Straws and puffery: USC's DC "campus" as a lever for downtown revival

I have been interested in the opportunity for higher education infused urban revitalization for decades.  

In DC, for awhile I was a Main Street manager in the Brookland neighborhood, which is home to Catholic University, Trinity Washington University and near Howard University, and I touted the potential of student spending as an element of commercial district revitalization.

Student spending.  The problem with that is students spend money in very narrow ways.  At the time those universities were interior focused and I promoted the idea of moving the CUA bookstore to 12th Street NE. (Howard does have its bookstore on Georgia Avenue and they tried for a hotel and have worked on developing a town center there for a couple decades).

That didn't happen, but did with an campus adjacent development--Monroe Street Market--on land owned by CUA, but creating a competing retail center against the 12th Street commercial district, which still limps along today, 10 years after the opening of Monroe Street Market.

Students spend most of their money on food and drink, books, and sundries.  You need a lot more students than CUA (6,700) or Trinity (1,800) to have a real impact on a local commercial district.

I went to the University of Michigan, which has a two major retail districts abutting the campus (and a couple of other little ones).  But these days, UM has 51,000 students--it was the low 30,000s when I went there.

Businesses developed out of university-based research.  Another element is business spinoffs from university-based research--medical, pharmaceutical, engineering, business, IT.  DC's universities aren't particularly good at that either, although some does happen, but the businesses usually end up in the suburbs, where there is more of a business ecosystem, and/or is where the principals live.

In "How the closure of a Pfizer research center in Ann Arbor, Michigan led to the development of a more robust and independent biotech sector" (2021) I suggested that some colleges are particularly good at spin off business development and we should figure out how to duplicate and replicate that.  

I didn't mention University of Pennsylvania and they may or may not be good at spinning off independent businesses, but they have a big revenue stream from pharmaceutical royalties ("Research behind COVID-19 vaccines reaps close to $1 billion in royalties for Penn," "COVID vaccines pushed Penn’s licensing revenue over $1 billion last year, after the school ranked No. 1 in 2021," Philadelphia Inquirer).  Less so today, but the Philadelphia-NJ area was once a center of chemical and pharmaceutical research and manufacturing, so it makes sense that Penn still is a factor in that field.

Faculty concentration as talent and an element of community development.  Faculty creating a cluster, having bright children in schools, supporting community institutions, etc., is another element of community revitalization, especially of schools, but the faculty at DC's colleges don't seem to be clustered, at least not in the way that NIH staff children have on Montgomery County schools.

-- "Revisiting past blog entries: College Park as a college town and economic development | PG County and Amazon," 2018
-- "To be a great city, College Park Maryland needs some "there", it needs a center," 2013
-- "More Prince George's County: College Park's militant refusal to become a college town makes it impossible for the city(and maybe the County) to become a great place," 2015
-- "College town follow up: alumni as residents and contributions to community capital," 2015

Real estate development.  Some schools have invested in nearby commercial districts, like Catholic University mentioned above.  The University of Connecticut ("UConn Decides to Build Its Own College Town," New York Times) and University of Maryland are trying to create town centers which otherwise don't exist.  Ohio State University has a major investment program in the High Street district.  

University of Pennsylvania and Mercer University in Macon, Georgia have invested in neighborhood revitalization, and many colleges have special mortgage financing programs for faculty and staff which help to bring faculty close to the campus.  George Washington University owns a huge amount of commercial property around its campus, which is a major source of revenue.  Yale University too is a big factor in New Haven real estate.  Etc.

The Lincoln Land Institute has a program working with universities on this.

Unrelatedly, Ann Arbor, where the University has grown its enrollment by more than 50% in the past 40 years, is undergoing an intensification that is a national outlier, with many small scale buildings in the core of the city being sold, demolished and replaced with multistory buildings.

I wrote how a block next to where I lived was consolidated and converted to a multiunit apartment building ("Example of whole block intensification in Ann Arbor, Michigan," "Land use intensification in Ann Arbor").  

I just learned that another place where I lived will be demolished for a new dormitory ("Saying goodbye to Ann Arbor's Marshall Court: Houses to be demolished for new dorm," Ann Arbor News).

Athletics.  Some of the major college football and basketball teams can have significant local economic impact, although a lot of the time, the effect is muted ("Tourism economic impact of University of Michigan football").  

Interestingly, DePaul University, known for basketball, with subsidy from Chicago, built a new arena off campus in the Convention Center district.  Some cities like Waco for Baylor University, have provided financial support for college football stadiums and arenas.  There is such a project right now in Kalamazoo, Michigan for a mixed use facility that will have Western Michigan University teams as anchor tenants ("Plans revealed for new arena in downtown Kalamazoo," Kalamazoo Gazette).

