Business Casual

One of the interesting themes emerging in this morning’s discussion in Chattanooga is the cooperative hospitality effort to recruit convention and corporate business.

“We truly work together, and we’re always interested in bringing new business to Chattanooga rather than fighting back and forth,” said Tom Cupo, general manager of The Chattanoogan, the city-owned hotel and convention center.

“We’re interested in making the pie bigger rather than stealing marketshare.”

There’s a lesson there for Wichita, in hospitality business recruitment and on a broader downtown revitalization scale.

We’re nowhere near the end of a whirlwind first day in Chattanooga as I write this, but wow.

Just wow.

What we’ve seen in less than a day on the Tennessee River is the culmination of 40 years of planning. From a tightly constructed arts and entertainment corridor that connects the river with a historic American arts complex to a green housing development to a double-pronged transit plan that makes the city easy to navigate, it’s not hard to see why Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer said at midday,  “This is what we want to be.”

Chattanooga has transformed itself in four decades in a massive public-private investment partnership that’s run into the billions. City leaders here consider it a success, and who can doubt them? New, modern private development is everywhere. Volkswagen and two other major industries have signed on, thanks to the quality of life the city has created and its willingness to give those companies incentives.

That’s not to say that Chattanooga doesn’t have its rundown areas. But city leaders have ideas in place for the most moribund areas, and they’re able to chuckle at some of the long-forgotten businesses there, such as the “State of Confusion” frontage on one downtown street.

One big dream here is a plan to use passenger rail to connect a billion-dollar development project in the south part of the city with downtown and UT-Chattanooga.

If there’s a message in what we’ve seen today, it’s that dreaming isn’t a junket and it isn’t a boondoggle. Because without dreams, progress is impossible.

We oil speculators must rejoice today, since prices rebounded after a rather steep fall over the last few days.

Our friends at Goldman Sachs – those fellows who tried to sell the notion a few weeks ago that natural gas prices should triple this winter, despite unprecedented inventories and sagging demand – get some of the credit. Amazingly, the GS folks think that oil is headed to between $85 and $90. What were the odds?

I think the problem we speculators face is where we speculate on oil: At the gas pump, where the speculation is how much more we’re going to pay next week because of the real speculators.

It’s been a good week for the downtown venom-spewers: The NCAA says “no” to a proposal to host the men’s basketball first and second rounds at Intrust Bank Arena, and the arena parking debate moves into a higher gear today.

That’s why you’ll find a lot of people claiming vindication on Kansas.com today.

I’m not entirely unsympathetic to their concerns: This is a time when it seems like everyone has their hands in your pockets, and in my case, they’re down to fishing for pennies and nickels now. Don’t get me started on how financial institutions have reacted to the looming specter of regulation. Let’s just say they’ve got BIG hands.

But I wonder how the local “Oh, my God, don’t spend a dime” crowd will react in five years if Wichita’s economy remains in the toilet because the city and county fathers fell victim to economic panic and quit planning for the future.

I hear a lot about how the “free market” solves every economic problem. And although “free market” is Latin for “no regulations so I can make a bunch of money any old way possible” to a lot of folks, there are still free markets in Wichita.

To wit: Two of the city’s largest real estate brokerages are making changes and spending money in an effort to position themselves at the top of the industry – when the Wichita economy recovers.

J.P. Weigand & Sons has been nothing short of aggressive, opening new divisions and adding more staff to position itself for the economic recovery. Same story at Plaza Real Estate, which linked up with the national Coldwell Banker flag.

They share a simple idea: You’ve got to spend money to make money. And from where I sit, Wichitans need to keep that idea in mind as they grind their teeth over each and every expenditure at City Hall and the county courthouse.

Each expenditure comes with accountability down the road. Some will work out. I suspect some won’t.

But so does inaction.