Downtown Tacoma boundaries redrawn
April 10th, 2008 by Republican By DefaultIn January of 2007, the Tacoma City Council redrew the boundaries of what they refer to as ‘downtown’. But the new boundaries don’t make sense to me.
Map of area designated as ‘downtown’ for the purposes of the Angelou study
Here’s a link to the City of Tacoma Web site from January 5, 2007 which says that the area changed:
City Council defines downtown footprint
The Tacoma City Council recently defined the footprint of downtown Tacoma and designated the following principles for planning future growth: Protect neighborhoods, critical areas, the Port of Tacoma, industrial, and manufacturing uses, and increase densities in the downtown and neighborhood business districts.
The new working definition of downtown Tacoma is now bounded to the north by the Stadium District, to the south by Interstate 5, to the east by the Thea Foss Waterway, and to the west by the Hilltop area.
That description matches the map, however, you can see that the city manager calls it a ‘new working definition’.
Here are the problems that I see:
- Including the hospitals at the top of the hill takes them out of the Hilltop, which is basically bordered by the medical profession on the South and East sides. The medical district, Tacoma’s version of ‘Pill Hill’, really starts at the top of the downtown hill and goes all the way over to Allenmore on Union. To take those organizations out of that area is ridiculous.
- Including the Stadium district, which is mostly residential with what amounts to little more than an outpost of the 6th Ave. businesses district, in with the Dome district which has some light industrial is pretty contradictory. Stadium district also has its own identity and appeal and really isn’t in need of economic development, doesn’t really have much in the way of threatened critical areas and has no appeal for industrial or manufacturing.
- There’s a slight justification for including the Dome district because of the Convention center and hotels, but that would mean including everything over to Portland Ave. as well, which gets into light industrial and doesn’t make sense to add. So there must be some other justification.
- Some of the areas clumped together are so diverse they’re almost contradictory. Industrial and manufacturing in the same area as residential (and not just residential, urbanist residential who seem to think that a small, specialty coffee roaster is industrial) .
- Now they want to put an International Financial Services Area (IFSA) in with the industrial. Do I need to bring up that they’re putting the IFSA in an Economic Empowerment Zone?
- Including supposedly tourist areas with industrial doesn’t make much sense.
- Expanding the boundaries beyond the Economic Empowerment Zone doesn’t make much sense.
- If runoff and sewer are the issues than all of the tide flats and Northwest Tacoma and should be included. For that matter they should go all the way to Ruston and maybe even include the Narrows side of Tacoma.
- Economic and demographic measures are not only impossible to make sense of in this diverse an area, they’ve also made it more difficult to compare historic figures. I think that is what this blogger is getting at: Nobody Can Argue Groundless Tacoma Downtown Data Presented
These boundaries seem to cross so many lines of actual delineation between diverse areas that they stop making sense.
The only thing that does make sense is for politicians to try to make themselves look good by pretending they’ve improved the downtown area more than they actually have. But that doesn’t make sense either.
The strangest part of that is that they have actually made some improvements in the area. They got ride of the homeless, moved the hookers to some other area of town, got UWT a big piece of land, spent hundreds of millions on projects that were supposed to create tourism and economic growth. In some circles they can hang their hats on that stuff. Granted, those are circles that count good intentions as being just as valuable as good results. But still, why change the boundaries?
Here is a somewhat related thread on Exit133.com that discusses this issue in the comments.
My cynical guess: politics as usual in Tacoma.
April 10th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Republican,
There are a variety of reasons to expand the downtown area. One reason is to be sure that densities are managed. I believe the intent of the study is to provide economic development opportunities, so why not expand the scope? There is not one place in the city of Tacoma that does not need more economic development.
Also, you seem to object that industrial uses may be close to other uses. Euclidean zoning laws to separate land uses are the reason that many of our country’s downtown areas are in such bad shape. Downtowns are meant to be a mixture of uses.
April 10th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
My main point is that methods of economic development are usually focused on industry sectors or areas that are similar, closely related or complementary.
