated and insular since the search committee was essentially the insider’s insiders at Center City Commission. Two candidates seemed to have the most direct experience in the qualification that should matter most for a downtown redevelopment agency – the ability to close a deal and to create the complex financing constructs to make it happen.
In that regard, Paul Krutko, director of development at San Jose, California, and Thomas C. Chatmon Jr., executive director of Orlando’s Downtown Development Board/Community Redevelopment Agency, seemed especially strong. Mr. Krutko is nationally-known as one of the most innovative, strategic thinker in his field and comments about Mr. Chatmon were also favorable. Mr. Krutko withdrew early in the process, and Mr. Chatmon made the final three.
We’re So Special
For some observers, the Memphis provincialism reared its ugly head again, as search committee members seemed to think that knowing our city and being plugged in were essential. It’s a symptom of our tendency to treat outsiders as well, outsiders. Strange that so many other big-time cities actually thrive on the new ideas, new approaches and new thinking that comes from recruiting from outside their borders.
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, for example, means national search when he says it. After his election, he told his transition team that he wanted to know the best people in the country within their fields and he went after them. It’s small wonder that the Denver administration is imaginative and dynamic, fed by the energy that comes from welcoming new people.
Here, we act like knowledge of Memphis is information passed down from the gods, and only the blessed can be trusted with it. It’s this closed view of the world that creates the kind of echo chamber that is Memphis these days. Maybe, just maybe, somebody from outside Memphis could be the leader we have been waiting for. And if we think that knowledge of Memphis is so pivotal, we should be honest enough to tell people on the front end.
Meanwhile, in the private sector here, the major employers are recruiting people from all over the world and from all kinds of companies. The folks at FedEx don’t require knowledge of FedEx when it recruits a great manager, so why is public leadership so different.
The Searchers
Unfortunately, the Center City Commission also ratifies a suspicion in a large part of the African-American community that as black voters took control of government here, quasi-government organizations were set up and white men were appointed to run them. Because of this, it is inevitable that there will be questions about why Mr. Chatmon, African-American head of the Orlando downtown development agency, was not chosen.
Perhaps it will help that Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. wrote a letter supporting Paul Morris, the white lawyer chosen for the president’s job at Center City Commission. Then again, local government isn’t particularly known for national searches themselves.
It was widely believed from the beginning of the Center City Commission’s national search process that it was aimed at the ultimate pick, Mr. Morris. He is young (a big plus in our book), he is smart, he is passionate about downtown and he loves his hometown. There is little doubt that he will be a quick study.
The Center City Commission search committee did a poor job of defining what it was looking for in a new president and what vision it wanted to achieve in the coming years, and as a result, Mr. Morris begins his job at a disadvantage. As a result, we are left wanting for a bolder vision and a compelling plan for the next leader.
Hope Springs Eternal
Fortunately, Mr. Morris is savvy, so we’re hoping that he’ll lay out his own ideas for what we can do to bring the revival of downtown more in line with the dramatic changes in other major cities. As we have said often, our rhetoric about downtown development has outstripped all objective analysis.
There is just so much that needs to be done. There are nodes of activity, but there are few and far between. The overall condition and maintenance of Main Street is pathetic. The grates along the trolley rails are broken in way too many places, the decorative bricks outlining the tracks are almost all cracked, light poles are not painted and the urban aesthetic is nonexistent.
For a street that has no cars, it’s nothing short of amazing how workmen, shop owners and just visitors park on downtown sidewalks. Cars are parked up and down Main Street, allegedly reserved for pedestrians and trolleys only. The lack of enforcement of illegal parking on Main Street is a fact of life downtown, while people whose cars are broken into in the Center City Commission’s garages are told that it’s their carelessness that’s the problem.
Despite the “national search,” we still have high hopes for Mr. Morris. This is his dream job, and the alignment of passion and work is always an energizing force. We have high hopes for his leadership.
Hope Floats
We hope he will shift the emphasis from planning to action.
We hope he will review the strategies that have been used in cities who are getting downtown development right and compare them to our failed ones.
We hope he will stop window dressing programs like the $120,000 marketing plan to spruce up the image of downtown parking, particularly the Center City Commission garages. It’s not an image problem. It’s a reality problem – the CCC’s parking garages have all the charm of Eva Braun’s bunker. It’s high time for all of us to get serious about supporting a Center City Commission plan to blow up these eyesores and build garages that have green roofs.
We hope he will meet with the Division of Planning and Development to find ways that we can have centralized planning and an overall philosophy of neighborhood renewal.
