It’s good to hear that the Wichita Downtown Development Corp. finally has found a new president — Jeffrey Fluhr, currently executive director of the Baton Rouge, La., Downtown Development District.
Fluhr comes with high praise from his Baton Rouge colleagues, who say he was a key player in revitalizing their downtown business district and waterfront — and that he sees similar challenges in Wichita’s riverfront and arena district.
We hope he hits the ground running as an effective champion for downtown.
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The only thing the last hired gun bureaucrat of Wichita’s Downtown Development Corporation did was to participate in getting Wichita its 1/2 billion dollar downtown white elephant ice hockey arena. During Ed’s tenure in Wichita, downtown companies continued to flee for the suburbs creating a declining business district.
The arena itself presents a spectacle of producing humongous operational costs that taxpayers will have to pay once it opens.
PLUS THE COLOSSAL MISTAKE OF NOT PROVIDING ANY PARKING! Wonder whose “vision” that was.
And the arena site eliminates the potential parking area for Wichita’s Union Railroad Station should that be needed again in the future energy environment.
All so a few people could tout their “vision” or lack thereof for Wichita without consulting the taxpayers who are paying for their mistakes.
So, Jeffrey Fluhr good luck in Wichita … hope you can find some way to turn things around but its going to be a tough assignment.
Perhaps Mr. Fluhr can do something about the Cowtown area. That is, change it from a sleepy, backwoods area into a dynamic interactive city environment that has a historical presence.
The Downtown Development Corporation is financed by a special tax on businesses located in the downtown business district. So I presume their hired gun bureaucrat would generally spend his efforts downtown. But he might have some ideas on Cowtown.
Gee, they could have hired Joe Williams a lot cheaper.
:)
Good one XXX.
That aside; I hope Fluhr is as smart and open-minded as they say he is. We need some new direction in downtown development – away from the idea that more over-priced bars will solve everything.
Maybe if they didn’t have stupid special taxes that fund things like the DDC you would have more Business downtown?
He certainly has his work cut out for him! Good luck! Downtown needs all the help it can get.
They could have hired someone from a little town in Alaska. Or, would that be just too crazy?
On the front page of this morning’s EAGLE: “ARENA PLANNERS URGE MORE PARKING, 2,400 SPACES NEEDED.” Wow, that’s the point we tried to make three or four years ago when this white elephant downtown arena was first proposed.
The arena was an unfortunate, misguided brain storm of Sedgwick County Commissioners plus a few out of town hired gun bureaucrats … most of whom have since moved on … leaving Sedgwick County taxpayers holding the bag.
By comparison, the Kansas Coliseum has 10,000 seats and 4,000 free parking spaces located strategically around the Coliseum building … all paid for. Also easy ingress/egress off Interstate I-135, also paid for.
Remember this in the November election coming up soon.