Revitalizing Main Street, Innovista, and the perils of development

Former "The State" Editor Brad Warthen drew my attention to an article in the Columbia Regional Business Report where in an interview with Mike Fitts, Mayor Elect Steve Benjamin had a novel suggestion:

Columbia already has the right major tenant to go into the former SCANA Corp. space on Main Street, according to mayor-elect Steve Benjamin: He wants the building to be the new home of the University of South Carolina School of Law.

Benjamin hopes the school could work out a long-term lease with the Palmetto Center, the building that now has about 450,000 vacant square feet in the heart of downtown. A long-term tenant such as the law school should be appealing to the owners, Benjamin said, and would keep the building in private hands and on the tax rolls.

“I want the law school in that building. I really do,” Benjamin said.

If the school were there, it would be surrounded by the offices of many of the state’s biggest law firms and several courts, including the S.C. Supreme Court, Benjamin said.

“It’s a perfect place for law students,” he said.

Benjamin said he has met with the building’s owner and real estate agent to pitch the plan. The building could be bought by a new owner and renovated for substantially less than it would cost USC to build a new school, he said.

Moving it there “would mean giving Main Street a big old shot of adrenalin,” Benjamin said. He compares the potential impact on downtown to what the Savannah College of Art and Design has brought to that city.

Columbia has been supportive of USC, such as building new parking for the Innovista project, Benjamin said. This would be an opportunity for USC to boost the city’s downtown, he said.

USC officials have not responded to the idea, Benjamin said. Some have seen only the obstacles to the plan, he said, but business leaders have seen the possibilities and like them.

To which I say, what a great idea! This could be a great boost for the Main Street District. And it's not the first foray into down town for the university that will keep the property on the tax rolls. In April The State reported that Innovista partners will be moving into the Wilbur Smith Building down town.

Meanwhile Mike Fitts followed it up with a story a couple of days later about yet another issue facing the city and University, the continuing struggle with the innovista campus. This time an independent developer is upset with the slow movement of both the University and City on his plans for a new student tower. From SCBiz:

COLUMBIA -- The developer planning to build a set of student towers ranging up to 28 stories high near the University of South Carolina campus is looking at other locations, saying that USC and Columbia officials seem hesitant to agree to the $100 million project.

“It’s very frustrating,” said developer Robert Threatt of Charlotte. “We don’t seem to be able to get there.”

USC’s new Innovista executive, Don Herriott, said the university and the city, which jointly control the property, were performing due diligence in asking for details from Threatt that would assure them the major project would go forward.

The plans for the complex were first introduced as part of the agenda for April’s meeting of the city’s Design Development Review Commission, but they were pulled from consideration at that time. The plans sketch out a huge new development looming over Devine Street and filling the block directly across from the entrance to the Greek Village.

The towers could be almost as tall as the Capitol Center building at Assembly and Gervais streets. The top floors in the U-shaped complex would be several hundred apartments for students and others wanting to live in the Vista. The complex also would offer a swimming pool and other recreation areas, along with retail space.

According to Threatt, the city and USC have been asking him to provide so much documentation that it would take nine to 12 months to satisfy them. He already has been working on the project for 15 months, he said, and has designed it three different times to satisfy local concerns, including ensuring it would mesh with the Innovista master plan created by Sasaki Associates of Watertown, Mass.

That’s more design work than his firm ever has done for a parcel of land it did not yet own, Threatt said.

Now, Threatt said, “I’m looking at a lot of different options.” He did not specify whether those options include sites outside the Midlands.

USC and Columbia are just trying to be good custodians of public land before it is turned over to a private developer, Herriott said. The land belongs to the city, but USC holds a long-term lease to use it for parking.

The city, through Columbia Development Corp. executive director Fred Delk, and the university came together to ask Threatt to provide references and documentation of his financial backing for the project, Herriott said.

They also wanted a development agreement, Herriott said, to be sure that Threatt would build something close to what he had proposed.

Threatt said private money is all lined up for the project, sitting in a hedge fund. Some investors are leery about putting their names out in public, Threatt said, but some financial accommodation should be possible.

Threatt said he understands that Columbia and USC have had past frustrations with developers.

Just last week, USC settled with Kale K. Roscoe and R. Timothy Heath, the developers hired to construct a private building for the university’s research campus. The agreement calls for the university’s Research Campus Foundation to pay the developers $890,000 from the Development Foundation.

That said, Threatt believes Columbia should be more welcoming of a project that would add $1.2 million to the city’s annual tax rolls. The complex would be built to platinum-level standards for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, he said, and would be one of the most forward-thinking developments in the country.

“Most people would have met me at the airport with a limo,” he said.

That last line is almost LOL funny, the presumptuousness.

But anyway, a few years ago when the city and University were wrapped up in the smoke screen of 'if you build it they will come,' this idea probably would have flown. Heck it's not to say that other residential developments within the vicinity haven't been successful, but again only after a rethink in strategy. It was only last year that Aspyre was trying to market itself towards the 'new urban professional' and was tied to the success of Innovista, it's now purely a student housing facility. Several years after construction finished Addesso condos are finally filling up after many mark downs in price. According to their website they're over 60% sold!

