Voice For Liberty

Tag: Downtown Wichita revitalization

Articles about the redevelopment of downtown Wichita and its impact on the economic freedom of Wichitans.

  • Jeff Fluhr updates status of downtown Wichita

    Last Friday, Jeff Fluhr, president of the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation, addressed members and guests of the Wichita Pachyderm Club. His topic was the future of downtown Wichita and its revitalization.

    “It’s very important that we have a downtown that is very clear and very concise on where it wants to go,” he said. He likened the development of downtown to the planning of an automobile trip, so that we don’t make major investments that we later regret.

    The potential of increased private investment is an important goal for downtown. Predictability will help the private sector invest, he said.

    As to the importance of downtown, he said that is where the distinctive quality of a city is found — its history, cultural arts, and other institutions that represent the community. Tourism is another goal of a revitalized downtown Wichita, along with an improved perception in the global market as a great place to do business.

    Old Town is an example of success in Wichita, he said, an example of what can be done when people are creative and purposeful. He said that Wichita’s transit center, being located near the new Intrust Bank Arena, provides the potential to use mass transit.

    As to the economics of downtown Wichita redevelopment, he showed a chart, nearly a year old, that compares public and private investment in downtown over the past ten years. The two amounts are nearly equal to each other. Fluhr said that Goody Clancy, the firm hired to to plan the revitalization of downtown Wichita, has offered the opinion that the way Wichita has measured investment in downtown — using capital investment only — is not an accurate picture. We should also take into account companies that may have moved into the downtown area because of the improvements that have been made. What types of jobs have been created, and what is the spin-off from them?

    Addressing the WaterWalk project, he said that an important event took place last November, when people started moving in to the residential building. Now we see human activity in the development. The landscaping is being installed at this time.

    Along Douglas, Fluhr said that gaps in the buildings are a problem. We need to bring storefronts back to downtown. This creates an atmosphere of walkability, which helps to bring residential back to downtown, an important thing he said we must continue to work on.

    Mentioning the Q-Line, the free trolley bus service, Fluhr said that “we’ll literally have a couple thousand people that can be on this thing in a given night.”

    Besides downtown, Fluhr said that they’re also looking at “first-ring” neighborhoods, the areas that surround downtown. In response to a question, he said we need a healthy city throughout. The first-ring neighborhoods may provide housing that is more affordable than in downtown proper.

    Analysis

    In comparing the planning of downtown Wichita to a car trip, Fluhr made the same presumption that Wichita city council member Lavonta Williams made when she compared downtown planning to planning her lessons as a schoolteacher. The planning of even a small portion of a city is an immensely more complicated task. That these two figures make such comparisons leads me to believe that we don’t understand the monumental scope of the task we’ve decided to undertake.

    Regarding predictability being important to private sector investors: the planning process right now has created huge uncertainty as to the future of downtown. Who is likely to invest in downtown at this time, when so much is up in the air?

    Further, the potential use of eminent domain to take property creates uncertainty, too. This is why it is important for the city to swear off the use of eminent domain, and even the threat of its use.

    There’s also this concern I have about the predictability Fluhr said is needed for private investment to flourish: For the future to be certain, someone has to enforce the plans that have been made. All the methods that government has to enforce or encourage human behavior lead to loss of economic freedom: incentives, grants, tax abatements, subsidies, regulation, zoning, eminent domain, preferred treatment. All are contrary to economic freedom.

    It’s also troubling that now we’re going to be measuring the economic impact of public investment in a new way, using — if I can read between the lines a bit — things like “multipliers” and other economic development jargon and devices to exaggerate the impact of public investment. It’s important to remember that when left to their own devices, Wichitans have made investments that have produced tremendous economic impact with their own multiplier effects. These investments, however, have not always been made in the politically-favored downtown area. Instead, they’re been made where people wanted them to be made, so their economic impact, in terms of creating wealth and things that people really want, has been greater than if directed by government planners.

    As to the Q-Line claim of thousands of riders in a night, I hope Fluhr meant the potential capacity of the Q-Line system, as its actual ridership is much less and very expensive on a per-rider basis. See Wichita’s Q-Line an expensive ride for ridership numbers, which have been less than 1,500 per month.

    It’s impossible not to appreciate Mr. Fluhr’s enthusiasm for his work and his genuine concern and vision for the future of downtown Wichita. I’m concerned, however, that Fluhr and the downtown Wichita revitalization boosters — let’s call them the “planners” — have fallen victim to what Randal O’Toole and others call the design fallacy.

