DB: A Rundown
Seeing as Benji does not yet publicly wish to rise to the mayoral challenge, (for perhaps rather obvious reasons) this week perhaps we can discuss the candidates as we know them … I have some questions regarding our culture, or lack thereof …
A few Fridays ago, I attended the one year anniversary of the Hub Restaurant and was fascinated by a demonstrative show of local politics. I was unaware that it was a hub for the latest socio-political celebrity appearances. One could make a living as paparazzi simply loitering about the bar. I approached mayoral candidate Jim Merritt and introduced myself as a “young vote”. He suggested I come by his office and look at a miniature model of Tacoma. I wasn’t too sure. I see the real thing everyday.
I was suddenly reminded of a conversation that occurred at Black Water Cafe a year ago. Marilyn Strickland, currently another candidate for mayor, was then in the running for City Council. She was being “interviewed” (interrogated) by Robert “The Traveller” Hill, for some sort of planned political coop … or cult … it was hard to tell. I was eavesdropping, but the ridiculous nature of the conversation was rather familiar of most political how-do-you-do’s.
Besides mayor we have the City Council races. Marty Campbell has once again stepped up into the batting cages for the Eastside seat. Last election cycle, I must admit I was surprised to see him lose. His science fiction inspired campaign flyers were quite simply, out of this world. Marty owns both Stadium Video and Buzzards Music, which based on their obvious indie feel and rarity, are two reasons I felt like moving to Tacoma was a good idea. Rising to challenge Marty for the seat is thus far only a cloud of rumors and hearsay. But there are others already racing ahead. Victoria Woodards and Keven Rojecki for the city-wide race. Becky Summers-Kirby in the South End.
Sometimes in our conversations it seems like we see this city as her buildings, and forget about the people that live in them, or just outside them …
I question what any of the candidates plan on doing to raise the attractiveness of Tacoma to the kinds of people who wish to build a culture here. In what ways is our city livable? And in what ways can it be made more so? Five or six years ago there were many more young (poor) culturalites here digging in their heels for Tacoma’s future. To me it seems we have replaced them with a bunch of fancy and rather sparsely populated condos.
Perhaps we see this city as her buildings because most of them are empty.
Sometimes it seems Tacoma put the gentry cart in front of the creative horse. Have we tried to build a Belltown before we had a cultural phenomenon to make the place attractive enough to justify the high rent? In other words, WHERE ARE ALL THE PEOPLE that make a place worth moving too?
I want my vote to go to the candidates who understand how strange it is to have an under-populated urban core. “If you build it, they will come”, didn’t work with the museums or the school or the parks or the condos or the bridge or the overpass or … perhaps these things take time, but seriously, go walk around downtown at night … who do you run into?
Filed under: DB
21 comments
A Angela Jossy April 17, 2009
Sometimes it seems Tacoma put the gentry cart in front of the creative horse.
Daniel, Perfectly stated. Exactly on point. They need to lower the rents on those gentrified condos and get people in there. The people who’d move in probably wouldn’t be the drug dealers and gang members that they’re so afraid of, they’d be most likely be regular middle class people who lost their regular middle class incomes and had to leave their suburban homes!
M Marty April 18, 2009
There are many components that go into a vibrant downtown core. One of the key things I think we are missing small and mid-size live music venues. venues that will hold 200 – 800 people, maybe more. Venues that can not only attract rising bands, but national touring acts.
And venues that can help retain local artists and allow them to grow here in Tacoma.
R Ron April 18, 2009
Right on Daniel. You summed it up perfectly.
R Ron April 18, 2009
Marty:
Theatre on the Square = 399 seats – Great PA system;
Rialto Theatre = 822 seats – could use a better PA system;
Pantages Theatre = 1162 seats – World Class PA system and does get a few national acts;
Temple Theatre = 1,400 seats – bring your own PA
The problem is, national acts are brought here by local promoters, who have no interest in any venus that cant seat at least 4,000 and move plenty of merch. Local acts have no real support or know how to make it work out in venues that size. The Pantages PA cost $250,000 easy and you need to sell a lot of tickets to make that money back. Also, keeping crew who can make that PA work also costs money, which is hard to do on 400 seats a night. What you need is direct support in the way of dollars to keep those venues open, so they can make it available to local acts on a scale they can afford…
T Thorax O'Tool April 18, 2009
1) Why is there no one downtown?
Because no one lives there.
2) Why does no one live there?
