As Main Street Kent continues to work with downtown merchants and property owners to create a Main Street renaissance in Kent, I happened upon a news article describing very similar work in downtown Columbia South Carolina.  Admittedly the scale is different but the components that they’re trying to use to renew their downtown, including a downtown presence for the University of South Carolina, arts, parking, unique shops, streetscaping and pedestrian connectivity all ring true to the Kent experience.

Before you read the article, I’d recommend checking out the University of South Carolina’s InnoVista web site to see how the project puts the University at the center of Columbia’s downtown renaissance.  I’d say this is the best example of synergizing (is that a word?) downtown revitalization with university aspirations that I’ve come across anywhere.  I made sure to share the site with our Kent State folks too.

Here’s the newspaper article:

Retail, residential and office coming together for a Main Street renaissance

By JEFF WILKINSON

When New Yorker Dorothy Garone was looking for a place to open a Manhattan-style bagel shop and deli, the choice was easy.

“Who wouldn’t want the Kress building?” Garone said of the art deco storefront across from the Columbia Museum of Art on Main Street. “Location is everything and this was a match made in heaven.”

Garone plans to open Gotham Bagel Cafe in December when a Main Street streetscaping project is completed. She will be the first new retailer to locate on Main Street after the city finishes the $4.7 million beautification project in the 1500 and 1600 blocks.

Many hope it will mark a resurgence of retail on the venerable street — something experts say is needed to complete Columbia’s growing downtown.

“For any city to be a success, its downtown has to be vibrant and that includes retail,” said Amy Stone, vice president for retail recruitment for the City Center Partnership, which promotes investment in the business district.

“We want downtown to be active and enticing,” she said. “Main Street is a big part of that.”

Over the past decade, downtown has been reinvented to position the city for a 21st century, knowledge-based economy.

The Vista, the Three Rivers Greenway, downtown residential development and USC’s infant research campus, Innovista, all are intended to attract high-tech businesses and their workers, as well as high-income residents and free-spending tourists.

But retail has been the missing link, Stone said.

A recent study of downtown showed Main Street between Gervais Street and Laurel Street — particularly the rows of storefronts in the 1500 and 1600 blocks — as a prime location for new retail stores.

But there are many problems on the street:

• Many storefronts are threadbare and need upgrading.

• Parking is scarce.

• Panhandlers scare some shoppers off.

• Main is separated from the Vista by busy Assembly street.

• Traffic counts, meaning the number of cars traveling down the street, are low because Main dead ends at the State House.

• And the razing of scores of storefronts over the past 30 years for high rises has left few places for new stores to incubate.

Mayor Bob Coble said he hopes the completion of the streetscaping project will be a trigger for renewal of Main Street,

“It’s a great opportunity for renovation and restoration,” he said. “I would encourage people to invest and be part of Columbia’s renaissance.”

But David Lockwood, senior vice president for leasing services for the Colliers Keenan commercial real estate brokerage, said it could take some time for new retail to take hold.

“It will be a slow transition,” he said. “But the health of the entire market depends on the health of Main Street.”

RETAIL FOCUS

Main Street has been the city’s commercial core as long as there has been a Columbia.

But horse and buggy gave way to the automobile. Desegregation caused many whites to flee to the suburbs. And suburban malls killed downtown department stores.

Then, in the past three decades, whole blocks of storefronts were razed for high-rise office buildings — many built with little or no street-level retail.

All this conspired to effectively remove Main Street as a destination for shoppers.

Today, only the 1500 and 1600 blocks bear a resemblance to the retail district of old. They are a hodgepodge of wig shops, jewelers, clothiers and sundry other retailers, many of whom have been operating there for decades.

But even that base has been eroding.

Although stalwart Sylvan’s and Kimbrell’s Furniture are still in business, the iconic Lourie’s and Main & Taylor Shoe Salon shuttered earlier this year.

Andrew Zalkin, owner of the Army Navy Store in the 1600 block, accuses the city and the City Center Partnership of turning its back on retail through the years in favor of office towers and residential development.

“There was a lack of promotion and publicity,” he said. “And there was a lack of unity among merchants,”

Matt Kennell, president and chief executive of the City Center Partnership, agrees.

