Karen Hiller’s Notes from IEDC’s How You Build It Conference

International Economic Development Council
How You Build It Conference
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma    June 6-8, 2010
Karen Hiller, District 1 – Trip Report

The opportunity to attend this conference about downtown redevelopment and economic development came through Heartland Visioning and the high interest on the part of citizens and community leaders to learn more about downtown redevelopment and economic development.  People carpooled and Heartland Visioning was able to cover many expenses through a community training grant. Roughly 250 people were in attendance.  They were principals of public agencies and private development companies from all over the United States and Canada.

Contingent from Topeka: William Beteta (Heartland Visioning, Capital District Group), Mike Worswick (Wolfe’s Camera, Downtown), Susan Mahoney (Downtown Topeka Inc.), Mark Kossler (Fidelity Bank, Downtown), Brendan Jensen (MorphoTrak, Inc., Think Big Topeka), Alissa Sheley (jhP Advertising, Think Big Topeka), Scott Gales (Architect One, Capital District Group), Dave Heit (Schwerdt Design Group, Capital District Group), and Karen Hiller (City Council, DTI ex-officio, Capital District Group)  This travel group gelled well….shared different perspectives very collaboratively; we gathered and debriefed after every group of sessions.

Sessions Attended: Over the course of the two days, 4 Plenary and 5 sets of concurrent sessions were held.  Sessions covered such topics as total downtown planning; sports, arts, convention and hotel developments; waterfronts; sustainability; financial leveraging and layering; public participation and the development process. Presenters were primarily mayors, redevelopment directors and principals of the redevelopment consultants on successful projects.  Many examples were from the Midwest and were close enough for us to know and easily visit.  Our group split up so that all sessions were covered.  Powerpoints from the sessions, each of which include core points and case studies, can be viewed at www.iedconline.org/HowYouBuildIt/downloads.html.

Take-Outs for us:

• We are on the right track.  That said, public will and shared vision are critical.

• Our master RFP and task list for Kansas Avenue has emerged in an appropriate way.

• We need to define “Downtown” and its internal zones, develop and use consistent terms.

• A 25-year plan is key.

• We need to define who the “owner” is for the Kansas Avenue redevelopment.

• All partners (City, County, Go Topeka, DTI) need to be on board for us to be a “good client.”

• All presenters were genuine, caring and experienced.  Nice to know they are out there.

Lessons Learned by other Cities:

Voters had to be convinced that all core needs were being addressed before they were comfortable in going ahead.  The four needs were:  Infrastructure, Public Safety, At-Risk (the poor), and Education.

Oklahoma City used polling a lot, has done almost everything through major sales tax initiatives, and always made sure they had at least 51% public support before going for a vote.   Collingwood, Ontario, on the other hand, demonstrated how they found themselves faced with unpopular challenges, figured out what to do about them, then got the public support afterward from an impressed public.

Everyone had made some mistakes and learned from them.

A key approach that worked was to start every downtown visioning conversation with, “What do we do for fun?”