Anaheim, hotels agree to divert some tourism funds toward workforce housing

 Tourism taxes of various sorts, on hotel room rentals, rental cars, restaurant meals, etc., are collected and depending on the locality, in their entirety are used to promote tourism, may contribute to a community's general fund, and in some exceptional and creative uses, to support a multi-faceted approach to the tourism economy and its local effects, one of which is the increased price of housing, making it much harder for workers to live close by.

Anaheim is a leader in allowing tourism taxes to be used for housing ("Anaheim, hotels agree to divert some tourism funds toward workforce housing," Orange County Register).

By contrast the State of Utah stated that Grant County's use of the tourism tax revenue stream to support tourism support services like salaries for trail ambassadors is unsupportable ("County eyes $1M in reimbursements to resolve tourism tax dispute," Times-Independent).  

The tax, collected from overnight visitors at hotels, campgrounds and vacation rentals, is used to promote tourism, support recreation and film production, fund convention meeting rooms and museums and help manage the impacts of tourism on local communities.

A significant portion of the proposed corrections involves the Moab Trail Ambassador Program. Operated by Grand County Active Transportation and Trails (GCATT), the program stations seasonal staff at popular recreation sites to educate visitors, distribute supplies, monitor trail conditions and promote responsible trail use.

... In a 2024 audit, the state auditor’s office found multiple issues with Grand County’s use of tourism tax funds — including the use of TRT promotion funds to pay Trail Ambassador salaries in 2021 and 2022. The office said the ambassadors’ work, which they reduced to “providing water and encouraging tourists to stay on trails” as mitigation rather than promotion and said their salaries should have come from the mitigation category instead.

To me it indicates the regulations around the use of the tourism tax revenue stream are flawed.  But intriguing over the difference between "promotion" and "mitigation."

The historical antecedents of rail-based transit oriented development

Today, many transit "nerds" lament how countries like Japan have amazing railroad stations replete with stores and other amenities, or that MTR in Hong Kong is an active developer and a significant amount of their annual revenue comes from property leasing, not just rider fares.

What the nerds fail to recognize is that for that to work, you need incredible passenger volumes.  "Small" stations in Tokyo have at least 100,000 riders per day, allowing the creation of great places that are also attractive to non-train users.

Even in the US, Grand Central Station and Penn Station aren't great places for retail ("MTA struggles to fix the dead mall under New York City," Crain's New York Business) despite their relatively high volumes of riders.  

The food hall at Grand Central Station in better days.

Other cities, even DC or Philadelphia or Los Angeles, with grand stations have a difficult time as well.  Smaller places have no real chance.

That being said, subway systems like DC's have been quite good at fostering economic development, even though it can take decades for the effects to fully play out.  One success in particular has been the infill New York Avenue Station ("NoMa: the neighborhood transit built," Urban Land).

But the reality is that most of the areas served by Metrorail in DC's core, both commercial districts and neighborhoods, have significantly improved in the almost 50 years since the system began opening.

 And because government agencies aren't especially good at entrepreneurship, most of the direct benefits have been reaped by real estate developers, although cities benefit from the tax revenues they generate.

A thread on Reddit got me to thinking about the antecedents that laid the foundation for today what we call transit oriented development.

Before trains there were the waterways--rivers, oceans, ports, canals--and bumpy roads that weren't a network.  Before electricity, water was also used as a form of power for industrial operations in particular "mills."  Lowell, Massachusetts created a set of canals so that flowing water could power all sorts of industry. 

Erie Canal.

Before railroads, George Washington thought what became Washington, DC would become an excellent location for commerce, by developing the C&O Canal to provide access to the nation's interior.  But canals took a long time to dig, especially when they were dug by hand. 

Railroads ended up overtaking canals for the primacy of commerce--although barge traffic is still significant today in some places--because they could serve locations beyond proximity to a river.

Freight Train services facilitated industrial development, transporting raw materials to plants for reproduction into final products, transporting finished goods, agricultural products, etc.  

Food companies trading at the national scale developed in response to railroad-based transportation created the foundation of the mass market of the US as a whole, rather than goods being produced and traded more regionally, because of the high cost to get goods to market before train service existed.  

E.g., instead of just a handful of stove manufacturers or battery makers today, most big cities had their own firms, because of the expense of shipping super heavy items.

In time, passenger railroad services helped to develop cities more generally, but also "suburbs," more bucolic places in a metropolitan area not too long a trip from "the city." An astute conductor for the New York Central Railroad recognized he had repeat riders "to the city," and proposed a reduced rate to ride, "commuted" from the regular rate.  It spawned the term "commuter."

The streetcar, in various iterations, facilitated residential development outside of the core of center cities, which were pretty much developed.  These are referred to as "streetcar suburbs" by the academics (Streetcar Suburbs: the Process of Growth in Boston, 1870-1900).

In the DC area, Chevy Chase is a classic streetcar suburb.  Takoma Park is a classic railroad suburb (Chevy Chase: A Home Suburb for the Nation's Capital).

Within the city, outer areas from the central core, like Mt. Pleasant or H Street NE were opened up to development by streetcar services.

Business districts around train stations.  For both passenger railroad stations and termination points for the streetcars, usually a small commercial district developed, focused on the sale of convenience goods, often times the area around the station may have had tenements, apartments, boarding houses, etc., in part serving railroad workers, but also providing lower cost housing.  

This was true at two different scales, the areas around city train terminals, and the stations serving suburban and rural communities.