We hope he will compare development incentives between downtown Memphis and other cities. Taxpayers need to be assured that the long tax freezes being handed out at the Center City Commission make sense within the overall plan for downtown and Memphis.
Hope and Glory
We hope he will give special attention to improving the programming of the public realm and in making downtown more vibrant. 25-34 year-old college-educated people are 30% more likely to live within three miles of the CBID than other people, so an appealing, active downtown is crucial to our economic success.
We hope he will give special attention to make downtown the preferred location for entrepreneurs and start-ups, since the empty store fronts, if reasonably priced, could become seedbed for new companies.
Downtown is like the city for which it is the front door. It needs bold ideas for a challenging time. It also needs new thinking about what downtown can and should be. We hope Mr. Morris is up to the task, because as Mayor Wharton has said, our city has no margin for error.
Tom, we don’t even need this Commission anymore, and you fockers are fightin’ over deck chairs on the Titanic.
Wintermute:
Maybe you’re right, but that wasn’t the purpose of this post. It’s our opinion that all public agencies, quasi-public agencies, etc., need to have sunset dates and reauthorization to make sure they are achieving their founding mission and vision.
In order to be successful in our attempt to resuscitate Downtown, we need to know, and then provide, what the people want. We know that safety is a major concern, especially for suburbanites who want to spend a Friday night Downtown. I don’t know if this means more cameras or more police, but this is a major concern for many people. Also, if we want to attract young professionals to Downtown and to the city as a whole, we must provide good schools. MCS must be immediately and radically overhauled. In sum, I believe that if you asked most folks what is wrong with Memphis (and Downtown), they would answer: crime and schools. We can green parking garages all day, but substantive change will only occur when we address these two issues. I would be interested to hear other perspectives.
Tutor:
Yes and no. You have a point, and I’d go farther and say that we have a complete system that is designed to remove people from downtown rather than entice them back. We have overbuilt suburban roads, invested in a sewer system that can accomodate thousands of $130,000 starter homes to million $ mcmansions and abandoned any sort of idea regarding wholistically repairing the inner city including safety and schools and taxes.
On the other hand. Every city in the US has a significant untapped market of people who want a pedestrian freindly urban lifestyle no matter what. People will put up with more than you think to be near entertainment, an office, park or each other.
Finally… the future may be different. Current trends are toward Multifamily investments and Transit Oriented Developments and improved first-ring suburbs. Singles, couples with no kids and empty nesters make up about 70% of the population. Couple this with increasing transportation costs and the need for talent driven (very social) industries and Downtown office space may have a chance to recover (some). This all may force some movement back to cities.
We can do A LOT better. No doubt! And, you are right that it should be a total package. But we could do more than most think just by marketing to the people who want to be there now.
The idea of using vacant retail bays as low rent locations for startup companies is intriguing. A simple profit sharing model might work. Combine that with an “as is” lease on the property and certain other conditions, say the ability of the owner to either ask the startup to relocate should a full market price tenant become interested or allow the startup the option on paying the full market rent. Whatever happens, the lease would need to be loose and flexible.
I can only assume that for tax purposes, it is better to have a vacant building as opposed to a leased building that is losing money. Otherwise, one would think that the vacancy rate downtown would be much lower than the current levels. If the building owner could use the financial status of a tenant as a tax write off I wonder if this would gain additional traction?
All that to say- while downtown certainly made progress under Sanford’s leadership it is hard to imagine why a need to find a person “who could hit the ground running” held so much importance. Of course this assumes that while Mr. Chatmon’s resume shows he is more than qualified, his current role would not translate into running speed. After all, downtown is hardly backlogged with a list of pending projects. There are several, mostly in the public realm, that are plodding through the design and approval process but hardly need a quick and heavy hand to ensure their implementation. We are not faced with numerous developers looking to level vast tracks of downtown or a host of high-rises facing eminent approval or construction. While quick and decisive movement both in the realm of policy and implementation would be appreciated, it’s not like Memphis is (or has been) cruising down the highway where downtown development is concerned.
It seems to be the perfect time to bring in an “outsider” for all the right reasons. Progress has been slowed both by the lack of funding and support as well as the recession. Even if one needed time to “get up to speed”, it would be well worth a new approach as long as they were not run out of town first.