I suppose one could say Threatt is going after the right market with students, but has USC expanded their acceptance of new and transfer students so much that even more apartments are needed? It seems like there's a glut of student housing around Columbia -- I'm speaking anecdotally here when one considers the number of rental properties that have popped up over the last decade from South Columbia around the Stadium to the places right across the river, not to mention the single unit homes around town.

The developer has cited augmenting his plans for Innovista, but has he lived in a cave the past several months? The University and City while still supporting Innovista have scaled back the project, and rightly so considering the economy. But beyond that, if the need is there for additional student housing, and it could very well be, why would you build a 28 story tower in an area where most buildings are only 3-4 stories tall, especially across from the Greek Village. While the amenities sound nice, from a design and aesthetics perspective the tower would look out of place and quickly become an eyesore.

The Hipsters got a promotion

The hipsters of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NY have gotten a promotion. Librarians aren't out of vogue, but perhaps just a career stepping stone. Per the NY Times:

Visitors to the show are relatively young, somewhere in their 30s on average, which makes them a decade younger than usual for MoMA, recent surveys showed. And a surprising one-third of this audience had never stepped foot in the museum before.

“We’d never done anything like this,” said Rajendra Roy, the museum’s chief curator of film, who was one of the show’s organizers. “There’s always a learning curve. Would I have done things differently? I don’t think so.”

For a 37-year-old curator, Mr. Roy seems pretty cool about it all, considering that only a few years ago he started his professional life selling tickets at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Yet as museum directors have come to realize, younger minds attract younger audiences. And Mr. Roy is just one of a growing group of rising curatorial stars cutting quite a different figure from the age-old image of museum curator as a fusty academic.

That's right, hipsters have now taken over art and history museums (go figure). Now that's interesting.

Columbia wants Google Fiber (so does the rest of SC)

I read with excitement about how folks in Columbia (and Greenville by the way, and I'm sure some other fellow SC communities) are getting über-excited about Google Fiber.* How can we not? In this new century, much like our Automakers in the last, Google represents American creativity, enginuity and leadership. Besides, the way things are our internet service providers are terrible monopolies who really could give a hoot about their customers -- have you called Time Warner and tried to get a cable guy to come out? What about AT&T and their technicians?

My excitement didn't last long though. It gave way to disapointment. I thought: as good as Google is we South Carolinians shouldn't have to sell ourselves in quirky marketing gigs for higher speed internet access, or even access at all. Because it was only last year that our State's leaders (in what was the saddest, most undervalued giveaway in the state's history - worse than when we thought we could plug state budget holes by selling large portions of state property) sold 90% of ETV's broadcast bandwidth to two companies, Clearwire and BridgeMaxx for the low low price of $143 million over 20 years. (Yeah I mentioned this yesterday briefly)

That's $7.15 million a year, and when our state has a budget of $5 billion that's 0.143% of our annual budget, if you view the state's budget like others, then that money accounts for 0.034% of our state balance sheet. I call that a give away, don't you?

Wow, had they thought about it reasonably... had they stood up to the state's communications monopolies - here's looking at you Ma Bell and Time Warner - we wouldn't have to be so excited about convincing Google to come here to set up a living lab for their high speed internet. If a bit more sunlight had been thrown on to the process of putting out the bid let alone awarding the contracts, who knows perhaps Google would gladly have approached us. Instead we sold a public trust for less than pennies on the dollar, only to see those two companies do what.... >>crickets<<

*It's funny that Columbia has a Facebook Group dedicated to Google Fiber, granted they're the number one social media site... but Google does have it's own social media sites with Buzz and Orkut.

The FCC must have been watching the happenings in SC

According the Huffington Post, the FCC is unveiling sweeping changes to America's National Broadband Plan. This was a key component of the Obama Administration's Recovery Act. It has the potential to effect more than 100 million households in the country and will increase the connectivity/download speeds to more than 100 megabits per second... that's really really fast.

In their efforts to modernize the plan though it looks like they are mimicking the efforts of South Carolina's legislature.

Over the past three years in South Carolina the legislature has looked for a way to sell off the excess bandwidth of the ETV system. One of the biggest concerns the republican dominated legislature faced was a belief that they must sell the bandwidth into the private market because otherwise it would be government intervention... you know the drill. The plan would have been quietly put through had it not been for the efforts of the Progressive Network and their executive director Brett Bursey. Their efforts though noble, were fruitless and the legislature sold off the bandwidth in two twenty year contracts valuing $143 million.

The two companies who were awarded the contract in October of 2009, Clearwire and BridgeMaxx, have no information about their plans for South Carolina's Broadband Spectrum available on their websites. Other than press releases dated from mid 2009 when the committee recommended the state make the deal with the two companies there's not been a peep.

Hopefully these two companies, who are poised to also reap the benefits of the proposed FCC changes, will be a bit more visible than they have been in the Palmetto State.