Because there isn’t anything to do.
3) Why isn’t there anything to do?
Because no one is in downtown.
Go to 1
—————————————————————
Thus, we find ourselves in the chicken and the egg question yet again. Last year, an article was published in Science Magazine about a microscopic amount of T. rex collagen, preserved vascular structure, fossilized blood cells and some incomplete short strings of some DNA that somehow survived 68 million years. What did it tell us?
That the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex , most fearsome and famous of Cretaceous predators, has a lot of DNA in common with the modern chicken. You can now make the argument that neither the chicken nor the egg came first, the T. rex did.
What does this have to do with anything? It TO’T going off on a tangent again like the NCC-1702 Kalakala?
I brought it up because of the perpetual cycle of “why is there no one in downtown” that goes on here.
Instead of getting a chicken (people) or an egg (reason to be downtown), maybe we need to go farther back into something more fundamental and bigger. We need a Tyrannosaurus in downtown before we can have chickens and eggs.
While a 13 meter long fiberglass Tacoma Tyrannosaurus in Tollefson may not be exactly what the doctor ordered (although I certainly would go see it), why aren’t we thinking this problem from some radical new angle?
And I mean as radical and unexpected as a Tyrannosaurus being the answer to the chicken and the egg causality dilemma.
J jp solyom April 18, 2009
What is needed is the creation of a number of hands-off low overhead sandboxes for 20 and 30 somethings to spread their wings. Cities that are thriving have learned to allow and even promote these “free-spirit” zones. These are the incubators that yield the energy that drives a vibrant city center.
We have more than enough of our share of mausoleums to recognize the contributions of the living dead.
Maybe the focus should be on promoting the creation of low barrier innovative business zones… Innovation thrives on the edge of chaos. Create the zones and the innovative energy will follow… History shows us that vibrant cities are usually built on these zones.
J J. Cote April 20, 2009
Daniel, you nailed it.
Tacoma’s Downtown hasn’t had a hint of being a “destination” location ever since the Sears store moved out to the Mall in the early 1980’s. Building a bunch of condo’s in the hopes of attracting people to them was a dumb idea. Who would want to live in an area where you can’t walk the streets, riding a bicycle is akin to suicide, grocery shopping requires a commute up treacherous hills made hell-raising in the Winter and parking is impossible? There is no reason to go there unless you need a Lawyer, wish to talk to your broker (yeah, right.), or want to get an overpriced meal. Again, to get that overpriced meal, you risk mugging, loss of your car’s stereo system or the entire car. Shop downtown? Only in broad daylight and where I know I can find a place to park without the need of a sherpa guide. Live downtown? Forgetaboutit!
Thanks for a well written piece, Daniel!
S Sandy April 20, 2009
E-gads man! Who’s afraid of the big bad yuppie? (Clearly the yuppies are still afraid of downtown.)
Maybe Tacoma needs less chickens.
M Mofo from the Hood April 20, 2009
Here’s just one idea on how to bring people close in to downtown. There’s a big white building (Is there a shortage of colored paint?) down on the Foss Waterway, I think it’s called the Escalade (alluding to the two former sensational outdoor escalators on Broadway). Anyway, I drive past that vacant condo quite a lot because I use the nearby freeway stretch (I-something). The fact that such newly built housing is not being used is weird. How about filling up that place with a fast increasing population of retiree’s? Make it a retirement home.
Such a facility would generate a lot of activity–from residents and their families, to staff to service providers.
T Thorax O'Tool April 20, 2009
As a Municipality, the City of Tacoma (COT) has a little ace up their sleeve called Eminent domain. Perhaps the COT should be taking properties like Metro City, Midtown Lofts, Chelsea Hts, Winthrop, etc that are either “functionally abandoned” or in a semi-permanent state of incompletion. Then the COT could be offering them at prices that just can’t be ignored. For example, buy a condo at Midtown Lofts for $30,000 and the $$$ from everyone who buys can be used to finish that damn thing. Same thing with other stalled, abandoned, whatever properties. But isn’t that like against the free market or something? Nah, the “free market” hasn’t truly existed in this county for nearly 8 decades. As far as I’m concerned, the city taking housing that is in default or abandoned may not be something developers or banks like, but a 90% finished 8 story building is doing no one any good.
