Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer appeared on Fox Business Network today to talk about aviation and the Wichita economy. He was this week’s guest on the network’s Mayor Monday segment.
Interestingly, a little more than a half-hour of this morning’s brainstorming in Chattanooga was devoted to the “vocal minority,” a group of Wichitans who oppose public-private partnerships to redevelop downtown.
There were several calls to action, including one from Mayor Carl Brewer, who said, “We cannot be intimidated.” Others called out Wichita blogger Bob Weeks and one near the front of the room, away from me, said bluntly, “We have to watch who we elect.”
Quite clearly, the information battle on downtown redevelopment has been joined. I’ll have more on the brainstorming sessions, including the focus on the anti-tax crowd, in Saturday’s Eagle.
Here’s one statistic that struck me this week in Chattanooga:
Staff at the RiverCity Company, which oversees the local revitalization effort: 12.
Staff at the Wichita Downtown Development Corp., the point organization for Wichita’s growth plan: 3, and sometimes 4.
One of the thoughts percolating through the Visioneering Wichita delegation Thursday was WDDC staffing. President Jeff Fluhr will need more bodies as the effort ramps up.
Philanthropy is going to be essential to get Wichita’s downtown program going. Chattanoogans talk a lot about “motivated local money.”
And one good starting point for a Wichitan who’d like to buy into downtown’s future would be to fund an increase in the WDDC staff.
It’s a terrible football analogy, but the central theme of Thursday’s Visioneering Wichita presentations applies: Chattanooga isn’t building a modern downtown by reading the market and reacting; they’re running a full-scale blitz.
We’ll have more on the theme in Friday’s Eagle, but one fascinating example is partially hidden in a south Chattanooga storefront: Create Here is a one-stop shop melding the arts and business education that’s all about “talent retention,” according to Helen Johnson, one of the founders. It’s goal is to give Chattanooga residents the tools to profit from their creativity, growing the city’s talent base and thus its economic foundation.
Create Here doesn’t have anything that Wichita doesn’t: the arts, business education, community activisim.
But what it does remarkably, as Johnson puts it, is fight the perception that all those functions need to be “siloed,” or segregated as separate community institutions.
“What we do, instead, is encourage people to think across all these disciplines as a platform for community change,” Johnson said.
Create Here won’t be around forever, Johnson said. She has no interest in perpetuating it as an institution. But she intends for its wide-ranging programs, from artist recruitment to business planning classes, to live on.
Bill Wilson has been taking a few snapshots on the Visioneering trip to Chattanooga. Wednesday’s tour included a trip to the city’s aquarium.
I’m certainly no entrepreneur. No financial magician, either.
But I’m the kind of anal-retentive guy who will spend a year voraciously reading automotive reviews before I even think about approaching a dealer to trade cars. That’s no excuse for buying a Chevrolet Blazer, but I never said I was perfect.
So maybe that’s why I’ve struggled to get this term out of my head this week: Due diligence.
It cropped up twice this week, early as I sat in court listening to the mind-boggling tales of investor after investor who happily plowed thousands into Thomas Etheredge’s Wild West World, largely without so much as a Google of “Thomas Etheredge,” let alone any sticky details like a proforma or a business plan.
I’ve certainly underestimated the spell of a jailhouse conversion, let alone three of them.
And that says nothing of the bankers who handed over bags of money to him, apparently with little more than a hearty “Look me in the eye and hear me well.”
And then due diligence cropped up again as I researched a story on the relative lack of development around Intrust Bank Arena. It seems that business developers have this crazy notion that they’d like to gauge the demographic and traffic around the arena before they buy in and start building restaurants, entertainment venues and shops. It happens that way all across this great country of ours. Go figure.
So if there’s a moral to my week, it’s a growing appreciation of the folks who will follow the arena downtown to do business.
After they do their homework.
Kansas got some good publicity this week when CNBC ranked the state seventh in its list of America’s Top States for Business.
According to a press release from the state, the report analyzed each state by examining 40 measures of competitiveness. Those are grouped into 10 categories: cost of doing business, work force, quality of life, economy, transportation, technology and innovation, education, business friendliness, access to capital and cost of living.
Kansas was in the top 10 in work force, transportation, econonomy and cost of living.
From Gov. Mark Parkinson:
“Each time our state is recognized by an organization like CNBC, it confirms that our policymakers, legislators, educators and economic development leaders are making good decisions and positioning us for success. And of course, this ranking speaks volumes about the proud Kansans who comprise our work force, own businesses and continue to drive innovation here.”
Virginia was the top state on the list, followed by Texas, Colorado, Iowa, Utah and Minnesota.
A CNN article today makes it clear how fortunate homesellers in the Wichita area should feel.
While prices here remain basically stable, there are $500,000 homes in California changing hands for $200,000.
“EVVVVERY HOME MUSTTTT GOOOO! Bad credit, no problem. No down payment, no problem. No money, big problem.”
Over the past couple of weeks, Kansas Technology Enterprise Corp. has been making a big push to keep itself intact, despite a budget recommendation by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to move parts of the agency into the Kansas Department of Commerce and completely do away with other functions.
Officials from the private-public agency charged with helping high-tech startups get off the ground and grow has been on an e-mail petition campaign to enlist support from Kansans.
Despite some media reports suggesting that KTEC will remain intact because of actions in the Kansas House, KTEC apparently isn’t convinced that its survival is guaranteed.
Alex Garvin, the Yale University urban planning professor, put a few tips for kickstarting Wichita’s downtown on the table Wednesday night at the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation’s annual lecture.
Tucked neatly among those tips was a message for the the huddled masses yearning to park in a lovely $20,000-per-space concrete parking garage next door to the Intrust Bank Arena: Forget it.
Garvin’s only been in Wichita for a couple of days, so he can be excused for missing the city’s pathological aversion to – gasp – walking.
But he’s been involved in reviving downtowns for decades, and his advice to strategically spread out downtown’s attractions to induce patrons to walk among them for pre- and post-event food, drinks and fun should be taken very seriously.
He talked frequently Wednesday night about the economic dangers of allowing patrons to “get in their cars and go home.” Which is precisely what you do in Wichita by allowing the exercise-averse to park within a few feet of Intrust’s front door. Do that, and you all but assure that downtown won’t develop around the arena.
Call Garvin’s advice what you will. I call it an unqualified endorsement for the initial plans put in place by the Sedgwick County Commission and the Wichita City Council.
Overland Park, one of Kansas City’s fastest growing suburbs, has seen more than just a new housing slowdown, the Kansas City Star reports.
February ended without the issuance of a single new home permit, a stark contrast to the 1990s when about 1,100 were issued every month.
City officials blame the economy, which is a good bet, but I wonder if Overland Park just isn’t built out. Overbuilding is the biggest enemy of any housing market, and you wonder if the city won’t confront that soon.
It’s fascinating what you can find on Google.
Proposition K, the anti-tax proposal in Kansas to standardize property tax hikes at 2 percent, was the subject of a Google search today as I sought to learn more about it.
Imagine my surprise to find this Proposition K that went to the ballot last year in San Francisco.
Hmmmmmm. Anyway, here’s a good capsule on what Kansas’ Proposition K covers, and it’s not prostitution.
Let’s get a discussion going on Kansas’ version. Is this normalizing property taxes? Or is it a thinly-veiled attempt to shift property tax burdens off the affluent?
What do you think?