    O’Toole explains in his book The Best-Laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future:

    These planners are guilty of believing the design fallacy, the notion that architectural design is a major determinant in shaping human behavior. While design does play a role at the margins of certain things — for example, certain patterns can make housing more vulnerable to crime — the effects that planners project are often highly exaggerated.

    Later O’Toole writes:

    The worst thing about having a vision is that it confers upon the visionary a moral absolutism: only highly prescriptive regulation can ensure that the vision overcomes an uncaring populace responding to a free market that planners do not really trust. But the more prescriptive the plan, the more likely it is that the plan will be wrong, and such errors will prove extremely costly for the city or region that tries to implement the plan. … Problems such as these stem from the design fallacy that is shared by so many planners and the architects who inspire them.

    Do the Wichita planners suffer from the design fallacy? Fluhr mentioned “engagement of the river” as he has in past talks. Referring to a conversion of an old school building into residential use, he used language like “a dynamic living space in a renovated school,” “each of the units is unique,” and “taking distinctive architecture to us and bringing it to new use.”

    Referring to our Carnegie Library, he said that its architecture is unique to Wichita, and wouldn’t be found in other cities. Projects like this, along with the Broadview Hotel and Union Station, should “remain in our fabric” as part of the “distinctive qualities that make us who we are.”

    This focus on the architecture of buildings in a city is characteristic of past talks by Fluhr. So yes, I believe that he and the planners are influenced by the design fallacy. It’s something we’ll have to watch out for as we proceed with the planning process.

  • Kelo abandonment holds lesson for Wichita

    In New London, Connecticut, developers wanted to build a new business complex on land owned by a number of homeowners, including Suzette Kelo. She didn’t want to sell, and the case eventually wound its way to the United States Supreme Court. In the decision, the court ruled in favor of the ability of cities to use eminent domain to take property from one party and give to another private party for economic development.

    Locally, at least one Wichita bureaucrat was relieved. According to Wichita Eagle reporting:

    City economic development director Allen Bell lauded the Supreme Court decision.

    “I’m relieved to know that we’ll continue to have an important tool for implementing economic development and urban redevelopment projects here in Wichita,” Bell said. “But this is a tool we do not use lightly. The city of Wichita has never sought to use eminent domain except in very rare cases when there is no alternative to keep a project alive and further the overall needs of the city.”

    So what has happened in New London? Nothing. In fact, worse than nothing, as the planned development has been abandoned. Paul Jacob of the Citizens on Charge Foundation gives an excellent wrap-up of the situation in The politics of government usurpation, post-Kelo.

    Eminent domain was used to assemble the property where the WaterWalk development stands in downtown Wichita. This development is emblematic of the failures of public-private partnerships. Is its failure the result of its foundation built on eminent domain?

    As Wichita prepares its plans for downtown revitalization, freedom-loving citizens need to insist that the city forgo the use of eminent domain, especially the threat of its use. On its face, it appears that Kansas has a strong law prohibiting the type of eminent domain takings that the Supreme Court authorized in the Kelo decision. Kansas law says that the legislature must pass a law allowing the use of eminent domain on a specific parcel of property, if the purpose is to give it to another private party.

    But it is the threat of the use of eminent domain that remains the real problem. We can easily imagine a scenario where the City of Wichita decides it needs a parcel of property for some public-private use. Mayor Carl Brewer may make the case that the property is needed so that Wichita can create hundreds, perhaps thousands of jobs. The economic future of our city hangs in the balance, he’ll say. Dale Goter, Wichita Governmental Relations Manager, will make the case to legislators that Wichita really needs the property. By the way, legislator from Overland Park, won’t your city also want to use eminent domain someday?

    The poor property owner, who in the past would have been faced with a small battle in the Kansas district court, now has to lobby the entire Kansas legislature to protect his property.

    This is why it is important for Wichitans to insist the the plans for downtown Wichita revitalization specifically state that eminent domain — not even its threat — will be used.

    This summer I traveled to Anaheim, California to learn about a redevelopment district where the city decided not to use eminent domain. The article Anaheim’s mayor wrote about this planning effort is titled “Development Without Eminent Domain: Foundation of Freedom Inspires Urban Growth.” It’s very informative.

  • Carlos Mayans addresses state and local issues

    Last Friday immediate past Wichita mayor Carlos Mayans addressed members and guests of the Wichita Pachyderm Club.