But “it was a deliberate strategy,” he said. “You have to start somewhere. And until there was residential and office to support retail, it wasn’t worth the time. But I understand the criticism, and it is warranted.”

Kennell said that because of the success of residential and office, “we can now focus on retail.”

Last year, Stone was hired to pump up recruitment of businesses, he said. Already, she has helped locate four new businesses on Main Street — Uptown Gifts, Dunkin’ Donuts, Wilder Realty and Gotham Bagel.

“It’s working a little better than we hoped,” Kennell said. “We were expecting maybe two a year, and we already have four. And, maybe, we’ll have a couple more before the end of the year.”

Coble is also pushing for a city program to help building owners, particularly in the 1500 and 1600 blocks, replace the dated facades many installed in the 1970s.

“While it hasn’t been presented to council, staff is looking for ways to do it,” Coble said.

RESIDENTIAL

Unlike retail, Main Street has seen stunning successes in two other areas: office and residential.

Main has two new high-rise office towers and there is another in the works as high-powered banks and law firms elbow to be nearest the State House in the most impressive office suites.

And residential is thriving.

There are now 110 units on Main Street, both apartments and condominiums, with an occupancy rate of 98 percent. That is a development many people would have thought was preposterous a decade ago.

The father-son team of Tom and Jeff Prioreschi own all of those units.

Columbia’s pre-eminent urban pioneers, the Prioreschis, through their Capitol Places firm, own five buildings on Main, including Tapp’s, Kress and Barringer.

Jeff Prioreschi said that while the condo market is slow, apartments are doing very well. He noted 73 of the 75 apartments that he and his father have in the 12-story Barringer building are leased at rents of $700 to $1,600 a month.

“Gas prices are helping our business model,” he said. “These days, some people just don’t want to commute.”

There might be more opportunities for residential in the 1500 and 1600 blocks, Prioreschi said. “But you really have to pick and choose what your do. We don’t have any project planned at the moment.”

Kennell said that nonhistoric buildings in those blocks could be razed and modern, mixed-use buildings built in their places.

The projects could be similar to the Prioreschis’ 1530 Main building — which includes storefronts, residential and live-and-work units — but still matches the street’s historic architecture.

“There might be opportunity for selective demolition,” Kennell said. “And it would be hard to see someone putting a bank or a law office there.”

PARKING PROBLEMS

While new office space and residences on Main are a boost to retail, there are still challenges.

“Parking,” said Steve Rowland, owner of Drake’s Duck-In restaurant, a Main Street stalwart since 1959.

Parking already was sparse on Main Street before the streetscaping project eliminated four on-street spaces in front of his restaurant at 1544 Main St. to provide a loading zone.

To tackle the limited parking on Main, the city has a parking garage in the works, Coble said.

But many people, particularly females, are not comfortable with parking garages, said Bill Pruette, manager of Sylvan’s, Main Street’s oldest retail store, at 111 years.

“Our customers don’t like parking in garages, and they don’t like walking a long way.”

And the garage’s location is problematic.

The city is planning to build a 600- to 800-space garage, Coble said. It already owns two sites that could be used — one at Taylor and Sumter streets and one at Blanding and Sumter streets. But Kennell and downtown merchants say neither is a good spot.

“It needs to be as close to Main and Hampton as possible,” Kennell said. That intersection is the center of the six blocks of Main Street’s commercial corridor.

Kennell promotes a site at the corner of Assembly and Hampton streets, across from the Richland County Library. But the site is owned by multiple parties and the city has not been able to negotiate a price that is within its budget, Coble said.

Also, a potential buyer for the Palmetto Center wants parking, too, and that has to be figured in the mix, the mayor said.

PANHANDLING

As the city of Columbia has struggled with the issue of homelessness, Main Street also has carried the brunt of problems stemming from it, mainly panhandling.

There are two shelters in the Main Street area: The Salvation Army on Main at Elmwood and the Oliver Gospel Mission at Taylor and Assembly streets.

The Midlands Housing Alliance, a group of business and church leaders, also plans an expansion of the Salvation Army site.

Another shelter has long been planned by Christ Central Ministries for a site across the street from the Bank of America building at Main and Richland streets.

That shelter has been discussed for years, but no firm plans have been made public.