Grand Central Station.  According to the Smithsonian Magazine, "New York’s Grand Central Terminal Helped Provide the Blueprint for American Cities. It Happened by Accident."  Trains serving the city ran on the surface, using coal powered locomotives.  It was dirty and grimy.  

Grand Central Station as the first example of Station Area Planning.  Terrible train crashes resulting in multiple deaths led the New York Central Railroad to create a new station, where the yard and tracks serving it were undergrounded, leading to a newly constructed grand station.  To pay for it, they built a deck over the railyard, and then leased those spaces to developers of office buildings, hotels, and other commercial establishments.

The station, bringing together multiple train lines, led to the concept of the "Union Station" or Terminal served by multiple railroads, rather than each firm ending service at its own station.  (Chicago today is a great example of that form of service, as some of the stations predating Union Station still exist.)

Still, creating Union Stations was hard because railroads competing and didn't want to lose what they thought of as their competitive advantage.

Grand Central Station as a civic monument.  The Station is also notable for harnessing the architecture and design around the station as a civic monument and anchor of the city.  Special attention was paid to the design of the station in all aspects, including entryways, waiting areas, retail services including food, and travel to and from the platform--GCS is far superior to Penn Station when it comes to "herding" passengers on and off the trains.

The Santa Fe Railroad versus the Transcontinental Railroad.  President Lincoln initiated the transcontinental railroad project as a national building exercise, linking east to west.  Union Pacific Railroad, from Omaha, and Central Pacific, from Sacramento, met in Utah, creating a nationally serving freight and passenger rail service by connecting to eastern railroads.

But the transcontinental railroad had/has a problem.  It served the northern and upper central parts of the West, which are underpopulated, although still with plenty of business for railroads. But not as much business compared to other areas.

The privately created Santa Fe Railroad, serving the southern and lower central parts of the West, was much better positioned to facilitate and take advantage of commerce ("How the Santa Fe Railroad Changed America Forever," Smithsonian Magazine, "The Entrance of the Santa Fé Railroad into California⁠," Pacific Historical Review).  

Astutely, the company created cities at prominent locations served by the railroad, pairing them with economic development programs (most all the railroads did a form of this) and marketing the areas to future residents ("Santa Fe Railroad Built Empire," Los Angeles Herald-Express), "Railroads and Real Estate - The Pacific Land Improvement Company," Orange County Historyland) and tourists.

The large scale Western National Parks drew millions of tourists arriving by train 

A parallel firm, The Fred Harvey Company, working with the railroad, developed hotels and restaurants along the line, and in the national parks.  The park concessionaire firm Xanterra, has its foundation in the Harvey Companies.

Extension of the Santa Fe to Chicago further facilitated the development of rail-based commerce.  Montgomery Ward created the first large scale retail catalog operation in Chicago, leveraging access to the railroads meeting there, serving all parts of the country.  Etc.

Brightline Florida and modern TOD.  Is a new private passenger railroad service between South Florida and Orlando, home to Disney World.  They intend to extend service to Tampa and possibly at some point, Jacksonville.  

I argue the reason they can make it privately, maybe--right now they are losing tons of money--is because tourists arriving in Orlando don't need a car once they are at Disney World.  

Rendering of a future train-served Downtown in Stuart, Florida.

Anyway, they claim to be driven by real estate development as a significant source of future revenue.

I'm somewhat doubtful, although development is happening at their stations, because of the relatively low usage of the train, plus the fact that station locations don't necessarily lend themselves to development the way they might in Japan or Hong Kong, or even in Downtown DC.

But the real estate believes otherwise  ("Shaping Florida’s Urban Future With Transit-oriented Development," NAIOP, "Beyond the Tracks: A Valuation Expert’s Guide to the Stuart Brightline Station," Walter Duke & Partners).  

Ironically, the State of Florida is a classic example of antecedent TOD as it was opened up to development by Henry Flagler, a founder of Standard Oil, and his creation of the Florida East Coast Railway (Henry Flagler: The Astonishing Life and Times of the Visionary Robber Baron Who Founded Florida).

Although, like other transit infrastructure projects, its creation is having a positive effect on the residential real estate market too ("Home price boom along Brightline train route in Florida," New York Post).

Giving Thanks

Norman Rockwell painting on "Freedom of Want," one of the four freedoms that President FDR said belonged to all Americans.  This is a poster published by the Office of War Information.  It was also the cover art for an issue of the Saturday Evening Post.

I've always said the Thanksgiving meal of turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans and pumpkin pie was my favorite.  

In my post-cancer "mouth" phase, turkey now seems to me to be pretty mealy, so we're having ham instead.  No stuffing.

I am adding mashed butternut squash to the menu, will make cranberry orange relish (100x better than canned), and I made an olive tapenade for appetizers.  

Last week I made some refrigerator pickles, so I'll put them out too.  I wanted them to be hot but they aren't.  They are more like the quick pickle without dill on the pickle bar at Parkway Deli in Silver Spring--I miss them so much.  No deli in Utah compares.

For the tapenade, the 1950s blender I have was strong enough, I put it on high, thinking it would have a problem with the olives, but nope, it's a paste, rather than a little more chunky.  

I'm getting wood fired oven focaccia bread from the Central 9th Market, I just can't bake in an oven to that level of bread softness that they pull off.

Scary for me, there's an article about how a big meal like at Thanksgiving can trigger a heart attack ("Why big meals can trigger heart attacks, just like stress or heavy exercise," Washington Post). I have heart failure but haven't had a heart attack.