    Speaking of his experience as a member of the Kansas House of Representatives, Mayans said that Kansas state spending must be brought under control. Having served under governors from both parties, he said that Republicans spend as much as Democrats. Some people change after they get elected, he said, acting differently in office from how they campaigned. It’s important to hold these people accountable.

    Turning to Medicaid, Mayans said the federal government requires a certain minimum level of coverage. Then, there are 33 optional things that states may decide to cover. Kansas offers 23 of these. Further, the health care bill in the Senate will expand the number of people that are eligible for Medicaid.

    On local issues, the City of Wichita has some challenges ahead, he said. Our local governments are spending too much money with very little accountability to the taxpayers and that tax increases will be suggested to balance the budget.

    Mayans corrected the record over allegations that his actions drove away a Bass Pro Shops store from the struggling WaterWalk development in downtown Wichita. Mayans said that he cut $3 million from a $33 million project: $2 million from the parking garage, and $1 million from the canal. The cuts to the canal made it not as deep and enabled it to be heated in winter, he said. Nothing else was cut by his administration, but now the project is $42 million. Noting the current state of the project, Mayans asked: “And has anything else happened? No.”

    He also reminded the audience that council members Paul Gray, Sue Schlapp, and now-mayor Carl Brewer voted for this plan.

    Mayans said he can understand WaterWalk developer Jack DeBoer’s frustration. At one time DeBoer wanted to tear down the Wichita Boat House to make room for new development. Mayans advised his that the people of Wichita would not go along with this plan, but DeBoer wouldn’t listen.

    There’s also been talk of shifting the plan for WaterWalk to a “civic center,” to include non-profit organizations and museums. Mayans said this would be contrary to the original intent of the city and its representation to taxpayers when the city acquired the land.

    Furthermore, he said that the financing of WaterWalk, because it is based on tax increment financing and sales tax anticipation districts, requires property and sales taxes to be paid in order to fulfill the bonds. Non-profit organizations don’t pay these taxes, so the result would be a continual need for subsidy by the city.

    In answering a question, Mayans said that private developers from out of state have looked at making their own, private investment in downtown Wichita. But the city bureaucracy rejected this effort. Mayans also mentioned the The Cordish Companies of Baltimore (developers of the Power & Light District in Kansas City) as possible development partners in WaterWalk. But Mayans said that Cordish doesn’t like to be involved in projects where the public sector is involved, as there is too much red tape. Also, WaterWalk developers didn’t want outsiders being involved.

    Regarding city council members and the part-time nature of the job, Mayans said that here are at least one or two council members who don’t show up until the day of the council meeting. Then they pick up a packet that may be five hundred pages long.

    On Wichita’s future water needs, Mayans said that Equus Beds Aquifer Storage and Recovery project currently under development has never been tried anywhere else. He said that Wichita should build another lake instead. Wichita sells water at high rates to surrounding cities, he said, and uses this to curtail economic development in other communities.

  • Downtown development chief to address Pachyderms

    This Friday, the Wichita Pachyderm Club presents Wichita Downtown Development Corporation president Jeff Fluhr. The topic is “Downtown Wichita’s Renaissance.”

    All are welcome to attend Pachyderm club meetings. The program costs $10, which includes a delicious buffet lunch including salad, soup, two main dishes, and ice tea and coffee. The meeting starts at noon, although it’s recommended to arrive ten minutes early to get your lunch before the program starts.

    The Wichita Petroleum Club is on the ninth floor of the Bank of America Building at 100 N. Broadway (north side of Douglas between Topeka and Broadway) in Wichita, Kansas (click for a map and directions). Park in the garage just across Broadway and use the sky walk to enter the Bank of America building. Bring your parking garage ticket to be stamped and your parking fee will be only $1.00. There is usually some metered and free street parking nearby.

  • Uncertainty over Broadview’s future doesn’t bother Wichita

    Yesterday the Wichita City Council approved plans for riverbank improvements that would benefit the Broadview Hotel in downtown Wichita. The cost is $2,200,000.

    One of the problems with this action is that the renovation of the hotel is on hold, according to recent reporting. The reason given by the hotel’s owners, Drury Southwest Inc., is a problem with tax credits issued by the State of Kansas.

    These tax credits, which are in effect a free grant of money to the hotel’s owner that does not need to be repaid, could potentially be worth 25% of the renovation project’s budget of $19 million. That’s up to $4,750,000 that the taxpayers of the state would be giving to the hotel owners.

