12 Strategies That Will Transform Your City’s DowntownBelow are 12 strategies that can transform your city’s downtown into a thriving urban district.  For each strategy, you’ll see a concise explanation of how the strategy will make your downtown more vibrant and one or two examples of cities that have successfully implemented the strategy.

Vibrant Downtown Strategy #1Turn one-way streets into two-way streets.

King Street: Charleston, SCWhy?

One-way streets are great if your only goal is to channel traffic through your

downtown, but they are bad for pedestrian activity and retail opportunities.  Two-way

streets create a more comfortable pedestrian environment and have been

shown to increase property values.

There is a good reason that the Main Streets that sit at the urban core of small towns

and cities across the U.S. are almost always two-way streets.  From Wichita,

KS to Charleston, SC, cities across the U.S. are realizing the benefits of two-way

streets in their urban cores.

 

Vibrant Downtown Strategy #2Establish a regularly occurring public event with showcasing downtown merchants, music, and food.

Union Square Farmers Market: New York, NYWhy?

Ongoing public events help drive positive awareness of your city’s downtown. 

Bringing people from your entire city downtown on a regular basis, once a week or

even just once a month, serves to make citizens aware of the unique amenities that

exist in the central part of their community.

Events like a weekly farmers market (like the Union Square Farmers Market in NYC)

or a monthly art walk (many cities have a “First Friday Art Walk” like the one in

Denver) can draw thousands of people to your downtown on a regular basis.  And

many of these people do not live or work near downtown, so by creating the event,

you can expose a wider portion of your community to the unique assets

located in your urban core.  These citizens are then more likely to visit downtown

for shopping/dining/entertainment on other occasions and are more likely to consider

living downtown or perhaps locating their business downtown.  An added benefit of

these types of events is that they engage local merchants, artists, and

entrepreneurs, helping to make these businesspeople champions for downtown

revitalization.

 

Vibrant Downtown Strategy #3

Create more land for development (landfill into a body of water, remove land from a floodplain, take back land from a freeway, etc).

Battery Park City: New York, NYWhy?

If you could literally expand your city’s downtown by creating more land area for

new downtown development, you would jump at the opportunity, right?

Well, if your city is one of the lucky ones that sits next to an ocean, you might be able

to use landfill to expand the land area of your downtown, as New York City did with

its Battery Park City neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.  In fact, Battery Park City

was built on 90 acres of landfill created from more than 1.2 million cubic yards earth

that was excavated from the original World Trade Center site.

But this isn’t the only way to create more land for development.  How about that

floodplain land in your downtown?  You could make some infrastructure investments

that take some of that land out of the floodplain, opening up more acreage for

downtown development.  That’s what Austin is doing with its Waller Creek project, a

major initiative that will rejuvenate the currently underutilized waterway that runs

through the eastern section of the city’s downtown.

Or what about that massive freeway that runs along the edge of your downtown? 

You could tear it down and build a park in its place like Portland did in its downtown.

Or you could sink it and cover it with a park like Dallas did.

Or you could sink it and cover it with a park and a convention center like Seattle.

 

Vibrant Downtown Strategy #4Make under-utilized public land available for private sector development

Seaholm Power Plant Redevelopment: Austin, TXWhy?

All types of government (federal, state, and local) own real estate assets. 

Sometimes these “assets” are not doing any good for the government entity that

owns them or for the community they sit in.  Structures like vacant government office

buildings, abandoned power plants, and otherobsolete public facilities in your

city’s downtown are often prime candidates for redevelopment by the private

sector.

Check out how Austin is using its defunct Seaholm power plant as the centerpiece of

a new mixed-use downtown development.

Or, take a look at what the private sector has done with a former elementary school

in Portland, turning it into a hotel/microbrewery (this one is not downtown-specific but

illustrates the strategy so well, I had to include it).

 

Vibrant Downtown Strategy #5Consolidate regional economic development partner organizations into a single downtown location.

Business Resource Center: San Angelo, TXWhy?

It may seem like an inconsequential decision but the location of government offices

and community-serving organizations matters.  This is even more important for

organizations that interact with the outside business world like chambers of

commerce and economic development organizations.  Of course, public decisions to

place jobs downtown are beneficial, but in this case,we’re talking about the image

that is portrayed to the outside world.