In past entries for Thanksgiving I've suggested giving books such as on the regional cuisine or a subscription to one of the Edible Communities publications, instead of bringing bottles of wine or beer.  

-- "Improving the food system related host/ess gifts for Thanksgiving," 2023

Poverty in the midst of abundance/Food (in)security.  Is all the more relevant this year, given the Trump Administration cuts to food support programs, the willingness to suspend SNAP food benefits as part of the shutdown without any regard for people and the pain of food poverty ("Some SNAP recipients still waiting on payments ahead of Thanksgiving," USA Today, "SNAP Benefits Map Shows How Many People Face Being Removed in Each State," Newsweek. "SNAP recipients will now get up to 65% of November food stamp benefits, Trump administration says," CBS). 

The opinion piece in the New York Times, "Opinion | A New Era of Hunger Has Begun," discusses this in the context of the increased demand at a food bank in Western Massachusetts.

Cutting SNAP will drastically increase the pressure on food banks. Their pantries are a model of decency, of coherent community efforts on behalf of people in need. Their offerings aid families suffering emergencies, but although they supplement SNAP, they don’t fill nearly as many stomachs. According to Feeding America, which oversees food banks across the country, SNAP provides nine times as much food as all of its 200 food banks combined. Moreover, because SNAP money goes mainly to people who live in urgent need, the funds are quickly spent, injecting economic activity into local economies. Each $1 in SNAP benefits adds as much as $1.50 to the country’s gross domestic product, a helpful buffer during economic downturns and recessions.

Political conservatives have long disliked SNAP. Many of them argue that it’s poorly run and discourages Americans from providing for themselves. And yet the need for SNAP is obvious, dire and nationwide. There is no county in America, no matter how wealthy, where the only hungry people are those on diets. The most recent data available estimates that 47.4 million Americans suffered from the threat of hunger at some point in 2023. Among these people, 13.8 million were children. Almost seven million households experienced what’s referred to as very low food security, meaning they sometimes had to go without a meal, or even a day’s worth of meals, and often didn’t know where their next meal was coming from. Disproportionate percentages of Black and Latino Americans shared in the misery.

... In all, the law will take about $1.2 trillion away from social programs over the next decade. Its supporters like to say that their changes will reduce fraud and waste and save social programs for the future, but part of the intent is clearly to save money for other purposes — such as adding more than $100 billion to help squads of men in masks cleanse America of undocumented immigrants. The Republican Congress also chose to extend the large tax cuts of Mr. Trump’s first term. Mainly for that reason, the law will end up adding about $3.4 trillion to the country’s huge deficit over 10 years, according to the C.B.O.’s estimate.

... To many Republicans, the domestic policy law — which Mr. Trump calls the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act (such a triumphal phrase, like a schoolyard boast) — represents a victory in a long-running attempt at “entitlement reform,” at repairing, if not eliminating, the programs that make up the nation’s social safety net. But this so-called reform does nothing to lessen the hardships of the people those programs were created to assuage.

The Stop: How the Fight for Good Food Transformed a Community and Inspired a Movement is a book about the repositioning of a "needy" food bank to a community food center in Toronto, which also touched off a national movement to shift how food banks operate in Canada ("Food activist Nick Saul on why we’re ripe for a revolution" and "Nick Saul: The man who built the foodie bank," Toronto Star).  

With food aid in the United States being cut in so many different ways, repositioning food banks about food systems and community strengths seems out of the question.

Plus there is the rise in the cost of health care, the cuts that are coming to health programs.  All relevant to the concept of health equity and focusing on the social determinants of health ("Health equity devolves to cities and states as the federal government cuts taxes for the wealthy").

More recently there have been calls to recognize the roots of indigenous peoples in the Thanksgiving holiday.  These days, with the Trump anti-DEI campaign, I can't recall seeing much about revisiting the indigenous perspective.

We took the land.  The Boston Gobe's review of the book This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving by GWU Professor David Silverman reminds us of the reality that the land we have, America, was taken from Native Americans.

KALW-FM, the public radio station in San Francisco, featured an interview with Professor Silverman.

-- "The Myths of the Thanksgiving Story and the Lasting Damage They Imbue," Smithsonian Magazine

A few years ago the Globe had an interesting story on Plimoth Plantation, the re-enactment heritage park focused on the origin story of English settlement in Massachusetts.  Recently, the site was renamed Plimoth Patuxet Plantation, to directly include Native Americans, although the article argues the site has a long way to go to tell a richer, more complete and accurate story ("More than name change may be needed at former Plimoth Plantation").

Isle of Man stamp commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower.

The New York Times has an article, "The Thanksgiving Myth Gets a Deeper Look This Year," about greater efforts at re-examination of the mythology around Thanksgiving, and the putting forward of the Native American interpretation.  For decades, Native Americans in New England have termed Thanksgiving as a National Day of Mourning, to recognize the trials and tribulations in the face of English settlement.

Bon Appetit has an article about Native American chefs and Thanksgiving.  From the article:

To many Native people, reckoning with Thanksgiving can be difficult—for obvious reasons. This is partially why the I-Collective, an organization of indigenous chefs and activists across the country, was born ("Brit Reed is leading a new generation of indigenous chefs"). The group hosts Thanksgiving dinners with a decidedly different narrative, celebrating the resilience of their people and telling their stories through food.

