"Thinking Small" for a Revitalized Downtown Tallahassee:

Private investors have virtually redlined downtown, investing instead in increasingly far-flung suburbs. Only dramatically different public policies can reverse the continuing decline of downtown Tallahassee as a commercial, retail, cultural, and residential center worthy of one of the nation's most literate and best-educated communities, the capital of the nation's fourth largest state and home to two major research universities. These policies include land-use, economic development and taxation strategies, and direct public investment.

Perhaps most important at this time is strategic public investments to expand the number and variety of cultural attractions to establish downtown as a destination for people to visit, live in, and spend money. Its goal would be a "24-hour city" that rescues our community from "suburban oblivion," both terms used recently by the study, Emerging Trends in Real Estate 1999. This would require a coordinated strategy by local, state, and federal agencies, and both universities, to help create these attractions with corporate and nonprofit partners.

"Thinking small" involves building a critical mass of attractions one piece at a time. "Cultural attractions" include small museums, performance spaces, movie theaters, a sports stadium, fountains and sculpture, and an enhanced post office and public library.

The opening of the Odyssey Science Center and Museum of Art, and planned Challenger Center and IMAX Theater at Kleman Plaza provide fresh momentum for new investments. By building on this base, and attracting more people downtown, we would create a compelling demand for private commercial and residential investments, such as building townhouses atop downtown parking garages. At the same time, local government should change land-use and other development policies that today encourage sprawl and discourage private investments in downtown revitalization.

In its annual report, Emerging Trends in Real Estate 1999, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Lend Lease Real Estate Investments downgraded the investment potential of Sunbelt cities because of their uncontrolled sprawl and wondered if Atlanta, for example, was headed for "suburban oblivion." Instead, it ranked such "24-hour cities" as San Francisco, Boston, and New York as markets with the best investment prospects in 1999. The report stated, "Successful metropolitan areas will be those that redevelop and strengthen existing neighborhoods and districts, integrating residential with commercial and recreational uses, rather than expanding and diffusing resources outward."

In other words, a healthy downtown attracts private investment for the entire community. It is critical to our economic future, as well as our quality of life. We have to begin creating market dynamics that stimulate new private residential and commercial investment downtown. The creation of new and enhanced cultural attractions there can become the catalyst.

Through direct investment and strategic alliances with corporate and nonprofit partners, and with the cooperation of state and federal agencies, and both universities, Leon County and the City of Tallahassee could help create in downtown a critical mass of new cultural attractions and enhance existing ones. Here are some possibilities:

A small performance space. In addition to our need for a large auditorium for musicals and dramas, we also need a small space seating 150 to 250 people. One logical location is the old county library building on Monroe Street, with its large second-floor room at the rear. With some imagination, it could be converted into an attraction similar to the Monticello Opera House. It could supplement existing facilities, such as the Young Actors Theater and Tallahassee Little Theater, and be available for assorted community troupes and other performers. Other parts of the building, including storefronts, could house rehearsal or exhibit spaces.

A re-created Centennial Field. As other cities our size have found, downtowns can benefit significantly by construction of a baseball stadium, in our case, the former Centennial Field site on part of Cascade Park. The EPA could adopt this as a showcase "brownfields" project to clean up the site, and we could build a modestly-proportioned facility available for high school, youth and adult league sports events, and perhaps even a minor-league baseball team. Motorists could park during evenings and weekends in empty state employee garages, and others could walk, ride bikes, or take public transit. (The Economic Development Council`s Blueprint 2000 Report proposed building a new Centennial Field at its original site.)

A Post Office branch in the Federal Courthouse. This involves relocating the College Avenue branch to the first floor of the Federal Courthouse, where our downtown post office was before its relocation to South Adams Street, and keeping it open on weekends. Converting several thousand square feet of the ground floor and moving the metal detectors would restore this as a center of community interaction as downtown post offices are in other cities. It would also restore to public visibility the WPA-era murals depicting Florida`s transition to modern times.

A World War II Experience Museum. Florida State University has a unique and burgeoning Institute on World War II and the Human Experience that is rapidly gaining national recognition. We should seize the opportunity to make it also a significant attraction. Housing the Institute in a new or recycled building downtown would provide needed space and visibility. It would house the growing collection and staff, and attract everyone from researchers and veterans to school children and casual visitors. Given its uniqueness and the unprecedented interest in World War II, this has great potential.

An enhanced public library. The LeRoy Collins Leon County Library is already an excellent facility which could become even better with increased public and private funding to expand its collections and services and become an even more popular attraction. Improved access from Park Avenue that links it firmly to the chain of parks, the addition of a café (as at Barnes & Noble Bookstore is an exmple of), and later expanded nighttime and weekend hours. The Broward County Library shows what happens when the public recognizes the importance of a showcase downtown library.

New multiplex and I-Max movie theaters. The success of the AMC 20 Theater in revitalizing the Tallahassee Mall demonstrates the impact that such facilities could have on a downtown, especially when other cultural attractions, restaurants and shops exist there. Tampa`s Old Hyde Park complex is an example.

