BID - Improving Downtown Mobile
Mar 24th, 2005
Let's start by asking you to close your eyes and suspend your images of downtown Mobile for a minute. For those of you who remember a downtown with Gayfers and Kress, forget about it, downtown will never be like that again. For those of you who think of a downtown with wig shops, decaying buildings, and empty sidewalks, wipe that out of your mind too. Open your mind up to a new picture of downtown. This is our vision of Downtown Mobile:
Downtown Mobile is a unique place where Southern warmth and hospitality meet French heritage; where street-level art galleries snuggle next to fine cuisine restaurants and funky diners. Centered on a wonderful historic park, downtown Mobile draws visitors from nearby residential developments on foot and from miles away on cruise ships. Businesses thrive in downtown because of great accessibility, affordable rents and a tech-smart workforce. Downtown Mobile is a colorful and vibrant port city center - a place of constant delight.
This is what we believe downtown Mobile can be and should be. Depending on your perspective you are thinking, "I think that sounds like the downtown we should have," or "I think our downtown is just fine like it is," or "Is this serious? Those guys have lost their minds! That is impossible!" Well it is not only possible, but just the way it is going to be in a few short years if we come together, seize the opportunities before us, and throw all of our energies into making this vision become a reality.
In many ways we are there. We have Southern warmth and hospitality. We have our wonderful French heritage. We have art galleries and fine restaurants and funky diners. Our historic park is beautiful and we do draw people from near and far. We have many businesses that are thriving and downtown Mobile is certainly colorful!
But are we a place of constant delight? Are we overflowing with Southern hospitality and French heritage or is it just barely peeking through? Beverage bottles and months-old trash line the sidewalks making the walking experience less than appealing. Businesses thrive, but many buildings sit vacant and in such a state of deterioration that they cannot be occupied..
In the late 1980's and early 1990's a movement swept the urban areas of this country. Downtowns had hit rock bottom and new investors were considering investing. Property owners began to realize that they could come together and create an organization that would manage the "Public Realm" issues like sidewalk cleanliness, personal safety, and tenant recruitment that they were used to controlling in their suburban developments. Property owners looked for a way to augment what the government was doing in order to provide for themselves the extraordinary level of needed services they knew they needed to be competitive. This movement was the genesis of the "Business Improvement District" concept.
Downtown Mobile developed in a time when the city limits and the downtown were practically one and the same. Building owners occupied their buildings and many times lived upstairs in their buildings. Standards for community health and cleanliness were vastly different.
Move forward three hundred years. The city is now a sprawling 130 square miles, and downtown is now less than 1% of the land mass of the city. The residential base has moved and with it the political base. Downtown's 1500 residents comprise only about 1% of the city's residential population. City services are stretched beyond capacity. Policemen and Parks workers spend their time driving all over the city trying to cover 130 square miles where once their area of responsibility was one square mile and coverable by foot. Most owners do not occupy their buildings; many haven't even visited their property in years! Competing business centers are as large in land mass as the downtown, but managed by one manager who looks out for tenant recruitment, up-to-the-minute cleanliness, the safety and hospitality of the visitors/customers, and year-round marketing. Is it any wonder that downtown fell a little bit behind? 500 property owners each doing their own thing versus one hands-on management organization looking out for short-term and long range challenges and opportunities.
BID's are financed in different ways throughout the country, but what they all have in common is the fact that everybody within the district pays an annual assessment based on an equitable schedule of fees. All property owners contribute and become members of the BID corporation. Every property owner becomes engaged in the improvement and development of the area. And because the organization is run by a representative group of those who are paying the assessments, BID organizations are generally entrepreneurial, responsive, and flexible. All actions of the BID are designed to add value to the properties and members within the BID boundaries. The bottom line is to increase property values within the district, which with commercial property can only be done by increasing revenue or the potential for revenue.
The BID proposed for downtown Mobile comprises approximately 85 blocks of downtown Mobile. It goes as far north as the Mobile Register and as far south as the Malaga and Ramada Inns. Water Street is the eastern boundary and the western boundary weaves along the edge of the most developed half of downtown taking in BellSouth, Copy Graphics, Andrews Furniture, Barton Academy, and the Chamber of Commerce.
The BID will be financed by an assessment on the real property located within the boundaries and will function much like a property owners' association, providing services to its members. The program of work that has been designed comes from a series of surveys and interviews that were conducted wherein people said three basic things about downtown Mobile:
- Downtown is not clean enough
- Downtown does not "feel" safe
- Downtown has too many vacant storefronts
Taking this information the 30 member BID Steering Committee developed a program of work that includes 7 Days per week safety ambassador patrols and cleaning patrols, business and residential recruitment, marketing and special activities – basically a team of people working every day whose sole purpose it is to implement the vision - to make downtown Mobile a place of constant delight.
A private not-for-profit will be created that will receive the funds from the BID and be responsible for the daily operations. The corporation will be run by a board of directors made up of property owners and business people with an interest in the district. It will operate independently from the city and county governments, except for service contracts that will be entered into for government-owned properties located within the district.
To date 264 eligible properties have signed a petition asking the City of Mobile to create the district. This represents 55% of the parcels and 62% of the Fair Market value within the district. State law requires that 50% of parcels and 60% of value sign the petitions. Shortly, the petitions will be filed with the city, which will hold a Public Hearing to discuss creating the district. The assessments will be in effect for five years, at the end of which the board will ask the property owners if they want to continue the district for another five years.
This is a very exciting time for downtown Mobile. The RSA is investing more than $200M in construction projects downtown. Property owners are undertaking renovation, and in one case new construction, projects on all four sides of Bienville Square. There are 50 residential units under construction at five different sites downtown. Some of these are rental, others will be owner-occupied. The Lafayette Plaza has been purchased and is about to undergo a major renovation in preparation for a Holiday Inn flag. The Saenger Theatre has just reopened after a magnificent renovation that will assure her usefulness for many years to come. Downtown is now home to two Cathedrals, thanks to the recent decision by the Episcopal Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast to elevate Christ Church to cathedral status. An exciting new condo project is in the works on the waterfront. Can you imagine 230 condos and 60,000 square feet of retail at the foot of Government Street? The Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit has already sold over 120,000 tickets and the show still has a month and a half to go! The "Holiday" continues to sail out of Mobile loaded to capacity with people from all over the South and beyond.
All of this positive activity is dampened by the many vacant lots and crumbling buildings. And by the fact that many Mobilians still proudly talk about the fact that they do not come downtown. Our streets are not yet a place of delight for the visitor. We can make them so, however.
The BID is the key to creating the type of environment where the public realm in downtown is a delight; where we as citizens are able to celebrate the charm, beauty, and history that is our community's inheritance. Now is the time to seize the opportunity of unprecedented construction investment, a national movement back to downtown living, and increasing tourism. The BID gives the property owners for the first time ever the tool they need to jointly and equitably provide the services they need in order to control the area in which they have a real estate investment. By coming together and funding an organization to manage the Public Realm, the Property Owners will help ensure for themselves that all of these investments will not be a flash in the pan, but will be made in a secure environment that is clean, safe, and well tended - that they have invested in a place of constant delight.