What type of message do you think it sends when a city’s economic development

corporation is located in a big-box strip center, or when the local chamber of

commerce is housed in the upstairs of a convenience store?  (Yes, I’ve actually seen

both of these examples in the wild!).  Take a look at what San Angelo, TX did.

San Angelo’s regional economic development partners chose to a construct a new

consolidated facility in a strategic central city location to help spur further downtown

revitalization.  And the added benefit from this decision is the synergies gained by

housing several cooperating organizations under a single roof.

 

Vibrant Downtown Strategy #6Create a permanent public market.

Pike Place Market: Seattle, WAWhy?

The most successful downtown districts have many major functions (employment,

residential, entertainment, shopping, etc.).  A key ingredient for creating a diverse

downtown district is to have major destinations that draw people to downtown for

reasons other than employment.  Many cities have pursued professional sports

teams for this reason, but this approach only yields intermittent benefits, because

major league stadiums/arenas lie vacant much of the year.

On the other hand, a large public market can attract thousands of downtown

visitors on a daily basis.  Seattle’s Pike Place Market is a great example of such a

public market.  An estimated 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 annual visits are made to the

market.

 

Vibrant Downtown Strategy #7Open a downtown satellite campus of a local university.

UTSA Downtown Campus: San Antonio, TXWhy?

Downtown campuses can be a win-win for universities and for a city’s downtown. 

Major universities are often landlocked, and have trouble meeting their needs for

facility expansion.  Opening a downtown satellite campus can be a great option to

expand the university’s reach.  And the creation of a downtown university campus

can do wonders for a city’s downtown.

The introduction of several thousand college students to a downtown can provide a

major boost to the diversity of a downtown district, especially if student housing

is included as part of the expansion.  Downtown Phoenix benefits immensely

from Arizona State University’s downtown campus.  And the University of Texas-San

Antonio downtown campus is a major asset for downtown San Antonio.

 

Vibrant Downtown Strategy #8Build a streetcar line connecting your downtown to an adjacent urban neighborhood.

Portland Streetcar: Portland, ORWhy?

Adding a streetcar line that connects your downtown to nearby urban neighborhoods

will expand transportation options in your urban core, a good thing.  But the biggest

benefit from streetcars isn’t transportation-related, it’s an expanded potential for

development.  In fact, this is what streetcars were initially intended to do.  In the early

1900s, it was standard practice for residential real estate developers to create

streetcar lines that connected their land plots to the center city so that land values

and development potential would increase on their property.

Modern day streetcar lines prove the time-tested benefits of streetcars for

urban revitalization.  Portland and Seattle offer good examples of streetcar lines

that have more than paid for themselves in the way of new real estate development. 

In Portland’s case, the new streetcar line led to $3.5 billion in new development

within 2 blocks of the streetcar line in only the first 7 years after the line opened.

 

Vibrant Downtown Strategy #9Create an awesome downtown playground to make your downtown more kid-friendly and family-friendly.

Imagination Playground: New York, NYWhy?

There is no question that downtowns across the U.S. are undergoing a major

renaissance, especially in the way of new residential development.  But, this

resurgence has been fueled almost entirely by singles, young professionals, and

empty nesters.  Even the downtowns with the highest amounts of residential

development in the last decade (Chicago, Seattle, Miami), struggle in their efforts to

appeal to families with children.  Check out this Huffington Post article which

highlights the big-picture challenges associated with designing downtowns for

families.

Many cities have high-quality downtown children’s museums but very few have

playgrounds of equal caliber.  Creating a top-notch downtown playground can be a

truly transformative strategy, particularly if it’s part of a broader initiative to make

your downtown more family-friendly and kid-friendly, because so few cities have an

urban core that really appeals to families.

One example of a really unique downtown playground is the Imagination

Playground in NYC’s Financial District.  (Side note- The Imagination Playground was

under construction when I lived in Lower Manhattan, but at the time our son, Gavin,

was a newborn.  We moved to Austin when he was only 2.5 months old, right after

the playground opened, but on a visit to NYC back in 2012, Gavin – nearly 2 years

old by that point – spent a good deal of time at this playground, especially in the

splash pad section.)

San Antonio is another city aiming to make its downtown much more kid-friendly.