Speaking of breathing fresh air into the CCC- the Carlisle Group’s proposal for a small office building and parking lot were approved for the site that, until recently, held the sales office for the proposed No. 1 Beale development. The following is from the Commercial Appeal article which reported some of the decisions made during the CCC meeting (the full article can be found at http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/may/19/sign-improving-economy-memphis-center-city-develop/ ):
“The company, which develops real estate and owns 97 Wendy’s restaurants, plans to move its 37 employees there from Peabody Place Tower. Until two years ago, developer Gene Carlisle planned to build a $186 million tower of hotel, condo and office space next to the site, using the former restaurant as a sales office for the project. But the One Beale development stalled when financing dried up. Company representatives have said they chose the riverfront site over moving to the Olive Branch airport area. Board member Jennifer Hagerman questioned if using a riverfront tract for a 40-person office and parking fits with Center City’s strategic plans. Center City senior vice president Andy Kitsinger responded that the project creates occupied office space and adds to density downtown, which is better than the Carlisle office moving from Downtown. Without the project, the site would sit vacant for a long time, he said. While the small office is “not to the level of the original concept (One Beale),” it’s an improved use of the site, Kitsinger said. “I hate to see an office building go on the riverfront,” Hagerman said, but she joined other board members in unanimously approving the grant”.
So at least one question that comes to mind following this decision is the wisdom of those who would approve the construction of additional ground level office space when so much space sits vacant in the immediate neighborhood. The defense that this project will increase downtown density is weak at best seeing as the existing employees will in fact be vacating existing space in an office building 4 blocks away. In the short term, the move will actually decrease employment “density” along Main Street in order to permit the retrofit of an existing one story building and its adjacent parking lot. Are we really gaining anything in rewarding a company that sees the downtown business environment as having the same benefits as the Olive Branch Airport?
“Here, we act like knowledge of Memphis is information passed down from the gods, and only the blessed can be trusted with it.”
That’s a vestige of the criminal organization called Memphis city government. When you have much to hide and some really stupid lies covering corruption, that don’t add up, you get a condition like this.
“And if we think that knowledge of Memphis is so pivotal,”
Yeah I’ll stop right there, THAT is a huge problem.
OK, so you educate maybe 100,000 kids with $1billion annually and they get the worst education in the country.
Smell fishy to you?
It does when LA educates 9 million kids with 750 million dollars annually.
So what are we funding with all that cash?
Not the run down buildings, ceilings falling in, ac units that don’t work, unpainted for years, no playgrounds at elementary schools (which is why you have a creative thinking VOID/VACUUM), no track and field, empty properties doing nothing but rotting, are we getting quality lunches????
Nope, it ain’t going there.
It’s funding a recalcitrant organized criminal enterprise, corruption, the status quo as it were, robbing the kids of a quality education and their parents at an ivy league price, 100,000 at a time, an atrocity, mass child molestation all to federally fund the very core of Memphis City Corruption. Since no one has ever had the nads to go against it, it’s now destroying our city and has been for generations.
You stop that and you plug the drain.
You can’t fund a city by taking federal funds under fraudulent terms as the main source of income, rob the citizens of double tax money and pay most of the people to “do nothing” and survive it.
Assume crash positions, we’re coming in fast and it’s gonna hurt bad and a lot of stuff is gonna get broken, cuz it’s OVER.
Oh, I forgot the good news, ‘it’s over” and that is good news, so is the fact that it’s going to take some creative thinking to get this city upright. We have the ability to do that and it “looks like” we may have the right team and the right direction.
First, fix the core issues, i.e. MCS, then, move to the downtown/midtown problem.
You bring to light hat creative thinking will bring back downtown and you are 100% correct.
It’s also going to take some adherence to tried and true proven tactics and strategies that adhere to statistically provable success.
If you want a walkable vibrant downtown area, you have to incorporate staple items and necessities availability along with some rarer creative things and great food, not just good food or predictable food. Memphis deserves better. It will set us apart and above in destination priority. Many will choose to move here. People you want here.
Memphis has had a history of talking a good story about accepting talent from outside and now it’s time to deliver on that promise. It will come if we do our part.
It’s a privilege to be able to do our part.
It’s a privilege to accept help graciously.
That whole brash, “we don’t need anyone from outside telling us, we’ll do it Memphis’ way” attitude has destroyed our city.
Let it go, accept contribution from outside.
Truer words were never spoken. Center City Commission is a club and if you’re not somebody, they never listen. They’ve proved it once again. It’s all about who’s in, not about serving downtown. And what have they done in this whole decade? Talk, talk, talk. Plan, plan, plan.
What about actually doing something?
It was pointed out to us that some of the things that we hope the CCC will do are other agencies’ responsibilities. We understand that, but we’re thinking that the CCC should get a soapbox in Court Square and scream until these nagging issues are addressed and resolved. So much of what’s wrong downtown isn’t brain surgery. It’s about simple things like maintenance, a design ethos, and getting the basics right.
“being young a plus”. Ever hear of age discrimination?