Interactive fountains. Many cities have discovered that imaginative downtown fountains that invite people to wade and splash can become major attractions. Building one or more of these in the Park Avenue chain of parks would create such an attraction for people of all ages, especially during Tallahassee`s ghastly hot weather months. For example, when West Palm Beach built such a fountain, families with children in bathing suits flocked to it in such numbers that the city hired a lifeguard and added extra chlorine to the water.

A re-located Museum of Florida History. In a separate building of its own downtown, this fine museum would leave the shadows of the R. A. Gray Building basement and claim its rightful place in the sun.

A re-located Antique Car Museum. With the right encouragement, perhaps we could induce owner DeVoe Moore to re-locate the museum on Mahan Drive to a larger, more central and visible site downtown, most likely south of the CSX railroad bridge. Mr. Moore has assembled a private collection that is one of the best in the Southeast, if not the nation. Possibly the Mayco Cabinet (the former Coca-Cola) building could be recycled into a showcase befitting what would become a major downtown attraction.

A consolidated Tanner Fine Arts Gallery and Black Archives and Research Center Museum. Co-locating these excellent institutions in a more central and visible site downtown would not only expand patronage, it would add to the rich variety of choices for visitors.

A museum of local history. Despite the splendid Tallahassee Museum of History and Natural Science at Lake Bradford, the need still exists for a downtown, local history museum with exhibits and archives accessible to the public. It is ironic that, in Florida`s most historically-significant city, there is no such museum. One possible site could be the Brokaw-McDougal House. It could be operated by the Tallahassee Museum, Tallahassee Historical Society, or similar organization.

New architecture in a historic spirit. The deliberate destruction of 90 percent of our historic buildings has left us with an urban core that reflects Anonymous Sunbelt Boomtown more than Florida`s Historic Capital. We not only have to preserve what remains, we should also commit ourselves to re-creating the historic spirit of Tallahassee in the design of new buildings. Where we have defaced historic storefront rows, we should restore them. We should design new buildings to reflect Tallahassee`s 19th century heritage. At the very least, every new public building should attempt this.

A re-located FSU Museum of Fine Arts. The successful debut of the Museum of Art/Tallahassee(MAT) and continued popularity of LeMoyne Art Foundation confirm that people will come downtown to enjoy the visual arts. At its current campus location, the FSU Museum is largely inaccessible to the general public. If re-located downtown, it would not only encourage downtown visitors to walk between it, LeMoyne and MAT, which would expand the patronage for FSU`s collection and exhibits.

A downtown farmer`s/food/crafts market. The success of the open-air Saturday farmer`s and crafts market suggests that an enclosed marketplace, with stalls for a variety of vendors could be both a business success and a popular downtown attraction. It could be open more days and for longer hours, and not be subject to inclement weather. Possible sites could be along South Monroe or Adams Streets, or at the underused Trailways Bus Station. The latter site already has parking and is convenient to public transit. The Eastern Market in Washington DC and Baltimore`s Lexington Avenue Market are examples.

Paddle boats in Lake Ella. This enhanced recreation amenity at an already-popular center of community interaction would provide people with one more reason to visit downtown Tallahassee. These paddle boats could be similar to those at Boston Common, Chicago`s Lincoln Park Zoo or Washington DC`s Tidal Basin and be operated by a private vendor.

In a variety of ways, local government policies have hastened the decline of downtown as a retail, commercial, and residential center. Despite strong Comprehensive Plan language to contain sprawl and encourage density and downtown growth, the policies as practiced have the opposite effect - they reward sprawl and punish density.

For example, there are compelling reasons to permit Mainline Information Systems to build its proposed office and retail development, Summit East, at US 90 East and I-10, but intelligent urban planning is not one of them. It would be eight miles from the center of town, increase the inappropriate use of I-10, and encourage sprawl nearby, luring us even closer to the "suburban oblivion" that PricewaterhouseCoopers warned about. Such a corporate headquarters belongs much closer to downtown, but our development policies discourage that and, in fact, will reward Mainline for adding to "suburban oblivion."

Not only do stormwater, traffic concurrency, parking and other requirements discourage a more central site, the City of Tallahassee will furnish sewer and water connections to Summit East - and rebate to Mainline $2.6 million. In other words, we taxpayers are paying a business to drain vitality from our downtown.

If left unchanged, policies such as these will throttle both public and private efforts to revitalize Tallahassee`s downtown.

One change that should be immediate is to accelerate construction of a stormwater facility for downtown at public expense. It would relieve businesses seeking to build or expand downtown of the requirement for on-site stormwater facilities. If there ever were a case for investing public dollars to encourage private investment, this is it.

Such a strategy provides us with an answer to the question, What do we do first? It builds on past efforts that include the Kleman Plaza and Civic Center. It provides a demand-side solution that lets market forces interact. It provides an alternative to public subsidies of private projects, such as the Marriott convention hotel. It offers a use for buildings and vacant properties owned by state and local governments here. Where direct public investments are needed, the sums are relatively modest, and opportunities for state or federal grants are numerous.

Most important, it would restore an urban dynamic to Tallahassee that is essential to create a balanced private and government economy. It would help achieve our goal of an economy that provides our residents with a variety of rewarding careers and lifestyles.