After several meetings of the Downtown Survey Committee, we’re ready to share some preliminary findings using publicly available data and our open source GIS software. The Downtown Survey was voted as one of our priority campaigns for 2024, so much of our efforts this summer was in collecting available data, sending in Freedom of Information Act requests, and learning how to put it all together into a coherent narrative. We as the Revivalists think that the Downtown is the nucleus of our community and therefore, we should ensure its future health.
Strong Towns has done much work with an urban planning firm, Urban3. These reports that Urban3 have created conduct a fiscal analysis of the productivity of the land. Our GIS Subcommittee, Tyler Pessler, Nolan Owens, and myself, decided to do our own math using publicly available data. Below are the maps prepared by our very own Tyler Pessler:
Total Tax Value
The first map above shows the total amount of taxes billed to each parcel in the 2023 tax year. Our GIS team had to do some math for parcels that are condominiums and are taxed per unit. Some quick takeaways, there are many downtown properties that pay more than $19,000 a year in property taxes, but there are more that are untaxed.
It is important to note that this gathering of untaxed parcels is common for county seats and other government centers. The lots in gray largely help the local economy and the city through jobs created and people working downtown also happen to often spend money downtown for things like lunch breaks.
Tax Value Per Acre
Our GIS team took the total taxes by parcel and then divided those numbers by the total area of each parcel. This is where we start to see the magic of small downtown parcels. Historically, in every city across America narrow and deep downtown parcels were built out to the lot line, creating a fundamentally urban and walkable environment. It was a very effective use of space.
Strong Towns advocates champion downtown-style development for a reason: it makes fiscal sense. Planners have used the “tax value per acre” as a metric to determine if a development project can at least provide for the replacement value of the infrastructure that services it.
Small footprint buildings the likes of main street punch way above their weight compared to their auto-centric counterparts. This effect is multiplied when you have an entire street of these downtown-style buildings.
Doing some back-of-the-napkin math, if we replaced the footprint of the Westside Walmart with Coffee Hound type buildings, it would generate about $2.5 million in property taxes alone. That is why we are fighting for renovating currently empty buildings and constructing more of these buildings downtown. Plus, the Coffee Hound building provides housing and supports local entrepreneurs whereas Walmart is an extractive business model and its building has limited reuse options.
The Streetscape Vision
When the Downtown for Everyone plan was released and the first portion funded earlier this year, residents and business owners were excited to see a vision for downtown that has been stagnant from transformational plans for far too long. The plan calls for a complete reimagination of the public space in downtown to be much more pedestrian and cycle friendly.
This vision will be funded in separate phases over the course of years, so this project will indeed take some time to fully see its effects. This will certainly strengthen the allure of downtown, but there needs to be a true concerted effort to revitalize the vacant and underutilized parcels to cause a long lasting upward trajectory in the area.
A “Strong Towns” Response
Our Local Conversation is championing a “Strong Towns” response to redevelopment in Downtown Bloomington. Yes, the streetscape vision makes our city a better, more walkable place, but it does not provide a full picture for urban revitalization that our city requires. The streetscape vision seeks to repair the shared public realm between the buildings, we are wanting to make sure that the destinations (buildings and businesses) of Downtown are worth visiting. We can do this by focusing on three strategies:
- Reduce existing vacancies
- Incremental approach to infill development
- Seek to lower impact of non-taxed parcels
Reduce Vacancies
Vacant buildings are a visible blight for residents and visitors to Downtown Bloomington. Not only that, but when nothing occupies these structures, there is no sales tax revenue either. Empty and dilapidated buildings, even when on efficient parcels, are going to bring in less taxes per acre because of lack of updates and such.
In order to reduce current vacancies, we need to create a concerted coalition of downtown stakeholders to campaign to do so. Jeff Siegler, the principal of Revitalize, or Die champions the social connections needed to make a goal like reduced vacancies occur. It really does take a village to build a “village” center. The property owners who actually do take care of and update their buildings are effectively being offset by the owners who are not currently doing anything.
Siegler’s main point for reducing vacancies is the adoption of a vacant buildings registry. Fortunately, the city passed this ordinance in 2023 to create such a list. Unfortunately, the fees for building owners are not punitive enough according to Siegler: “The only effective means to motivate certain property owners is by hitting them where it hurts.”
Other cities have instituted additional measures to reduce vacancies in downtown buildings: standardized incentives for remodeling and getting buildings fit for occupancy, streamlining the process for commercial enterprises, and even allowing for temporary pop-ups in vacant spaces for the public to imagine the possibilities.
Incremental Approach to Infill Development
Strong Towns’ mantra regarding development can be summed up by doing the next smallest thing on the list instead of investing in risky “transformative” mega-projects. We see opportunities everywhere downtown for incremental development in vacant storefronts and even empty lots. Pop-up tents, kiosks, and food trucks with temporary seating activate spaces and can bring in sales taxes. Once a concept is tried and it succeeds, larger investments can be made to make it more permanent. The city of Bloomington and/or local groups of people should work to make it easier to allow this type of entrepreneurship. Muskegon, MI has already done similar things to much success.
Pop-up spaces that constantly change really livens up the city center, and gives more reasons for people to come visit downtown. The important thing to emphasize is that decline and regeneration is as much a social psychological phenomena as it is an economic one. When empty storefronts and sidewalks are reactivated, people are more likely to find their walks pleasant and therefore will continue to draw a virtuous cycle of bringing more people downtown.
Reduce the Fiscal Impact of Non-Taxed Parcels
The abundance of non-taxed parcels certainly eats into downtown’s balance sheets. The city and parcel owners should look into returning some non-taxable parcels to taxable uses by subdividing them and allowing development. Many are parking lots for institutions like churches that only get used several times a week. Allowing developers (no-profit and for-profit) to construct “block liner” buildings along the current vacant spaces and empty lots will be a boon for city finances by the means of tax value per acre.
This strategy will not only liven up the dead spaces along the periphery of our downtown, but reconnect it to the surrounding neighborhoods. Townhomes and shophouses can be constructed by local developers, keeping the profits circulating in the local economy, provide for a much needed housing typology in our city, and develop a truly walkable urban core.
Let’s do some math on some hypothetical infill development…
Currently, the 200 E block of Jefferson Street is home to two parcels on the northern side, one untaxed, and the other a private parking lot with an unpaid tax bill. Collectively, the tax value per acre for the whole block is a measly $1776 per acre.
If the parcels were subdivided into townhomes and mixed use along the southern portion like so…
That’s 14 new residential lots and 4 commercial spaces. Just using the last 80 feet on the southern portion of the church lot. Using these townhome plans here, which allow for accessory units above the garage in the rear, meaning that each lot actually has two units on it. That’s 28 new homes for people downtown, with off-street parking. For these units alone, the property tax values would be at least $3000 a year. That’s a tax value per acre of $67,741 for just a small portion of the block!
The four small commercial units and plaza near East Street can be leased out to local entrepreneurs who can test their business acumen with lower overhead. This also creates a third place out of an area that was once a parking lot.
There are so many opportunities around downtown to lessen the impact of “dead parcels” and the return on our investment will not only be better for our balance sheets, but we can strengthen our core.
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