    This year the Kansas legislature realized that these tax credits are costly to the state, and facing a very tight budget, it placed a cap on the amount of tax credits that could be given.

    By all accounts, the legislature will be facing an even tougher situation in January when it returns to the statehouse for its 2009 session. With everyone scrambling to find cost savings (and new sources of revenue), the tax credits for historic renovation could face an uncertain future.

    How does the uncertainty surrounding the tax credits affect the plans for the Broadview’s renovation? I don’t know. A telephone call and email message to Drury Southwest Inc. seeking an update on its plans was not returned.

    In his remarks after the unanimous vote passing the improvements, Mayor Carl Brewer thanked representatives from Drury for attending the meeting. He noted the budget challenges at the state level, and pledged that the city will continue to work with them on the tax credits. He said he appreciates the work they’re doing and thanked them for their commitment to the city. The hotel is important to the city, he said, as commitments have already been made to lease rooms in the Broadview.

    Analysis

    Because of the uncertainty surrounding the future plans for the Broadview Hotel’s renovation, the city should have delayed these riverbank improvements.

    A problem is the shaky economics surrounding this hotel. Besides the tax credits, the hotel received a 10-year exemption from paying property taxes and a sweetheart deal on a parking garage across the street. It’s little wonder representatives from Drury traveled to Wichita for the council meeting. They have a lot of taxpayer subsidies to protect.

    If we want a thriving and vibrant downtown Wichita — including a convention hotel that can be relied on — we need to rely on something more than massive taxpayer subsidies and the mayor’s appreciation to those who receive them.

  • If Wichita truly seeks community input in downtown planning …

    As Wichita begins to plan for the revitalization of downtown Wichita, city leaders say they want everyone to be involved. All ideas are welcome and appreciated, they say.

    In a recent city council meeting, Mayor Brewer said “we need every person’s ideas, recommendations, and their opinion. … Being quiet and then complaining about it later isn’t going to be good for you or the community.”

    Recently Wichita Downtown Development Corporation president Jeff Fluhr said “We want to make sure we do a holistic outreach with this project.”

    I wonder if they — especially Mayor Brewer — really mean it. In the past Brewer said “The naysayers have gotten too much media attention while those who are engaged and do the hard work are too often ignored and criticized.” Just last week he was quoted in the Wichita Eagle as saying this: “We cannot be intimidated. … I know for a fact that the citizens of Wichita believe we should do what we need to do to accomplish this. …We need to take a bold stance. If they’re not right and they’re not telling the truth, then create an environment where we can get the message out.”

    The mayor sends out conflicting messages.

    Here’s what Mayor Brewer and the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation could do, if they’re really interested in public engagement and hearing from all citizens, no matter what their ideas might be: The city could sponsor a one-day forum where alternatives to the top-down, centralized method of government planning are presented. I think we could do this with a budget of maybe $10,000 or so. That’s just two percent of the amount we’re spending on the Goody Clancy plan. When you add the budget of the WDDC and what the staff in Wichita city hall are spending on this effort, it’s a mere pittance.

    There are some very interesting speakers that are willing to come to Wichita and present their ideas. One is Cato Institute policy scholar Randal O’Toole, author of the book The Best-Laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future.

    Will those in charge of Wichita’s future consider sponsoring a forum where alternatives are expressed? The answer to this will let us know just how much they value alternative opinions, and if they’re willing to back up their words with action.

  • Wichita downtown Q-Line an expensive ride

    On the first Friday in June — that’s the outdoor music night in Old Town Wichita — I went downtown. One of the things I did was to ride the Q-Line. That’s the free trolley or shuttle bus that provides service in Old Town and downtown, including Exploration Place.

    Wichita Q-Line riders and costWichita Q-Line riders and cost

    I rode the entire route, and I was the only passenger. So I got to wonder about ridership and costs.

    The Q-Line service has been offered three nights per week, Thursday through Saturday. In early October it started operating six nights a week after Sedgwick County added some funding.

    For the May though October season, the City of Wichita committed $66,000, or $11,000 per month, to run the Q-Line. The Wichita Downtown Development Corporation agreed to spend $20,000 marketing the service.

    Considering only the $11,000 per month of operating costs, you can see that the cost per rider is quite high. Most months it’s around eight dollars or so, and much more in some months.

