Case Study - International Downtown Association

The Rail Park: A Railroad and Neighborhood Story Wall

The Rail Park is an adaptive reuse of the Reading Viaduct, once used by the Reading and Pennsylvania Railroads, and a hub for hundreds of rail lines. At the entrance to the park is an 80-foot long “ghost map” wall that provides a dramatic visual reminder of what this industrial neighborhood once was, and the fascinating stories and significant architecture that merited its placement on the National Register of Historic Places.

Sharing Revenues and Increasing Tourism

After years of discussion between local property owners, the City and the DCCP, a permanent stage was created. The stage is a result of a cost-sharing agreement between the City of Chandler and the DCCP. The City of Chandler’s maximum contribution was $250,000 for the project, and the DCCP’s contribution was $100,000. The DCCP’s contribution will be paid back to the City over a five-year period. The City will pay 25 percent of all stage rental fees to the DCCP for a period of 10 years.

Public-Private Land Acquisition Strategies

Land acquisition costs often make or break residential development projects. Therefore, creative strategies that combine private and public funds to acquire targeted properties can help achieve a community’s redevelopment goals, while adding critical housing stock. Oftentimes, urban place management organizations have a unique position that can connect landowners, developers and agencies with access to funding to make these projects work.

Leasing a City Building to the BID as a Multi-Use Space

For the Bixby Knolls BIA, the EXPO building is their festival grounds, their office, and a resource they use for activations and community programming that draw people out of their neighborhoods and into the heart of the district.

Loan & Tax Abatement Program

Through its Development Loan program, Memphis’s Center City Development Corporation offers a low-interest loan product designed to support smaller commercial developments. It offers a low-interest loan of up to $200,000 for permanent building renovations and new construction within the Central Business Improvement District. The product is not a construction loan; rather, it is permanent financing that can be used to take out a construction loan.

Housing Attainability in Downtown Portland

In recent years, housing costs in Portland have been rising as the city becomes increasingly attractive within the State of Maine and as compared to other regions nationally. There has been little development of new housing affordable to current Portland residents and very little construction of new housing at all between 2007 and 2014. To address the issues of housing availability and affordability the City of Portland adopted a host of strategic policies and initiatives.

Eliminating Redundancy: Interlocal Agreements to Define Roles

Downtown El Paso’s interlocal agreement, which is similar in content and format to the agreements signed between different public agencies, is renegotiated every five years, providing an opportunity to re-assess existing programs or address new problems. The final document is what Downtown El Paso Executive Director Joe Gudenrath calls “a give and take” between the City’s and the BID’s priorities for downtown on projects ranging from community outreach and marketing to sanitation.

Paw-Pup Dog Park

The Thelda Williams Paw-Pup Dog Park is a temporary activation in downtown Phoenix, created using a license agreement between the Downtown Phoenix Partnership and the City of Phoenix.

Standard Contract Negotiation with the City

In 2014, the NYC BID Association, Small Business Services and City Law department produced a uniform contract agreement, which can be tailored to specific conditions via the exhibits tied to the contract. Beyond creating standardized language for contracting with the City of New York, the process also created greater cohesion among BIDs with differing budgets and resources as they worked together. By 2020, all 76 BIDs in the Association will be on the new standard contract.

Supporting the Growth of Technology Companies

The DC government has made the growth and attraction of technology companies a top economic development priority. To encourage existing companies to grow and stay in the District, and to attract new companies, the City developed the Qualified High Technology Companies (QHTC) incentive program.

Strategic Re-branding & Communication Effort

With archaic branding that only focused on one main street, the Downtown Tempe Authority (DTA) desperately needed to create a brand that encompassed their entire downtown, including residents, businesses, and other stakeholders. In addition, the brand elements needed to communicate to various audiences how they could interact, engage, and experience the place. The results of re-branding brought back many groups that were once alienated from downtown Tempe.