Panhandlers in the area have led to a perception among many that crime is problem on Main Street.

Heightening those concerns were an armed robbery in the parking lot of the Main Street Methodist Church earlier this year and a rape last month behind the Tapp’s building.

Since those incidents, the city has beefed up patrols around the church and the street, and the City Center Partnership has increased the visibility and the patrol hours of its “yellow shirt” safety and security teams.

Those teams, paid for by partnership dues and a $100,000 city grant, clean graffiti, provide directions and even give people rides to their cars in a golf cart or an SUV.

But most importantly, they are eyes and ears for the police, Kennell said.

Jocelyn Sanders, manager of the House of Fabrics on the 1300 block, has noticed a difference.

“We used to have lots of panhandling,” she said. “But we don’t get that many anymore.”

GET PEOPLE WALKING

The best hope to overcome many of the challenges facing Main is to get people on the street, walking, said Ryan Hyler, director of marketing and research for Colliers Keenan. That creates a built-in customer base, a feeling of security and the image of a vibrant city.

“Without significant pedestrian traffic, it will be difficult” for new retail to take root, he said.

Main Street boosters are excited about Nickelodeon Theater moving from south Main to the old Fox Theater in the 1500 block.

The art house theater hopes to open in early 2010, executive director Larry Hembree said.

It would attract people to the street at night — a rarity now except for diners at Hennessy’s or Mac’s on Main and the occasional evening event at the art museum.

Connecting the Vista to Main Street also would improve foot traffic, Coble said.

“Connectivity” always has been an issue downtown, with its disparate districts divided by wide boulevards.

The main problem is Assembly Street. It divides the Vista from Main Street and Innovista from USC’s main campus. In places, it has six lanes of traffic and two lanes of on-street parking. That creates an intimidating gulf through the center of downtown.

“I know some people who will get in their car in my building (the Capitol Center) and drive three blocks to the Blue Marlin,” Kennell said.

However, a complete, $100-million-plus streetscaping and railroad relocation project for Assembly is years away.

In the meantime, Fred Delk, executive director of the Columbia Development Corp., which guides investment in the Vista, is advocating creating “pedestrian islands” at key intersections that would make the trip across Assembly less daunting.

“It would be a place where a woman with a stroller would feel comfortable if she got caught between lights,” he said. “And you could do it with paint, a little landscaping and with only losing a couple of parking spaces.”

Garone, who is opening Gotham Bagel, said drive-up and foot traffic, and delivery and wholesale operations all are important aspects of her business.

“We parked at the front of the building at 8 a.m. one morning and there were more people walking on Assembly than Main,” she said. “We hope with some good advertising we can pull them in.”

Garone is optimistic the north end of Main Street will spring back to life when the streetscaping project wraps up in December.

“I’m just grateful,” she said, “that we are opening after it’s finished.”

I have a long list of things I don’t like about snow but near the top is how it interrupted the City’s leaf collection schedule this year.  There are so many variables that go into staying on schedule for leaf collection that snow was the last thing we needed.  So thanks to the early blanket of white stuff many leaf piles sat buried, frozen and abandoned over the last couple of weeks leaving homeowners to wonder if all their hard work to rake would ever be rewarded.  Admittedly the original schedule is pretty much shot at this point but hopefully we’re catching a break in the weather and I know the crews have been busy making runs through the neighborhoods to vacuum up what they can as fast as they can. So please be patient as help for those piles is on the way (assuming mother nature remains cooperative).

I have had the good fortune (or was that mis-fortune) of managing leaf service for many years and in every City I’ve worked in it has always been one of the most challenging public services we offered. Expectations run high but with so many elements beyond our control, e.g., rate of leaf drop, quantity of leaves raked out, winds, frozen leaves, parked cars, snow, resident cooperation, things inevitably don’t work as out planned and the calls start rolling in.

We generally work very hard to not vary off our advertised schedule because as soon as you do that things can unravel in a hurry. I can pretty much guarantee that if you try to do a good thing and maybe send a truck out ahead of schedule to grab that one super-sized pile that is blocking visibility at an intersection the other neighbors will take notice and very shortly your phone will be ringing with reports of missed leaves before the truck is even back out of the neighborhood. You can try to tell them that you only grabbed that one pile because it was a safety hazard at the intersection and that you’ll be back for theirs later but that usually just leads to a bunch of new traffic hazards appearing as the leaf piles grow legs and walk their way into the travel lanes of the street too.