    If two or three people traveling as a group get on the trolley, the cost becomes much more than a taxi ride anywhere in downtown — or across town, for that matter.

    The problem with the high cost per rider on the Q-Line is representative of the high cost of public transit and the huge subsidies it requires to function. According to Michael Vinson, Director of Transit for the City of Wichita, for the city’s regular bus service, fare-box revenue covers 22.5% of operating cost. The remainder is paid for by grants from local, state, and federal government.

    So those who might think that the $1.25 fare to get on a city bus is a good deal might want to realize that their contribution to the fare box is matched by $4.30 from other people.

    And that’s for operating costs only. It doesn’t include capital costs.

    As we move forward in the planning for the revitalization of downtown Wichita, transit is always mentioned as a central component. Hopefully we’ll be able to get the cost per rider down to a reasonable figure. Wichita hasn’t shown the ability to do that so far.

  • City council members on downtown Wichita revitalization

    At the meeting of the Wichita City Council last week, several city council members gave their reasons for supporting the planning for the revitalization of downtown Wichita. It’s worthwhile to take a look at two members and their remarks.

    Council member Janet Miller spoke first. (Click on Wichita downtown planning proposal: Janet Miller for video.)

    “We’ve given the free market a chance in downtown,” Miller said. There’s a few things we can disagree with in this statement. First, the market downtown is not very “free.” There are TIF districts overlaying much of downtown, for example. These TIF districts are an example of government interventionism in the extreme, something quite different from free markets.

    Besides this, Miller frames the decision incorrectly. To her, downtown redevelopment is something that must happen, and since people haven’t responded to this decree very well, that’s a failure of the market. But the correct decision point is when people and business decide to be downtown or somewhere else. That’s where we see free markets in action and the decisions people make. Because they make decisions other than what Miller wants them to make, that doesn’t mean that free markets have failed. Instead, people have simply made a decision other than what she believes is the correct decision.

    She also said this: “Without incentives, the free market just doesn’t work.” To which I say: “Where there are incentives, markets are not free.” That’s government interventionism. It’s axiomatic.

    Then, there’s this quote from Miller: “Just like the human body cannot succeed with rot at its core, neither can a city be healthy with rot at its core.” Variations on this nostrum are constantly repeated by government-subsidized downtown revitalization supporters. This analogy is meaningless. I’ve asked the city to supply evidence of this — something more authoritative than the mayor’s vision and dreams — and so far none has been supplied.

    Regarding public and private investment in downtown Wichita: A document published earlier this year showed that public and private investment in downtown Wichita over the past decade is nearly even, or about a one to one ratio. Now Miller says: “I’ve heard the city manager talk about moving us toward a return more in the neighborhood of 15 to one, private contribution to public.”

    So has something new been discovered in the last ten years that allows public-private partnerships to reap such fabulous rewards? It doesn’t seem likely.

    Furthermore, if it is possible to achieve such impressive results from public investment, why is this our goal only now? Shouldn’t we have had this goal earlier? Is this an example of the incompetence of previous city councils, of which Mayor Brewer has been a member for many years?

    Council member Lavonta Williams, in her remarks, said that we must have a plan, comparing the planning of downtown revitalization to planning her classes when she was a schoolteacher. (Click on Wichita downtown planning proposal: Lavonta Williams for video.)

    “Without a plan, there is chaos,” she said, noting that some people think that the things we’ve done downtown may be chaotic. “Hopefully this bond will bring us all together. … Downtown is everybody’s community, but it’s not going to be if you don’t have everybody buying in to what’s going on.”

    She urged citizens to attend meetings so that their comments are validated.

    William’s analogy — downtown planning and running her classroom — is not meaningful. There’s simply no comparison between the two. One is a highly structured situation, while the other is a problem of immense complexity with very little structure. My post Planning downtown Wichita revitalization: an impossible task? summarizes some of the characteristics that make planning such a difficult task. Deluding ourselves that the task is as simple as Williams posits is a sure path to failure.

    Then, I have some news for Williams: not everyone is going to buy in to these plans and the huge public subsidies that will accompany them. We’re not all going to come together on this. As council member Miller recognized in her remarks: “There’s a great variety of opinions on this subject.”

  • Downtown Wichita revitalization on Kansas Week

    The planning for the revitalization of downtown Wichita is the topic of a segment on the KPTS Television public affairs show Kansas Week on October 16, 2009. Tim Brown is the host. Bob Weeks and Randy Brown are the guests.