Recently I took a trip back to St. Paul, and gave my daughter the tour of my brother's newspaper offices of the "Monitor" and the "Messenger". Right on the outer door to the building in the Midway area, was the sign printed in bold lettering and black and white ------" GUNS NOT ALLOWED IN BUILDING"-----
Whenever I get mistyeyed about the big city, a little sign like that brings me back to earth. And I got to reflecting a bit on our downtown. There were the usual questions and then some I had no answer to. Maybe you, my readers have the answers.
The "walkable neighborhood" that is so fashionable today is dense housing, with some commercial downstairs, with some apartments or condos above. It is so in the rage. And folks might note, this is EXACTLY what the Economy Store features. It is thus the "anchor" of the "walkable neighborhood". We need not wander afar out to hither and yon to find land that some folks have a dream about-----we as a community have articulated a dream in TIF #5 to restore and more importantly, revitalize the downtown.
THUS---I am just totally mystified how someone can propose a "walkable neighborhood" outside of town that WILL NOT and SHOULD NOT have commercial in the lower portion, precisely because it would threaten all of the investment that this city has made in the TIF's 5,6,7. When we say "Walkable" we mean more than just "Walkable to the Bank"---
If you add up in your head the investments made downtown in 2005,2006,2007 make sure you include all the exterior restoration of the Farnsworth buildings, the UBT Bank and yes Grange Mall and the Chamber offices, and then add up the 2.5 million for the road with the paving bricks as well as the earlier project to replace the water and sewer on Madison street.
I would just guess that the total private and public investment exceeds 5 million dollars. Now consider the stack of bricks over by the old Coop station. The workers braved the heat last week to clean them. I salute them. When all the bricks are completed cleaning, the whole block will be filled.
However----here is the part of the story that I do not understnd----We did not get a grant for the $300,000 for the additional block to be done. Keep in mind that the bricks are paid for. Then we hear the decision that the last block will not be done. Seems tough minded enough. Except when you consider what the dream was.
The dream was for the Economy Store to be the anchor. I wrote a bit about this. "The anchor and the Boat." Anchors are just the beginning. They are not the story.
In the same breath that we are tough minded about cutting off the project, we hear proposals to reside the walls of Lake Leota canal. For a cool 400-500M. If you click on the video of Fred Juergens you can hear him say that "this is coming."
I have covered the downtown, and the Economy Store project because it is very important. I think in a 5 million dollar investment, we are oh so close to finishing the race strong----that additional block needs to be considered as the potential for attracting NEW owners of business to Evansville. To cut it off sends the signal that we care only about the present....and not the future.
I believe that the downtown can be the walkable neighborhood, and I wish we would not call every nice proposal to break the smart growth plan, "walkable." Those are just walkable to the bank. We need walkable for the citizens. We have the walkable neighborhood right downtown. Let's make it happen.
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I wonder if it's too late to consider plan B or C for the bricks now that we seem to know just how many we have. I had understood there were a few options such as:
ReplyDelete1) curb to curb full bricks
2) Brick Framing of street
3) Brick segments
I was getting so irritated that the street enhancement grant money was not going for ALL enhancements but only for bricks, that I stopped paying attention. (The money that would have been freed up could have gone to other endeavors).
Now that we've spent all of this money, it seems a shame to not have some kind of brick going all the way down to Citgo, uniting the entire downtown.
The additional money spent from local taxes to cover the street from Maple to Railroad I agree would be well spent. Cutting the project of because of a perception of being spendthrifts with taxpayer dollars is being penny rich and dollar poor in the long run of making downtown viable. But it seems no one is going to raise the spector of local tax spending to complete the job. Too bad.
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