We are all immigrants.  At the same time, Thanksgiving should remind us, given the anti-immigrant focus of the Trump Administration ("There’s no other way to explain Trump’s immigration policy. It’s just bigotry," Washington Post) that every person in the United States, except for those of Native American descent, descends from immigrants, including people first brought here by force.  

A few years ago, when the Post was liberal they ran this editorial, "Gratitude once suffused America. Today, things are not as they should be." Given their new conservative slant I doubt they'd do so today.

These days they're more likely to be calling attention to "Supply Side Jesus."

Downtown D.C. BID seeks arts director to mold a theater, entertainment district

Warner Theater.

Article in the Washington Business Journal. 

The Downtown D.C. Business Improvement District hopes to mold the city's arts, culture and entertainment community into something akin to London's West End theater district, playing into a larger effort by the Bowser administration to recast the perception of D.C. as more than just home to the nation's capital.

The BID began accepting applications last week for a new director of downtown arts, culture and entertainment, with an advertised salary range of $105,000 to $125,000 and a start date as soon as Dec. 22.

The selected candidate will be charged with helping to position downtown D.C. as the region's premier destination for arts, culture, entertainment and sports, a move it hopes will boost visitation and position downtown as an appealing backdrop for companies looking to attract and retain workers. The individual will also be responsible for coming up with funding sources to sustain the effort, which could take the form of a dedicated fund, grants, sponsorships or even the creation of a stand-alone nonprofit to lead those fundraising efforts. In short, it's a big job, and somebody's got to do it, said Gerren Price, the BID's president and CEO.

Building and sharing audiences.  Interestingly, 20 years ago or so I applied for a marketing position at the Warner Theater in Downtown DC. 

At the time I didn't realize they were/are managed by LiveNation, the international arts management group, so I had no chance.

One of the points I made in my cover letter is that even if they compete nightly against the National Theatre for audiences, the reality was they needed to work together to build the audience for theaters in Downtown DC collectively. (E.g. + Landsburgh Shakespeare Theatre, Ford's Theater, Wooly Mammoth, etc.)

I later repeated this in my talk to the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs national conference in DC in 2009, summarized in my entry, "Arts, Culture Districts, and Revitalization." 

The overall point that it was up to theater as a discipline "to make their own plan(s)" that they shouldn't rely on real estate developers and even culture planners to do it for them.

And I made the point they need to share audiences and build the overall audience of people willing to go to Downtown DC to see theater.

Playhouse Square.

Pittsburgh and Cleveland as models.  For years, I've made the point that the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and the Playhouse Theater Foundation in Cleveland are models for how the city could address development and operation of cultural facilities.

-- "The Howard and Lincoln Theatres: run them like the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust/Playhouse Square Cleveland model," 2012
-- "Pittsburgh Cultural Trust maintains diverse real estate portfolio to support arts," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
-- "How the Arts Drove Pittsburgh's Revitalization," The Atlantic

London's National Theatre.  The recent entry, "Theater Roundup," about theater developments around the country, mentioned the trials and tribulations of the Kennedy Center, comparing it to the great success of the National Theatre in London.  

Director Indhu Rubasingham leverages the national and international place of London in the theater discipline ("National Theatre director Indhu Rubasingham: ‘If I wasn’t scared, I wouldn’t be doing my job’" "Indhu Rubasingham: the National Theatre’s new artistic director takes centre stage," Financial Times) and focuses on innovation and providing a diverse array of programs in part to reach a variety of demographics.  Also see "How to get National Theatre tickets for £10," IanVisits.

 “You can’t be all things to all people, but you can try to offer as broad a range as possible — whether that’s a western classic, an international classic, international new writing or promoting the brilliance we have around the country. The National is a flag-bearer as well as an innovator. It’s a provoker as well as populist. It’s brilliant when it’s doing all those things at once.”

The Kennedy Center hasn't really taken on this kind of role vis a vis the national theater ecosystem in the US. 

Graphic from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Theater as presentation versus theater as production.  The roundup piece also references discussion in Pittsburgh about the difference between theater companies that actively produce plays, versus organizations that present plays from the national circuit, like Hamilton, Cats, etc. 

-- "'Cultural coffin': Pittsburgh's thespians and universities react to theater woes," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
-- "Survey Shows Chicago Small Arts Sector Thriving," American Theatre

Theater production companies contribute to the development and maintenance of the local arts ecosystem, by hiring and paying playwrights, actors, musicians, and back of the house production. 

A showing of Cats does not have the same kind of local impact.

If local colleges and universities have active theater programs, all the better.  For example, in Pittsburgh Carnegie-Mellon is particularly well known.  But DC has a great program and on campus theater at Catholic University too.

The Washington City Paper has reported on an element of this in how cutting back on house staff reduces the pool of local talent and economic benefits to the local economy ("What’s Lost When Theaters Lose Production Crews?").  

Tourists as an element of the market.  Like NYC and Chicago, at least in the past, tourists, not having access to the same array of programming back home, often took in a show as part of their trip to DC.  Of course, NYC has tourists who come to the city because it is a theater destination.  DC is not quite the same.  Except maybe regionally.  

A dissertation on DC's Arena Stage makes the point that it is the closest theater in the city to playing the kind of role National Theatre does in London ("Performing (Non)Profit, Race, and American Identity in the Nation's Capital: Arena Stage, 1950-2010").  

Another dissertation argued that the city's National Theatre played a more national role, when the city was more of a premier tourist destination, and there was less opportunity to consume theater in their own locales ("National theater or public theater: The transformation of the theatrical geography of Washington, D.C., circa 1970–1990").