I hate to admit it but leaves bring out the worst in people.  I’ve sat at the end of the street to watch the leaf truck finish its pass only to see a late-rising resident frantically raking their leaves out behind the truck with the cell phone in their hand calling to report that we missed their leaves.

We try to allow ourselves some flexibility to handle the chronic property that just didn’t seem to want to play by the rules and technically we could play hard ball and stick them with a ticket but I just can’t in good conscience support writing tickets for leaf issues.  Sure, every city has some ordinance or another that could support writing a ticket for leaves but I’ve never felt that ticketing accomplished much value other than inciting ill will towards their City. We tended to save more time and aggravation by all parties if we just took care of the problem property and got back to our routes.

Leaf service is one of the few very visible areas that is a high touch-point for residents to see their City tax dollars at work. Most of what we do is out of sight and out of mind but leaf collection is front and center. That makes leaf service an area where we have a rare opportunity to earn the appreciation of our customers for a job well done or likewise if things don’t go well we can equally damage our reputation.

Because of the relative high-stakes of leaf service I always found it better to err on the side of the customer which is why in my previous cities we doubled our efforts to hand out information flyers, have on-line collection schedules with daily updates of our progress, frequent press releases/media updates, we created a 24 hour leaf hotline and we kept the dispatch office informed of where the crews were working every day so dispatch had better information to share with customers, and our supervisors personally handled a lot complaints with visits to the address to talk through the issues with the upset resident. Make no mistake about it, doing that is a lot of work but when so much of your reputation depends upon it we felt that we couldn’t afford not to do it.

At the end of the day we found that 95% of the upset residents could be satisfied with a little extra personal touch – many of them just felt that the City forgot about them and their leaves – and a personal call and/or visit to let them know where the crews were working and when they are planned to be on their street was all it took to resolve it. Of course, you’ve got to live up to your promises but if you do you can turn your critics into your biggest supporters.

This doesn’t mean there’s no role for enforcement, it’s a legitimate option to manage that last 5% but I would suggest that there are many other steps we need to look at before pulling out the hammer.

Progess is sometimes measured in small steps and according to the latest update from Public Service Director Gene Roberts and his staff, it looks like we’re about to take a baby step by opening the in-bound (or eastbound) lane of the Crain Avenue Bridge Friday evening.  It’s pretty hard to find much good to say about the train derailment, bridge closure and corresponding downtown traffic jam this past couple of weeks except that perhaps it did give us a evidence for the importance of the bridge to our City’s transportation network and seeing the traffic problems that followed the bridge closure I can certainly understand why the citizens committee made a recommendation to build a new bridge next to the existing bridge in order to keep traffic flowing during the bridge construction process.  Can you imagine 3 years of this kind of traffic congestion.

Here’s the latest update from our Engineering staff on the status of the Crain Avenue bridge closing. I know that everyone is anxious to have the bridge re-opened but the repairs to the sewer lines have been very challenging and as we’ve learned getting railroad cooperation is rarely easy but thanks to Gene Roberts and his staff it looks like there’s light at the end of the tunnel – and this time I don’t think it’s not an oncoming train.

Dave-

The sanitary sewer across the Crain Avenue bridge is anticipated to be completed sometime this afternoon or tomorrow morning. This means that the pump will no longer be required. As mentioned in an earlier email from Gene (12/4/08), we are planning to open the bridge for eastbound traffic only. The estimated time for the opening is 7:00 pm Friday. We will be setting up the necessary traffic control devices tomorrow morning along with activating the Crain/Lake/Water traffic signal to normal operation. We will also be sending out a press release this afternoon.

Thanks.