In the case of Tacoma’s redrawn downtown boundaries it’s difficult to find any common thread, especially one of great enough importance that it overshadows so many others.
Even the level of development needed isn’t consistent. Stadium doesn’t really need much in the way of develoment (unless someone wants to completely change the current nature of the area. The health area at the top of the hill is doing fine with hospitals, doctors offices, clinics and support businesses. The Dome district may need development but it already has a focus and to abandon or dramatically change that would be foolish. Retail looks for foot traffic which is only created by certain industry sectors and the study didn’t include the issue of how having the 38th St. retail district so close impacts the nebulous ‘downtown’.
If the scope was going to be expanded, then it should have been expanded to include the entire city, rather than just coral a few blocks into it. There was very limited space in the survey to compare downtown to nearby areas (such as 38th St., the Port or South Tacoma). Competition for businesses and residence is an important factor to consider when deciding where to focus a city’s marketing plan.
As for mixing areas the difficulty comes in trying to find complementary pairings. Industry creates noise an traffic that is difficult to deal with in residential, hospital or even Class A office areas, and vice-versa. This appears to be a hodge-podge that makes little sense to an onlooker like myself.
April 13th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
I find your shotgun approach intresting. You are making assumptions for the redrawing of the boundries. Then trying to put reason to you your assumptions.
The redrawing may not have been for economic development reasons you mentioned.
The new boundries encourage us to look many years into the future. Where will downtown be in 20, 30 , 50 years? What will it look like.
What if we expand the area and as a goverment, back off? (less goverment).
What if we increase the footprint for creating more business and jobs?(good for business)
What if we increase the density of housing near many of our historical churches? (more peeples in the steeples)
Hummm, odd your would oppose this.
Just wondering, and I mean this, what do you see the city doing well?
I know I ‘m giving you a bit of a hard time here, but if there are things the city is doing well how can we focus on growing them?
April 13th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Speaking of shotgun approaches. Where to begin…
Reasons for redrawing boundaries have to make sense for something. I can’t see a reason, whether it’s for 5 years or 50.
If govt. were to expand the downtown then back of, it wouldn’t make much sense. They’re the only ones who care about where the downtown line is drawn. F
Government doesn’t create jobs. The private sector does, and in particular small businesses. Not eight figure projects that go nowhere (Link-to-nothing Light Rail, Convention center that duplicates existing businesses and services such as the Dome, the Russell deal.)
You must have a very narrow view of Christianity if you think that moving people into neighborhoods that have old churches will somehow be a benefit. Most churches that are growing in numbers were started in the last 30 years or so and grew from almost nothing. But on a personal level, I’m never impressed with growing numbers in churches. I’m more concerned with personal growth in Christians’ personal relationship with their Lord.
As for your snide, back-handed criticism, I focus on the problems on this blog for a few reasons:
1) the problems need to be fixed, not brushed under the carpet and ignored,
2) there are plenty of people focusing on how they perceive the city is doing well (politicians, leftie-blogs, dead-tree reporters),
3) what I perceive as improvement might be viewed by others as something else and I really don’t want to get bogged down in values discussions that deteriorate into name-calling,
4) most of the real improvements that I see are in the private sector or in efforts outside of local government’s purview.
As for growing those things, it won’t happen until the city stops spending 8 figures on project after project that won’t solve the real problems. I’m all for growing the things that the city is doing well, but I’m troubled that city government isn’t doing the same.
April 13th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Compare and contrast is great skill to have when I have something to compare to.
My request for things you see going well, is like this:
I like some of the points you bring up, but I also find myself looking to nurture new things that are growing.
I hear what’s not working. Hell I hear that all the time. If the leftist blogs and the dead tree reporters are the only one reporting on things to support, then I am given the option of supporting them, tearing them down or spending my time supporting the things they are not talking about.
Again, I ask what are the good things? Things, from your point of view, you see as positive.
I’m tring to get a feel for what make you tick, not just ticked off.