In region visitors will matter a lot.  But tourists or DC residents aren't enough to fuel the creation of a larger theater ecosystem in Downtown DC.  Metropolitan area residents will have to make up a big proportion of the audience day in and day out in order to be successful.

London.

Peer cities review.  It behooves the BID to do peer case studies, on cities like London, Manhattan (Broadway Theaters: An economic engine for New York, Broadway League), Chicago ("Loop economy boosted by theatre and investment during fall and winter 2022," Chicago Loop Alliance, "Driven by arts and culture, pedestrian traffic in Downtown Chicago exceeds pre-pandemic levels, report finds," WBEZ/NPR), and Hamburg wrt musicals ("Broadway on the Elbe," New York Times), and figure out if the initiative, even though focused on Downtown, will provide assistance and marketing support to theaters and university programs outside of the core of the city.

Similarly, New York City's segmentation of theater productions as Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway is a useful rubric for recognizing that all "theater" is not the same.  Again, presentation of programs in DC that were originally on Broadway has a different economic impact than locally-produced theater and building the audience for it ("Studies Show Big Impact of Small Theatres in NY, Chicago," American Theatre)

Public comment period: Redevelopment at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Campus | Closes December 19th

Binta Robinson, author of a great letter to the editor in the Washington Post, "How to fix D.C.’s crumbling sports infrastructure," suggesting that the Mubudala DC Citi Tennis Open could be shifted from its low density residential location in Rock Creek Park to the campus of a new Commanders football stadium, informs us that there is a public comment period on the redevelopment of the RFK site because the National Park Service is the underlying owner of the land.

-- Public comment period: Redevelopment at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Campus, closes at 11:59pm EST on December 19th.

The main court for the Miami Open is a temporary court constructed within the main Miami Hard Rock Stadium.

I expanded on her letter with this blog entry, "You get what you plan for: the multi-use Miami Hard Rock Stadium versus typical football stadiums | Washington Commanders," going into more depth about how the Miami Dolphins organization has planned and executed a deep program of multiple events at the stadium complex, which among other elements includes a large tennis complex and facilities for the Miami Open Tennis Tournament.

Typically, football stadiums are minimally used and have limited local economic development impact.  This is even more true in DC, which unlike most other jurisdictions, is unable to tax day-of-game income on home and visiting players.  The Dolphins demonstrate this doesn't have to be the case.

DC Streetcar as an opportunity to serve the Commanders Campus.

Construction galore before the DC streetcar even opened.

In "Streetcars: transit, economic development levers, source for discontent in local politics" I mention that the DC Streetcar could be extended into the Commanders campus, rather than be dropped:

DC's streetcar is the textbook example of poor planning, yet it has sparked more than $1 billion in new or planned development ("DC and streetcars #4: from the standpoint of stoking real estate development, the line is incredibly successful and it isn't even in service yet, and now that development is extending eastward past 15th Street," "Update/revision of H Street transit oriented real estate development table").  

Streetcars are an example of what economic development professionals call a priming device.

To me that's a success.  Even though there is an even more important planning lesson--if you build a short disconnected line rather than a streetcar network, it's not going to be very effective at transit.  That's the case with Seattle too.

Foolishly, DC is dumping the streetcar--it never committed to network creation--even though the streetcar serves the northern side of the campus for the new football team stadium ("Transformative $3.7 billion Commanders stadium deal passes D.C. Council," Washington Post). Very shortsighted.  You could pop a streetcar spur into the campus.

Extend the streetcar beyond a Commanders campus to make it even more useful.  A letter to the editor in GGW by Ward 7 resident Pat Bahn extends this point further, that such a service could be extended past the campus to the Benning Road Station, making the streetcar service much more useful than the current truncated line that exists at present.  Reprinted here:

Streetcar for the new Commanders stadium (re: “RFK isn’t big enough for a stadium with NFL-sized parking” and “Whether or not it gets a stadium, RFK needs a second Metro station”)

The stadium presents a unique opportunity for growing the Ward 7 commercial and residential neighborhoods East of the River (EOTR). GGWash has rightly pointed out that the stadium footprint is small for a car-oriented stadium and that significant investment in parking structures would only have limited revenue opportunities associated to games and concerts. GGWash has argued for the utility of a second Metro station at Oklahoma Avenue and how that could create a viable walk shed to the stadium, and GGWash has written about the tie in with the planned streetcar extension to Benning Road Station on the Blue Line.

The campus in its heyday.

What is missed out is the opportunity this really presents to bring the streetcar line back in a loop along East Capital Avenue across the Whitney Young Memorial Bridge. This loop could swing past the stadium and even along the Stadium-Armory Metro station, before returning back to the Oklahoma Avenue station. This would serve to tie potentially five Metro stations and four lines (Blue, Orange, Silver, Red) to the streetcar and create the opportunity for transit-oriented development (TOD) along East Capital Avenue, Benning Road, and Minnesota Avenue while leveraging billions in existing infrastructure.

What the Washington Commanders football team says they'll create.

An integrated intermodal streetcar could allow the Benning, Mahaning and Marshall Heights, Greenway and River Terrace [neighborhoods] to all benefit from the stadium and become a modern 21st century community. Visitors could park all across the Blue and Orange lines and metro to Minnesota Avenue to pre-game and ride the streetcar to the stadium, and the city could zone in more mixed-use development on lot 6 and 7 creating revenue, jobs, and housing the city desperately needs. For far less than the cost of parking structures, the city could build light rail passenger transit that would serve the city every day while driving investment into Ward 7.