We all know the only way to get people downtown is to give them a place to live. Retail (once the economy heals in 5-15 years) will follow because there will be people there to service them. I know a lot of people want yuppies real badly. Well, either we need to get some Micro$oft type jobs in large quantity or we need to create a population base. Said base will encourage more people, more retail, more jobs. We can’t have a Seattle type downtown without first getting people there for something other than a few thousand 9-5 jobs.
Something radical needs to be done as our economy slips more and more. Just in the last 3 days on the news I’ve seen that WA’s unemployment is up to 9.2% and likely to hit 10% by May, and that foreclosures in Pierce Co are up 50% over last month. Nothing the COT can do will stop the bleeding as the cancer is being ripped out. However we can take steps now to put healthy cells in place so they can grow and heal the City once the bleeding stops.
People freak out (and indeed somewhat rightfully so) at a bad economic downturn. I don’t want to get into comparisons, but it really is fair to call this the biggest panic/crisis/recession/whatever since the 30s. It hurts as the cancer is torn out, but it needs to be done. Instead of lamenting the loss of the Bubble and associated Boom, we as the People ant the COT as the municipality need to stop looking at how to “fix” the problem. What we’re seeing going on is the fix. We need to start planning and mobilizing to get a jump on the opportunity to rebuild from ashes.
Now is the time to be unorthodox and rise to the challenge. Tacoma City Council, Mayor Baarsma, listen to me. You can ignore my advice, as I am not in your position of great responsibility. But at least ponder some of these ideas:
Eminent domain on abandoned/defaulted condos. Sell units at like $30K each, cash only. Or $10K each. Or $50K. Whatever, the cost, make it cheap enough to encourage cash buyers. Thus we get inexpensive housing without going too far down the low-income road.
Revise zoning and permitting: get rid of parking requirements, make style & size permitting easy. What does that mean? If certain aesthetic and height requirements are met, expedite the permit to 48 hrs and cut the cost by 75%. That will greatly encourage builders to take a chance when the permitting process is painless, quick and cheap. Plus it helps get exactly the type of buildings we want (hint, hint: we need more 15+ story buildings!).
Make downtown more human-friendly.
Drop all taxes for new businesses during their first 3 years. Then phase ‘em in to the standard taxes between year 3 and 5. Why? Give new starts all the help you can. But what about revenue? Well, if small businesses can’t make it past a few months/first year, you’re not getting any taxes anyway.
And drop the B & O.
Encourage technology companies to either expand/relocate here or start up. We all know nothing attracts wealth and young people like tech jobs. Look at the whole freaking Eastside. Without Micro$oft, they’re nothing. Think about that. Perhaps we should be making incredibly sweet deals to encourage folks like Expedia to expand their presence here… or relocate all together. You get the idea.
Art. For a city that claims to be so “into” the arts, I’d never know it. The closest we have to an “artsy” part of town is St Helens. The city needs to drop the anti-poster, anti-nonestablished, anti-nonaccepted, anti-nonavant garde approach to the arts. Let us have (mostly) free reign and see what we cook up… maybe we will get that 13 meter T. rex in Tollefson. Who knows.
Or more radical yet. You know all those empty lots? You know, those ones near the Maracato, those ones in downtown, those on Fawcett & 19th? Yeah, all those ones. Give the People of Tacoma free reign to start community gardens there. Thousands of sq feet of tomatoes and lettuce is a great way to bring people downtown and a far better and aesthetic use of land than sitting empty behind chain link fences.
My rambling point is, think outside of the box for creating a successful, uniquely Tacoma urban core. Learn from others, but don’t try to replicate. There’s enough creativity and brainpower in this city to pull it off. Will the COT have the brainpower to let Us do it?
V Vlorg, the Mighty April 20, 2009
They make monuments to the Dead and to War.
It is up to us to make monuments to the Living and to Peace.
I think it’s time for the creative underclass and like minded people to tell the city to f-off and start doing what we need to do to foster the creative energy mentioned by jp solyom.
The city can’t arrest us (not a criminal infraction to be an artist yet), nor can they fine us all. If 1000 people did this, it would be a mere 0.5% of Tacoma’s population. But way more than the number of cops and elected officials.
Let’s take Our City back.
J Jesse April 20, 2009
Tacoma is built for cars right now… start building it for people.
1. Kill the parking requirement everywhere.
2. Streetcars. They allow people to live downtown without owning a car- a huge expense.
3. Shops on floor one, condos/offices above.
4. Tax abatement zones.
5. Figure out how to lessen the homeless and riff-raff DT.
6. Bury power lines and redo “complete streets” in the downtown core and make it a priority.
7. Get some LID coordinators on staff. It IS the cities job to redo streets after 100 years or so. They can’t just be repaired forever.