Waldo Lydecker whacks Joe Taylor, FITSNews

Waldo's got a great post up about how abysmally the current Commerce chief has performed at growing the SC economy, and has the most sound, and blunt, critique of this state's economic development strategies:

The fact remains, South Carolina is pursuing out of date strategies to attract companies that just want cheap workers to bolt things together. Screw the residents of the state: give BMW and Boeing land and tax breaks that will take decades to recover even as state services atrophy, look the other way when most of their workers are not real employees but contract workers (hello, BMW), and pray they don't pick up and leave when their factories are fully depreciated and they can get some other state to build them new ones.

Joe Taylor ought to resign in shame over the way he is willing to pimp the citizens of South Carolina. A 21st century economy is not one where your operating principle is to beg companies to come here on the promise you're willing to beggar your constituents' rights to access to redress when they are abused. In the new economy, workers' knowledge and ability to innovate is where the action lies. And they can, even under the Supreme Court's reactionary views, can go where they are most valued and life is most agreeable. Smart people don't migrate to low wage states.

In this century, companies that succeed- and stay- in SC are companies that can persuade their employees to want to live here and stay here. As long as South Carolina is perceived as a racist, reactionary, uniparty, head up its ass, homophobic, misogynist political/business culture, all you can be sure of is that the big, nameplate corporate recruits that enable politicos to declare victory and go home will stay here only as long as it suits them.

Both parties suffer from this mindset in South Carolina. The idea is, if we can bring in companies by throwing money, reforming tort and lowering taxes - then the expanded tax base will maintain the provided services. The fact is, until we invest in the necessary services in this state, educate our children properly, foster homegrown innovation then we'll be an attractive site for expansion, and relocation. We wouldn't have to throw as exorbitant incentives at out of state and international corporations. It'll take a whole lot of institutional reform for which the political will in South Carolina is completely non existent. Sure FITS News can harp about reform, and legislators may pay some election year lip service to it, but they know where their bread is buttered.

Bring on the Trains?

Today President Obama went with Vice President Biden to Tampa to announce an $8 billion dollar investment in Rail Infrastructure through the ARRA.

As many of you know, I love the idea of trains. I love how versatile, and efficient they are as an economic development engine as well as a mode for public transit. So you can imagine how happy I was to hear of the announcement today and the commitment by the President to funding the expansion of high speed rail by budgeting an additional $1 billion dollars every year for the next five years.

So what 31 States get a portion of the $8 billion dollar pie dolled out today? CNN said the approved projects are

• San Diego-Los Angeles-San Luis Obispo in California
• Oakland-Sacramento in California
• Portland-Eugene in Oregon
• Seattle-Portland in Washington and Oregon
• Chicago-St. Louis in Illinois and Missouri
• St. Louis-Kansas City in Missouri
• Minneapolis/St. Paul-Madison in Minnesota and Wisconsin
• Madison-Milwaukee in Wisconsin
• Milwaukee-Chicago in Wisconsin and Illinois
• Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati in Ohio
• Detroit/Pontiac-Chicago in Michigan, Indiana and Illinois
• Tampa-Orlando in Florida
• Raleigh-Charlotte in North Carolina
• Washington-Richmond in the District of Columbia and Virginia
• Raleigh-Richmond in North Carolina and Virginia
• New York City-Albany-Buffalo in New York
• New York City-Montreal in New York and Quebec, Canada
• Boston-New York-Washington in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia
• Brunswick-Portland in Maine
• Philadelphia-Harrisburg-Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania
• Springfield-East Northfield in Massachusetts
• New Haven-Springfield in Connecticut and Massachusetts

Noticeably absent from the list are any rail projects in South Carolina, although North Carolina has two projects funded as does.... CANADA??!?!?!??

But what about South Carolina? The Charlanta mega region is one of the largest growing economic geographies in the nation, and it includes the upstate of South Carolina! Two years ago I blogged about a little noticed article in The Spartanburg Herald Journal about an effort by SC Public Railways and the Department of Commerce to re evaluate the rail systems in South Carolina, so what was determined?

Well much like the little noticed article in the Herald Journal the produced report, by Wilbur Smith and Associates, received just as little fanfare... actually none, though it contains some golden nuggets for rail enthusiasts and those interested in -- you know economic development, and, oh, job creation.

The report itself is available online in seven parts here (filed under "R") I'll link to the Executive Summary at the bottom of the post. One of the more interesting points from the report on my first glance was

12.1.2 Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor

Route costs for the Upstate line are estimated in a report from U.S. DOT’s Volpe Center at $1.2 to $1.4 billion. Based on 80 percent federal funding and half of the route lying in South Carolina, the state’s share would be approximately $140 million.

12.1.3 Commuter Rail

Charleston has applied to the State Infrastructure Bank for $206 million for capital costs. An active investigation of service between Columbia and Camden is ongoing. Capital costs were estimated at $80 million in a prior study.

I threw the Commuter Rail bit in as a tease, the meat and potatoes is that estimate for the High Speed Rail Corridor. If Obama is budgeting $1 billion every year over the next 5 years, which of the SC Congressional Delegation is going to stand up for our economic interest and push for funding of this vital corridor. And even if they do - will anyone in the General Assembly respond in kind? Rail. Economic Development. Jobs.

SC State Rail Plan Executive Summary