The San Francisco MUNI system serves the Giants baseball stadium.

Giants fans leave the MUNI headed for the park. The San Francisco Giants play the Anaheim Angels in Games 5 of the World Series at Pac Bell Park in San Francisco, Ca. October 24, 2002. 

Mike Kepka/San Francisco Chronicle

The vision GGWash has elucidated in the above articles is too small a vision for a great global city, the possibilities of a river spanning development could truly make the stadium an asset for every person in the city.

An Oklahoma Avenue Metrorail Station is something I have recommended as part of a revitalization planning framework for East of the River ("Wanted: A comprehensive plan for the "Anacostia River East" corridor," 2012).

And a Separated Silver Line.  In writing about an Oklahoma Avenue Station--originally planned for but rejected by the community, which made sense at the time because it would have been an end of the line station when built, more oriented to suburban commuters driving in--I paired it with the concept of a Separated Silver Line.

This graphic appeared in the Washington Post in two articles in 2001.

-- "Coming to a Curve: Region's Subway System Begins to Show Its Age, Limits," March 25, 2001, p. A01
-- "Crowds Could Derail Decades of Progress," March 26, 2001, p. A01

This concept was originally a Separated Blue Line, devised by WMATA to add platforms at the heavily congested Rosslyn Station, continuing on with a station alignment into DC through Georgetown and east of the main Metrorail lines Downtown.  

It would have further connected to Union Station, adding an additional subway line there to support rail passenger expansion, and would have continued onto H Street with a couple stations, probably ending at Minnesota Avenue Station.  But that concept was dropped when WMATA had budget problems.

-- "Metro's Expansion Creaks to a Halt: Soft Economy, Changes in Political Priorities Cancel Projects, Prompt Job Cuts," July 12, 2003, p. A01

This graphic was courteously produced by David Alpert illustrated some Metrorail expansion concepts I wrote about in the 2010s.  It doesn't show separation of the Silver Line on Rte. 50.

Later I suggested it could be a Separated Silver Line instead, providing additional stations in Virginia on Route 50, and in DC with a spur up Bladensburg Road into Prince George's County, but continuing on Benning Road to the Oklahoma Avenue Station and picking up the Blue Line alignment ("More on Redundancy, engineered resilience, and subway systems: Metrorail failures will increase without adding capacity in the core." 2016), making the Blue Line a truncated line only serving Virginia.

It could be extended further south to Fort Belvoir and Quantico ("A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for the Metrorail Blue Line," 2020)

After the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opened, stakeholders realized that while they had a good subway system, they needed better surface transit and began the creation of a tram network to serve the Guggenheim and other tourist destinations. 

Conclusion.  The streetcar and Metrorail expansion proposals build on my concept of Transformational Projects Action Planning ("Why can't the "Bilbao Effect" be reproduced? | Bilbao as an example of Transformational Projects Action Planning," 2017), which harnesses anchor infrastructure projects to further spread complementary improvements to civic and transportation asset networks in a region.

In this case, that would be the football stadium in DC, with plans to improve (1) East of the River revitalization efforts, (2) Metrorail expansion and intensification and additional stations within DC and Virginia, and (3) renewed efforts to build a more useful streetcar line and network.

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Also see:

-- "Another example of RFPs versus plans and letting developers set the agenda: stadium projects in Chicago," 2025
-- "Sports facilities and the reproduction of retail space often doesn't work for the locals," 2025
-- "Framework of characteristics that support successful community development in association with the development of professional sports facilities," 2021
-- "Suburban stadium/arena interest a function of new, younger generations of ownership or a better real estate play?," 2023

-- "Capital One Arena, Wizards and Capitals may move to Alexandria | Why not the RFK campus," 2023
-- "Good quote on arenas and stadiums as "performing arts centers" attractions for cities," 2024
-- "Revisiting "Framework of characteristics that support successful community development in association with the development of professional sports facilities" and the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team + Phoenix Coyotes hockey," 2022
-- "Yes, modify and extend the RFK Campus lease; No, don't do it for the Washington Redskins football team," 2018

New trends in making offices attractive: high quality amenities | Downtown place values

An empty subway car during the evening commute.

Covid and post-covid work from home practices have crushed downtowns (and transit systems), which now may have 50% or fewer the number of daily worker visits.  

RTO or return to office has been promoted by cities to bring support back to Downtown commerce ("Downtown Downturn: The Covid Shock to Brick-and-Mortar Retail," JPMorganChase) and it fits in well with the long held belief that if workers aren't there, they aren't working.  Although some firms still like WFH because it reduces the amount of space they need to lease.

Crain's New York Business has an interesting article, "Why Manhattan office stocks are tanking as demand for space soars," making the point that required investments in making office buildings more attractive to companies and workers is depressing stock values, even if the spaces are profitable, compared to the many buildings that are being sold for distressed prices ("Working from home could wipe $800 billion from office values globally," CNN).  From the article:

The softening job market might still cool demand for office space. But JPMorgan believes something else explains why Manhattan office stocks are performing so poorly in such a strong market: Developers are spending heavily on the fastest elevators and the most amenable amenities. Those investments are increasing overhead and depressing cash flow, meaning shareholders must wait longer to see returns. Faced with that prospect, institutions are putting their money elsewhere.