The city is currently designing some major changes as part of the redevelopment of

HemisFair Park (a large park named for the city’s 1968 world fair).  The

redevelopment plans for HemisFair Park aim to reshape the park from a largely

underutilized asset into a regional destination for families.

 

Vibrant Downtown Strategy #10Create a branded downtown entertainment district.

Bricktown: Oklahoma City, OKWhy?

Downtowns that offer a new, exciting district – even if it’s just a small area of a

couple of blocks – provide residents with a reason to check out what is going on in

the center of their community.  A major upside of this strategy is that it can help to

turn around the perceptions and reality of downtowns that have are not

vibrant.

Perhaps the best example of this strategy is Oklahoma City’s Bricktown, a large

mixed-use entertainment district that has transformed OKC’s one-time “dead-after-

5pm” downtown into what is now hailed as a 24/7 attraction.  Bricktown, which

makes up the eastern section of downtown OKC, was filled with abandoned

buildings as recently as the 1990s.  Today, thanks to major infusions of public and

private investments, the district is home to dozens of restaurants and bars,

thousands of hotel rooms, and a growing number of residences.

Kansas City’s Power & Light District is a similar success story (though on a smaller

scale than Bricktown) of a new entertainment district that breathed fresh life into that

city’s downtown.

 

Vibrant Downtown Strategy #11Establish maximum parking standards for new downtown developments, or at least remove minimum parking requirements for new buildings.

SFpark variable rate parking pilot: San Francisco, CA

Why?

Unfortunately, the majority of U.S. cities impose parking minimums instead of

parking maximums, even in their downtown districts.  This means that real estate

developers are forced to provide a minimum level of parking when building new

downtown offices, hotels, or residential structures, ignoring the market demand for

parking.  While these policies are generally intended to enhance or maintain access

to downtown districts, they have the unintended side effect of fostering an over-

dependence on auto travel while making downtown areas less walkable and less

transit-supportive.  Fortunately, there is a growing movement in large cities to

abolish minimum parking requirements in downtowns.

Austin’s city council recently enacted an ordinance that removes mandatory

minimum parking in the central business district.

And a few cities are really blazing a bold new path by not only removing parking

minimums, but actually going the extra step to establish maximum parking

standards which place an upper limit on the amount of new parking spaces

allowed in downtown areas.  You can read a fascinating account of the

transformation of San Francisco’s parking policies over the last few decades here. 

In 1985, San Francisco first began experimenting with the removal of parking

requirements for downtown commercial properties.  Since then, San Francisco has

increasingly adopted public policies that are aimed at reducing the amount of parking

throughout the city, especially in the downtown area.

A relatively new innovation out of San Francisco is the SF park  pilot program, which

introduced demand-responsive variable parking meter pricing with real-time

information in multiple neighborhoods.  A handful of other cities are experimenting

with similar variable-rate approaches to on-street parking, including New York with

its PARK Smart pilot project.

 

Vibrant Downtown Strategy #12Set up a downtown bike share program.

Divvy Bikes bike share program: Chicago, ILWhy?

Any strategy that results in more transportation choices available within a downtown

is a good thing if you’re aiming for a more vibrant urban core.  And bike share

programs – which have been spreading like wildfire across large U.S. cities in the

past couple years – are certainly a good option for enhancing transportation

access.  But what makes this strategy so valuable is that it also

provides indirect marketing and branding service for your downtown.

Bike share programs, with their highly visible stations and riders, broadcast a

continual message to casual observers that downtown is a place for recreation and

entertainment.  Divvy Bikes in Chicago and Citi Bike in New York are two of the

largest and most successful bike share programs in the U.S.

Lastly, bike share programs are highly flexible in terms of how they can be

implemented and managed.  Some systems are managed by non-profits, others are

owned by local transportation authorities, and many are sponsored by major

corporations or wholly owned and operated by the private sector.  This flexibility in

ownership/management models can help explain why the bike share craze has

spread so quickly in such a short time.

 

Bottom Line 

Admittedly, this is by no means a complete list…there are dozens, no hundreds, of

different approaches to downtown revitalization.  And you may have noticed that I

chose to focus primarily on achievable strategies that are very much within the realm

of the public sector.  So, what’s the big takeaway?  Whatever state your city’s

downtown is currently in, there are many actions that can be taken to boost

the vitality of your community’s urban core.

What is your city doing to make its downtown more vibrant?