8. Adopt an urban boundry and better zoning policies.
9. Attract more white collar jobs to the area in any way possible. Diversity is good.
10. Look at all the great ideas from the above posters. Great stuff in this thread!!
T Thorax O'Tool April 20, 2009
We already have a way to live downtown without a car. It’s called Pierce Transit.
#11, 13, 16, 26 all will take you to a grocery store (Stadium Thriftway), #1, 2, 3 can get you to The mall or nearly anywhere else in town. Yes, the bus is often inconvenient, but it does work. There is also the bLink… you can get a host of other buses and the Sounder at Freighthouse Square. You really can live in downtown Tacoma without owning a car.
But of course, the bus does tend contain some of that riff-raff everyone is so morbidly afraid of. I mean, those bus people… gotta watch out for them. They might be (gasp!) poor or something!
J Jesse April 21, 2009
I love you too Thorax!!
T Thorax O'Tool April 21, 2009
My sarcasm detector is broken :(
But I love you too, Jesse. At least in the brotherly love kinda way.
C cat April 21, 2009
I hate to be a ray of hope in the mist of dark artistic longing, but Tacoma has improved over this past decade. My 11 year old rides her bike from our not north end neighborhood to downtown, and off to the waterfront. If the hills on return are too daunting, she hops on the bus. I have of course taken this trip with her, and discovered the need to dodge pedestrians all along the route, happy looking – cash carrying – dog walking pedestrians. We’ve seen nautical parades, chalk art competitions, trendy cupcakes and fabulous museums.. and I have to go back to smiling people.
In five + years of working downtown I don’t know anyone who’s car has been robbed (save the city continually robbing me of my cash with the claim that I can’t park where I have parked)or who has been mugged.I myself have spent evenings and even nights going on foot throughout downtown from gallery to art event, to before dinner drinks to a lovely meal, all on foot. Never once did the hair raise on my neck, not a loud voice did I receive. Rather I witnessed well dressed people from 70 to 17, smiling talking walking – they must have been going somewhere??
My point friends is that 8 years ago, even five, you could not have paid me to bring visitors to ANYTHING downtown. Now, I can take a visitor on the bus through downtown, out to Point defiance, and actually run out of time before running out of things to do.
Rail on with dark artistic angst my friends, your vision is worthy. However I would suggest you provide some small glimmer of respect for those who have done SOMETHING right – they must have, because it is much much better:-).
I I'm for Change (for tacoma) April 21, 2009
Urban Tacoma may not yet be what I dream it to be, but I’ll keep living, working, and supporting her. I will appreciate and support a candidate that shares my vision of Tacoma; yes not another Seattle, but not a dead dirty scary town. I won’t support a candidate that lives in the suburbs and can’t see getting thru a day without a car.
D Drizzle April 23, 2009
Look at downtown Seattle 15 years ago- junkies shooting up in the Bon bathrooms. Bus service that ended at 2am. Empty buildings everywhere. It was dead after 6pm just like downtown Tacoma is now. There was nothing between Pioneer Square and Westlake Center. It took more than tax incentives to get businesses and residents to move in. There is still hope for Tacoma
T Thorax O'Tool April 24, 2009
Have you been to Seattle lately?
Sure, the buses run 24 hrs.
But there are still junkies shooting up bathrooms, homeless sleeping in doorways, half-built and empty buildings all over, the owners of Westlake just filed chapter 11, and on and on.
The Golden Child is made of gold leaf at best.
J Jacinda April 24, 2009
Tacoma needs more 24-hour venues, or at the very least establishments, not including bars, that are open beyond 8 p.m. and offer a place to get to know your neighbor, study, read… Another, less crowded and noisy, 24-hour coffee shop would be much appreciated. A hip market (though I love stadium thriftway, it’s a bit small and there’s no place to eat a sub sandwich and catch up) would be nifty. A bookstore with a lounging area would be cool. I’m fairly, though not completely certain, UWT’s library even closes at 10 p.m. I remember spending many nights in the library until the wee hours when I was in college.
T Thorax O'Tool April 24, 2009
Give me a 24 hr copy shop and I’ll be pleased.
Hey! Business idea! Copy Coffee
Xerox and Valhalla in one convenient location!