Paolone wrote a report Monday describing how this scenario is playing out at Vornado Realty Trust. The developer has invested more than $1 billion transforming two towers overlooking Penn Station. Tenants pay up to 40% more in rent for improved space in the buildings. Verizon Communications just leased 200,000 square feet in the tower called Penn 2.

New tenants will receive roughly one year of free rent at the start of their leases, a common perk among New York’s office towers. Vornado’s “actual cash flow is pretty depressed,” until those tenants start paying rent, Paolone told Crain’s. He upgraded the company’s stock to “neutral” from “underweight,” but still doesn’t recommend buying it.

This dovetails with an interview of Aaron Stauber, whose firm Rugby Properties is the largest commercial property owner in Downtown Pittsburgh ("Where Downtown Pittsburgh’s largest private property owner thinks the Golden Triangle is headed," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). 

Mr. Stauber has spent years investing in buildings “people give up on,” he said. Since Mr. Stauber took over One Oxford Centre, five tenants have renewed a total of 90,000 square feet of office space.

... PG: Since the pandemic, how have tenant expectations shifted as companies attempt to bring workers back into the office?

Mr. Stauber: There seems to be clear trends. Workers realized that they were working at home in a pleasant environment and they were getting work done. So, there is much more of a trend for employers — especially [companies that] want to build up their corporate community — to create office spaces that feel better for workers.

Wood finishings, 222 Second Street Office Tower, San Francisco

As a result of that, what we’re finding is that even though there is reduction in headcount, a lot of times, it’s accompanied with equal or expanded space. They’re going to put in more room to feel more comfortable, so you don’t feel like you’re a mouse in a trap. The other trend is that they’re locating in buildings that afford their employees a potpourri of non-work opportunities. That would include fitness centers … or cafes and lounge areas where tenants can get out of the workspace environment.

Compared to prepandemic, we’re actually getting significantly higher rent for our spaces because our tenants have higher expectations for our buildings. There’s an understanding that if you want to have that type of building, you’re going to have to pay for it.

Stauber says building owners can't go halfway.  They have to commit to the creation of an amenity rich space, or move on and sell. 

This section of an office building looks like a hip restaurant.

Also see "Transforming Office Amenities into Experiential Advantage," GreshamSmith, "Three amenities owners are adding to office buildings," JLL, "Evolution of Office Amenities," NAIOP, "Creating spaces for everyone: bridging the multi-generational gap," Cushman & Wakefield, "Amenities at the Edge: Where the Workplace Meets the Street," Gensler, "The Repositioning of Office Buildings: Creating Amenity-Rich Experiences in the Post-Pandemic U.S.," ArchDaily).

Separately, there is the renewed phenomenon of conversion of office buildings to residential.  This is tough, it works better with older buildings, because new buildings have a lot of interior space on large floorplates that are far from windows.

Adding residents will increase demand for the retail and cultural amenities that are currently hurting for business, but there are complications.

-- "The unintended consequences of converting office buildings to housing: the need for public safety; schools; amenities" (2022)
--"What is the competitive advantage for the post-covid city? Doubling down on place values"(2022)
--"Downtown St. Paul needs 20,000 more people to thrive | implications for urban revitalization in the post covid city" (2024)

In the 1970s, an elementary school was built on the ground floor of an apartment building in St. Lawrence neighborhood of Toronto.  This was supposed to happen in a new development in Toronto's waterfront, but was shifted to a standalone building ("Toronto’s first school in a condo was promised for the waterfront. Plans have changed — and parents are not happy," Toronto Star).  In the Flushing Commons development in Queens, NYC, a YMCA is being built as part of the second phase.

For a new hospital complex in Salt Lake, I suggested a decaying community recreation center could be shifted to a new facility--with a pool--on the ground floor.

State of Utah Long Term Risks report

I was struck by the book The Fifth Risk, in its discussion about the Energy Department during the Obama Administration, and their emphasis on identifying and managing risk.  From the ReadyRoom blog entry "Risk Management Book Club #2: The Fifth Risk":

The book's title comes from MacWilliams's assessment of the risks faced by the country at the time of this transition: nuclear accidents; nuclear attacks from North Korea and Iran; an attack on the electrical grid; and project management, "the fifth risk." MacWilliams, a professional risk manager, believed the seamless transition of responsibility at DOE was key to its ability to protect the country.

In a post, I argue that a city's elected officials and stakeholders should see themselves as risk managers ("Town-city management: "We are all asset managers now"," "Learning the wrong lessons from risk management: GFC, Boeing (+ deregulation)"), and how like with large settlements because of police department misconduct, that's an indicator of a failure to manage risk ("Killing people is seen as a routine outcome, not as an indicator of the need for change: Orange County Sheriff's Department versus Fullerton Police Department," "Where is the risk management approach to police misconduct and regularized killings of citizens?").

So the fact that the State of Utah Legislature's Auditor General has produced a report on the long term risks faced by the state, High-Risk List" Identifying and Mitigating Critical Vulnerabilities in Utah – 2025, is quite interesting. (The report is modeled after one produced by the Government Accountability Office at the start of each new Congress.) The top ten risks are:

1. Meeting Utah's water needs 
2. Aging water infrastructure 
3. Education pathways to in-demand professions
4. Insufficient behavioral health capacity 
5. Planning effective transportation 
6. Public workforce shortages 
7. Improving housing affordability 
8. Utah's energy policy 
9. Threats to cybersecurity and data privacy 
10. Federal revenue diversification

In fall 2022, the Great Salt Lake hit its lowest water level since record keeping began. The lake’s elevation sank to nearly six meters below the long-term average. Photo: C. Yamane

I'm surprised the possible dissipation of the Great Salt Lake is not listed separately ("‘Last nail in the coffin’: Utah’s Great Salt Lake on verge of collapse," Guardian, "The Great Salt Lake Is Drying. Can Utah Save It?," New York Times, "The Great Salt Lake is shrinking. What can we do to stop it?," Science News).