The question becomes: what kinds of schools are good at stoking revitalization?  I remember when I went to UM, Eastern Michigan University in next door Ypsilanti was touted for moving their business school to the Downtown.  When I applied for a job in Hyattsville, I suggested they try to get University of Maryland to move their Art School to the Route 1/Rhode Island Avenue corridor, to anchor the Gateway Arts District.  The University of Tennessee moved its architecture school to Downtown Knoxville.  And the GMU campus at Virginia Square in Arlington, Virginia, which has the policy and law schools, and other programs.

Similarly, the creation of Appalachian School of Law in rural Virginia was touted as a way to build the economic power of the region ("Appalachian School of Law receives final installment of $6 million funding package," Bluefield Daily Telegraph).

EMU and ASL haven't had much impact.  I don't know about UT.  And people aren't calling Arlington a college town.

Commuter school versus residential campus versus "night school" versus semester in X city program.  Besides how big the school is, a goodly part of this comes down to the nature of the program.  Residentially-based schools are likely to have more economic impact on local stores, while commuter and night school students are likely to spend minimal time on campus or in nearby commercial districts outside of class.

Leveraging higher education institutions for urban economic development. It is possible to leverage higher education institutions in important ways.  But it needs to be purposive.  Trickle down doesn't work that well.  I've written about it a lot:

-- "The other George Miller idea: creating multi-college innovation centers in (cities) Philadelphia | Creating public library-college education centers as revitalization initiatives," 2021
-- "Better leveraging higher education institutions in cities and counties: Greensboro; Spokane; Mesa; Phoenix; Montgomery County, Maryland; Washington, DC," 2016
-- "Naturally occurring innovation districts | Technology districts and the tech sector," 2014
-- "Universities as elements of urban/downtown revitalization: the Portland State story and more," 2014
-- "President of Washington State University dies: fostered development of the "University District" adjacent to Downtown Spokane," 2015

Making the point that DC in particular doesn't seem to be very good at it.

Puffery.  That's why I have to laugh at the article in today's Post about USC, "D.C. officials hope new USC campus can aid in downtown’s comeback."  From the article:

District officials have spent months figuring out how to counter negative economic trends spurred by emptied offices downtown. But their efforts to repopulate the area are set to get a big boost from the University of Southern California — which on Wednesday unveiled its East Coast campus, in the heart of D.C.’s business district.

USC’s “Capital Campus” will transform the 60,000-square-foot, crescent-shaped building at 1771 N St. NW, previously occupied by the National Association of Broadcasters, into a home base for students and graduates of the Los Angeles-based university. The official opening places USC among a growing array of universities with hubs in the District, giving students a chance to capitalize on political and policy-based career opportunities that have become synonymous with Washington.

USC President Carol Folt says the hub could draw nearly 1,000 of the university’s students to D.C. each academic term, potentially tripling or quadrupling the university’s presence in the city. For D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who toured the facility with Folt on Tuesday, that prospect fits squarely into her administration’s plan to “reimagine” sectors of downtown that have long been associated with large office buildings and the working professionals within.

It's a small program that won't have anywhere near the impact of the existing major schools that are already based in the city: American University (14,318 students); George Washington University (25,613 students--this includes their Virginia campus); Georgetown University (19,371 students); Howard University (10,000 students), etc.  (UDC like CUA and Trinity is smaller.)

As it is there are a bunch of university centers in the city already similar to what USC is launching.  What kind of substantive economic impact do they have?  I know I haven't noticed much.  

Plus there is Johns Hopkins University, which has had a comparable campus (a couple buildings) in Dupont Circle for decades and is moving to the former Newseum ("Former Newseum almost ready for Johns Hopkins graduate students" WTOP radio)--and that's a 420,000 s.f., project, and it seems as if they'll also run the Dupont Circle buildings for awhile.  It opens this fall.

Conclusion.  To be clear, I think programs like the new one by University of Southern California are great, and that cities like DC should be open to them. I'm just turned off by the puffery.

I find DC's planning around higher education to be pretty disappointing.  But that's not a unique failing.  DC's planning function and capacity has diminished with each mayor since Anthony Williams left office in 2006. (Maybe it was in stasis under Mayor Gray.)

Cities like Greensboro or Portland or Spokane have to be more innovative because they have fewer opportunities.  

DC has plenty of assets.  They aren't coordinated or leveraged very well.  And that's where the local government planning functions have opportunities.

Years ago I suggested a multi university building East of the River, and later how graduate health education and  biotechnology research program could be the anchor for revival of the St. Elizabeths East Campus, as part of the building of a new hospital there ("Ordinary versus Extraordinary Planning around the rebuilding of the United Medical Center in Southeast Washington DC | Part Two: Creating a graduate health education and biotechnology research initiative on the St. Elizabeths campus").

DC needs to be more innovative to be able to develop its economy semi-independently of the federal government, which was slow and steady and growing for decades, but now no longer is, especially with the impact of what is now called work from home (formerly called telecommuting) post covid.

Instead, under Mayor Bowser DC's urban and economic planning functions have stagnated.