Center City, Downtown, the Central Business District

On the HistoricWashington e-list, Scott Roberts called our attention to an article in the new edition of the Washington Business Journal, "Downtown gets renamed, redefined and rebranded." From the article:

DC is redefining “downtown.”

The city’s Office of Planning has initiated a major effort to expand the boundaries of the traditional office and entertainment areas, creating a planning zone called Center City. The initiative more than doubles the area traditionally considered downtown by adding the North of Massachusetts Avenue (NoMa) area as well as the Southeast and Southwest waterfronts.

Another objective is to provide better links to tie the traditional downtown zone with merging business and entertainment districts, the waterfront and the National Mall. Center City will be promoted as a waterfront city with nearly half of its boundaries defined by the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers.

The effort grows out of a stark reality: there is little room left to build downtown, and office and mixed uses have to go somewhere. A July 2006 draft land-use analysis shows that the area designated as Center City has 90 vacant sites – 80 are in NoMa, Southeast/Southwest, Mount Vernon Triangle and the East End/Penn Quarter areas. Officials estimate the city could see 1.5 million to 3 million square feet of office space by 2011.

“We want to reframe people’s notions of downtown and have people understand that this is where there’s office and mixed use … and there are distinct neighborhoods not morphed into downtown,” says Harriet Tregoning, nominated byMayor Adrian Fenty as new planning director.

City officials have been shopping the effort to business leaders in recent months. A stakeholders meeting is scheduled for Monday, March 5, 2007, and the plan is to be formally introduced at a May event in the National Building Museum.

Frank Cooling responded that Philadelphia already calls its central business district "Center City." And of course, the Center City BID is an amazing advocate for improving downtown Philadelphia.

I responded:

This idea was in the Comp Plan. I didn't agree with it when I first read it. By expanding in this fashion, to you deconcentrate focus? Is there a reason to consider 1st St. NE in NOMA in a way comparable to F St. NW?

On the other hand, focusing on the core of the city does matter, especially given the strength of suburban office districts in Fairfax, Montgomery Alexandria, and Arlington Counties

OTOH/2, this initiative is mostly being forwarded by the business community without much input by residents of the city more generally (outside of the core*) and I am guessing without much input from the residents that live in those areas.

Testifying extemporaneously at the NoMA planning hearing, I suggested that because BIDs have become by default the primary "community" organizing entities within their geographies, that BIDs need citizen members (people to provide oversight on public interest grounds) appointed outside of the normal BID-controlled nominating process, because of the "substance" (you know the form vs. substance legal argument) of their fundamental privatization of the public realm.

Both the Downtown BID and the WCTC are engaged in branding efforts. I was interviewed for the former effort. I said that by becoming an office ghetto (see ch. 4 in Dream City) there are few reasons for non-workers to come downtown. However, that is changing significantly in the 7th Street area (not just because of the Verizon Center but because of the historic building stock on that street, respect of the historic storefront rhythm and the addition of a wide variety of other attractions, including retail--the Smithsonian museums, Goethe Institute, galleries, Lansburgh Theater, etc.). It's also changing on F and G Streets for similar reasons, and with the retail revitalization of the Woodies building.

I haven't participated in the WCTC efforts yet. They have launched a website to gather information from DC residents about what defines the city.

In some respects, I think this is pathetic, because I think people in those positions should know the answers already. (I think and write a lot about these issues of center city revitalization, branding, and cultural resources.)

My reply to the WCTC folk:

DC's identity (which you call brand) should be evident to all who work on economic development and quality of life matters in the District of Columbia.

For four years or so, every time I speak or write about this issue I state that DC has five competitive advantages:

1. Historic Architecture;
2. An Urban Design that is pedestrian-centric;
3. An authentic history and base of business;
4. A plethora of connected and efficient transportation assets that allow people to not be car-dependent;
5. The stable employment engine of the federal government (still strong despite all the cherry picking by the suburbs and West Virginia).

Furthermore, every time I discuss this I state that anything that government agencies or private sector companies do that diminishes any of these competitive advantages in turn tears at the competitiveness and quality of life in the city.

For example, this matters because retail attraction programs and other government initiatives tend to work to attract chains, which by definition are not unique. Likely this damages the ability to sell products to tourists.

The problem that DC has in terms of selling tourism, specifically the local experience, is the fact that the dominant narrative of the city is about the federal experience. This means that the average visitor intends to "consume" only this experience, which tends to be comprised of visiting:

1. White House
2. U.S. Capitol
3. National Mall and the Monuments, including the Washington Monument
4. The Smithsonian Museums, especially the National Air and Space Museum, and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing; and either or both
5. Alexandria
6. Georgetown

As far as the statistics that heritage tourism visitors stay longer and spend more money, all this is true, however, in DC visitors are spending this time and money on the attractions above, rather than local heritage assets. Local assets face a market development issue of major proportions.

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* My reaction to the forthcoming dissertation by Cameron Logan of GWU on planning the "constituent city" of Washington from 1950-2000--focused on planning for citizens as opposed to the federal presence and the rise of the historic preservation movement--is that an unintended consequence of the rise of the neighborhood-based preservation movement was a dissipation of energy focused on preserving the building stock of Old Downtown. (I am sure people here at the time would disagree. I wasn't here. This is my hypothesis based on current conditions.)