Nor the impact of Climate Change and the Environment--a state that emphasizes outdoor tourism in particular skiing ought to be thinking about the long term effects of less snowfall, especially with the possibility of Utah being the permanent site of the Winter Olympics ("What will it take to save the Great Salt Lake by the 2034 Winter Olympics? It depends on whom you ask.," Salt Lake Tribune). And air quality, especially in the winter--I'm amazed that the EPA gives the Salt Lake Valley a pass on this.  

I hope "agricultural priorities" is an element of water needs.  The face is 80% of water use is for agriculture, and half that goes to alfalfa production which is mostly shipped overseas for cattle feeding.  So China basically is getting Utah's water for cheap.  From the NYT:

While climate change has contributed to extensive water shortages in the Southwest, the Great Salt Lake’s decline is mostly human-caused. Agriculture uses 71 percent of the water that would otherwise flow to the lake, and cities use around 17 percent, according to research compiled by the Great Salt Lake Strike Team, a group of climate scientists, policy analysts and state regulators.

Climate change also poses risks to households ("Climate change makes "ordinary living" a lot more risky," "Planning for heat/climate change | Public health," and "Climate change is already here in many US communities | "Heat Officers" versus Climate Change Officers"). Also see "The New American Inequality: The Cooled vs. the Cooked, and "Homeless and Burning in Phoenix, America's Hottest City," New York Times.

I don't see how Utah's energy policy is deserving of a call out and the more general issue of Climate Change and the Environment is not.

Chevron refinery at night.

Utah as a petro state.  I haven't fully read the report, but for a few years I've argued that Utah is a petro state, that the concept of nations as petro states ("The Petro States of America," Bloomberg) can be thought of sub-nationally.  

There are five refineries in Salt Lake and North Salt Lake, refining oil from Utah and Wyoming. Much of it is sold to markets outside the state.  And the state is getting approval for a railroad on federal lands to ship out crude oil for refining overseas.

Except for California, policy in petro states in the US and Canada favors fossil fuels, although Utah is gambling on nuclear energy ("Utah unveils plans to bring nuclear hub to Brigham City," Salt Lake Tribune).  

Another element of a petro state is its place within the automobile economy.  Utah doesn't have any auto manufacturing plants, but two of the ten largest car dealership groups are based in the state, adding their voice too fossil fuel supremacy.  

And road building, more than transit extension, is the top priority of the Utah Department of Transportation.  

The State Legislature even goes to the extent of trying to prevent "traffic calming" initiatives in Salt Lake City ("Bill giving UDOT veto power over some SLC street projects moves to governor’s desk," Salt Lake Tribune).

Technically, Utah is more of an extractive resources economy.  25% of the state budget comes from taxes on copper mining--but the state is second to Minnesota for copper production.  The oil thing is just a chaser.  Coal is an element that's up there too ("Mining is big business in Utah — to the tune of billions of dollars per year," Salt Lake Deseret News).

No takers.  An EV charging station in Moab, Utah.

Yet from the air quality and Olympics angle, were I state leaders, I'd push for the concept of EV only sales of automobiles by 2035 ("US Senate votes to block California 2035 electric vehicle rules," Reuters), the year after the Olympics, as a way to shift away from fossil fuels and to improve air quality and limit the impact of higher temperatures brought on by climate change.

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) New home construction in Saratoga Springs on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020.

I'd say sprawl/urban development form--the Salt Lake Valley is the epitome of the sprawl, despite all you read about Utah being ahead of the pack in environmental planning ("The Utah Model: Lessons for Regional Planning," Brookings)--is also a risk in terms of water use, energy use, air quality, climate change and the environment, etc. ("More suburban sprawl won’t fix Utah’s housing affordability problem," "Utah launches all-out push to build thousands of new ‘starter homes’ that you might be able to afford," "Many Utahns ‘stuck’ with hourlong commutes amid housing crisis," Salt Lake Tribune).

I'd also add the risks of continual tax reduction and political homogeneity.  The state prides itself on growth--expecting to add 2 million more residents by 2065.  The legislators constantly cut taxes, saying "we need to share the benefits of growth" when the fact is, growing places need to spend more on creating new infrastructure and replacing aging infrastructure*, not less.  A city and county risk is frequent interference and law preemption by the State Legislature.

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Flickr photo by Steven Vance.  It's a nice park....

* One example is the park I'm on the board of--one building in dire need of replacement is 61 years old.

We have tens of millions of dollars in unfunded capital improvement projects.  One source of funds we'd normally rely on, won't happen until 2029, because it needs to go on next year's ballot, and after a ballot failure last year, the County Mayor is postponing it to the next cycle.

Budget cutbacks mean a bunch of projects we intended to start in 2027 won't be funded, as the County looks to increase property tax by 20%--the first property tax increase in 6 years--and of course, people are up in arms ("Salt Lake County mayor proposes nearly 20% property tax increase," KUTV).  And our park is but one site in an array of hundreds that have serious capital needs.