Quality of Life Building Blocks Worksheet

The following table offers a side-by-side comparison of Santa Ana’s and Delray Beach’s downtown nightlife economies. By examining various quality of life building blocks and how they affect issues and solutions in these two emerging downtown nighttime economies, you will see how every district faces different challenges and devises different solutions. Using these examples as a guide, you can then use the questions provided to dissect your own emerging nighttime economy.

Parking Management

Following significant budget cuts for the City of Tempe in 2010, the Downtown Tempe Agency proposed to City leadership to take over the parking enforcement and presented a plan that involved using existing funds generated by the on-street meter program. They knew introducing a more consistent program would enable parking revenues to increase. The DTA also planned to replace the single space coin-fed meters with credit-card-enabled meters.

Nighttime Economy Infrastructure Planning Guide and Checklist

A checklist of priorities a BID should have in mind at various stages of the development of a nighttime economy.

New Development Meets a Neglected Neighborhood

Congress Heights Community Training and Development Corporation developed a framework for investing in a place-based inclusive economic and social development strategy centered around Congress Heights. It was built on extensive community engagement with a broad variety of stakeholders, from large developers to local youth, to city economic development officials, to local civic association members and more.

Inclusive Place-Based Economic Development

In 2015, Charlotte’s downtown association, Charlotte Center City Partners, was invited by neighborhood advocates to catalyze a multi-year partnership effort to transform the Historic West End of Charlotte corridor. However, in West End, long-tenured residents and businesses threatened by rising property values feel this pressure acutely as they face predatory investors and find very limited affordable housing options for those who wish to move but stay in the neighborhood.

Creating a Physical Sense of Place by Enhancing Infrastructure

By seeking improvements to landscaping, pedestrian lighting, wayfinding, visual identity, and event infrastructure, the Cherry Creek North BID leveraged a massive infrastructure project to quite literally build a new sense of place for the area. Countless hours of stakeholder and community outreach were undertaken in addition to hiring the foremost experts in design, architecture, and planning.

Downtown Mobility Planning: Connect Downtown

The Greater Des Moines Partnership collaborated with the Iowa Chapter of the Urban Land Institute and the City of Des Moines to seek transportation improvements that could help increase downtown vibrancy. Collectively, the organizations analyzed existing conditions by measuring a multitude of metrics such as traffic counts, bicycle usage, pedestrian traffic, ease of crossing at intersections, sidewalk connectivity, bicycle facilities, connections to trails, lane widths, and number of accidents.

Making the Switch: Branding the Organization

In 2011, the Downtown Denver Partnership acknowledged the need for a cohesive brand for downtown Denver and embarked on a branding campaign that encouraged residents, visitors, and employees to enjoy all that downtown Denver had to offer. The downtown Denver brand was already beginning to surface organically as the city emerged from an economic downturn, and the Partnership embarked on creating a strategic marketing strategy to more intentionally encapsulate the place brand.

Transformation of 16th Street Mall

While considered the spine of downtown Denver, by 2016, the Mall’s image had become one of a place overrun by homeless and violent individuals. Comments on social media and media reports led to a general perception that the Mall was lost to crime and homelessness and not a place to visit. However, what most of the public did not realize was that the Downtown Denver Partnership had already been working with stakeholders to develop a Security Action Plan (SAP).

Driving Retail Growth with Holiday Pop Up Shops

With over 50,000 square feet of retail space available in a six-block radius, the Downtown Partnership of Colorado Springs, CO stepped in to attract new temporary, pop-up businesses during the holiday season as a means not only filling vacancies, but attracting customers to help preserve the retailers that still remained.

Alley Events & Activation

Downtown alleys—traditionally characterized as dirty and dark—present a unique opportunity for transforming unusual spaces into memorable public experiences. The Chicago Loop Alliance (CLA) pursued a broad placemaking program to activate underutilized public spaces (such as alleys). Termed “ACTIVATE,” the initiative transforms iconic Loop alleys into pop-up urban experiences. The events feature art, music, and more in unique urban settings.