-Jon
Jon P. Giaquinto, PE
Senior Engineer

Back on November 10th I did a blog post about the negotiated gas prices that NOPEC  announced for this winter.  Since then, I’ve had a couple of follow up questions from residents that wanted to learn more about how to take advantage of the NOPEC rates.  Here’s the deal: Kent is a NOPEC community so everyone in Kent should automatically get those rates unless they specifically opt out or have opted out in the past.  In other words, if you think you can get better rates than those negotiated by NOPEC you are free to decline NOPEC participation but the thing is if your gas rates start to rise and NOPEC becomes a cheaper option you can’t re-up with NOPEC for 2 years without paying a penalty.  Here’s an example of a Kent resident who urged me to spread the word to folks about the NOPEC rates.

In case this situation applies to you, I thought it was worth sharing a real live example of the experience of a Kent resident to take advantage of NOPEC:

“Dave,

I don’t know why this program (NOPEC) is not publicized in any City publication or web site. Not knowing of this program has caused me and I am sure many other homeowners in Kent to sign up with one of the many natural gas suppliers listed on the PUCO “Apples to Apples” web site at much higher rates.

The Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council, or NOPEC, is made up of 126 member communities, large and small, spread across eight Northeast Ohio counties. Voters in each of these communities approved the formation of NOPEC in November, 2000, by passing ordinances that authorized their local government to aggregate all utility customers within the community.

The concept of NOPEC is a simple one. By banding together into one large buying group, the communities gain leverage in the deregulated marketplace. The individual utility customers NOPEC represents enjoy the advantages of bulk buying power, professional expertise, and consumer advocacy on their behalf. With more than 600,000 potential customers, NOPEC is the largest public aggregation in the United States.

Q: How do I join the buying group?
A: If you live in a NOPEC community, you are automatically included, unless you choose not to be. Ohio has what is called an “opt-out” procedure. This means that all eligible customers of an aggregated community become part of the buying group unless they take specific action to opt out of the aggregation. An opt-out Notice was sent to every eligible electricity consumer giving him or her this option.

Q: What if I did not receive an opt-out Notice?
A: There are several reasons why some customers may not have received an opt-out notice. Customers may have previously signed a notice from FirstEnergy that prohibits them from releasing a customer’s information to independent suppliers. Customers may have also been inadvertently excluded from the database acquired from FirstEnergy. Although this category only makes up about 4 percent of the entire customer base, NOPEC is currently working to identify these missing customers and give them the same opportunity to enroll in the program. Customers who did not receive a notice and want to join the program should call NOPEC at 1-888-848-7914.

Q: What if I change my mind?
A: All consumers who do not opt out are enrolled for a period of two years, after which they will be given another opportunity to opt out without having to pay a cancellation fee. Consumers who wish to leave before the two-year period has expired may be subject to a cancellation fee.

With the Crain Avenue Bridge repair work still underway the traffic on Main Street to head north on SR 43 has been very heavy.  I’ve seen the traffic back up all the way to Taco Bell on East Main Street trying to cut through downtown.   It’s important to remember that Main Street to 43 is actually not the posted detour route but intuitively it feels like it should be shorter to cut through downtown rather than using SR 59 to northbound 43 so a lot of folks are ignoring the detour posting but they’re paying a price in frustration as they hit the traffic backlog.  In the meantime the SR 59 detour bypasses the downtown jam and I’ve found it to be free flowing, especially since there’s no Crain Avenue bridge traffic to contend with.  I offer this bit of friendly advice since according to an update from Gene Roberts, Public Service Director, the soonest the bridge will be re-opened is December 12th.

Here is a report from Gene Roberts on the status of the Crain Avenue Bridge repairs:

The work progress continues to meet challenges below the Crain Ave. bridge. When the contractor attempted to push the sanitary through the old storm sewer a bend in the pipe prevented their progress. Today (12/4/08) CSX has provided an 8-hour window for the contractor to open cut under the eastern most rail to realign the sanitary sewer which may make it possible to connect the sanitary in one or two days.

What our current thought is once the sanitary sewer is placed back into gravity service and the pump will no longer be required we could reopen the bridge with lane restrictions as needed for the storm sewer work to progress. This may allow for an opening earlier then our current target of 12/12 (next Friday) but it will have the down side of traffic disruption of the bridge for an extended time period. One thought is to allow only east bound traffic which would provide for emergency response from KFD Station 2 to the northeast side of town. We will review internally with fire, police and engineering and with the CSX Contractor (Midwest Mole) prior to a final decision.