West Side Stories

Three recently-announced development projects on the West side of the City offer different perspectives on what drives the deals.

Some might view The Mills at High Falls as a triumph of the free market over government subsidy. The the truth is that the City's investment in the district paved the way for this project. At the same time it is also true that the City invested far too much in subsidizing one vision of use, entertainment, at the expense of other investments that might have offered better return in leveraging private investment.

The proposed Riverview Apartments,a $25 million, 120-unit housing development planned for South Plymouth Avenue near Barton Street aimed at University of Rochester students, was clearly nudged forward by Brooks Landing. This suggests a better lever at work, since the private money will exceed the public investment.

And the Frederick Douglass Resource Center has been in the works for many years, but will clearly build with the City's redevelopment of the old Fight Square housing project into Anthony Square, which features a mix of rental and owner occupied units.

One local blogger offers another idea for a West side investment: a new state office building.

Development is a two-way street

Dateline Rochester has a three part riff
that's worth reading. The theme is Jane Jacobs' concept of "eyes on the street" from Sunnyside Queens to Rochester.

There's all kinds of press about downtown this week in anticipation of the downtown design charrette.

City has a couple quotes in their coverage this week. City Council member Bill Pritchard, is the realist, saying ""On the one hand, you want to dream big," says Pritchard. "But on the other hand, unless you've got a pot of gold, those dreams will never become a reality." Someone will need to ask City Council member Bill Pritchard whatever happened to the Center City Task Force that he was chairing. Among other things they were supposed to report on was the fairly elementary matter of returning downtown streets like Clinton and St. Paul / South Avenue to two-way traffic with some on-street parking. Surely that wouldn't require a pot of gold. Nevertheless, no small retail or service business is ever going to take root if potential customers can't run stop quickly to run an errand. Please don't point out that this would slow down the flow of vehicular traffic. That is exactly what's supposed to happen. If downtown has any hope of being a place where more people live work and shop, then the public streets need to be reclaimed to allow that.

Failure to Register?

The D&C has another story about the "buyers' market". The story reports that the number of closings was down for December when compared a year ago. Did anyone think to ask whether the fact that the Monroe County registry was closed for more than a week with technical difficulties had anything to do with that? Meanwhile, prices remain more or less steady.

Annual Appeal

Talk about yesterday's news. The D&C is reporting a buyers' market, on the heels of the RBJ. Below is a posting here from last December:


Wednesday, December 07, 2005
And now the Democrat and Chronicle calls it a buyers' market as well. The Rochester Business Journal makes it less of a story and just reports the two key points: Sales volume is down, but median sale price is still up. The other thing to note is that purchase offers accepted are down from the same period last year. These are statistics for the whole Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The bottom line is much the same. A decrease in total sales volume, but an increase in median sales price. Might as well republish the November 2005 quote from Mark Siwiec, of ReMax Realty Group in Pittsford: "We're looking at a period of time of five years or better where we won't see any real increase or decrease in property values. On one hand, we enjoyed a modest increase, but not the crazy increase in valuations you've seen in other parts of the country."

Showing Off

Rite Aid has been throwing it's weight around the corner of Monroe and Goodman for a while now. It was set to buy and demolish the building that houses Sullivan's shoe store on Edmonds to build a drive-up window to the existing store. Now, as the D&C reports, it has a bigger scheme in mind and is using a general dislike of Show World to gain leverage.

The knee-jerk response that Rite Aid is hoping for is: "Anything but Show World." But that response confuses use with design. Show World is an undesirable use. Rite Aid is proposing an undesirable design. An unwanted use is much easier to change than an unwanted design. The fundamental problem with the design is that it requires a package of variences from the standards set out in a zoning code that went through exhaustive public review and comment. The requirements for granting a varience are:

a) That special conditions and circumstances exist which are peculiar to the
land, structure, or building involved and which are not generally applicable
to other lands, structures, or buildings in the same district;

b) That literal interpretation of the provisions of this Ordinance would deprive
the applicant of rights commonly enjoyed by other properties in the same
district under the terms of this ordinance;

c) That the special conditions and circumstance do not result from the
actions of the applicant.

The decision would lie with the Board of Appeals, but the answers would seem to be: No, No, and No.

This parcel enjoys great potential and prominence and its redevelopment limited only by the imagination of the developer.

Ramping up

Not much has been heard about the proposal floated to build a mixed-use tower on the site of the collapsed South Avenue parking garage ramp, since the D&C published a small story. It will no doubt resume when the consulatant's report on the site is released soon. One point of contention is likley to be the fate of Cornerstone Park. The park is in poor repair and sees limited use- in part, no doubt, because it sees limited sun, as it lies in the shadow of the Bauch and Lomb tower, and the Central Library. A tower on the ramp site would likely box it out entirely. On the other hand, Washington Square and the park to the East of Excellus are a block away and see lots of use. It may be that the best plan would be to build on the entire footprint of the ramp and Cornerstone Park. Concealing the exposed South face of a parking garage with a mixed use building seems to have worked at the Sagamore East. It may be worth replicating on a less opulent scale.

Midtown muddling

Since the City paid $250k for an option to purchase Midtown Plaza for $6m, the issue has fallen out of the public spotlight. Tying up the property makes business sense for the City. With Renaissance Square moving forward, a large, underperforming property like Midtown, becomes attractive to an outside investor with equity to park for a few years in a buy-and-hold pattern. But the City is also spending $100k or so on an assessment of the property by Bergman & Associates, and the public should have a clear idea of what that money is going to buy and complete disclosure of what Bergman uncovers. But, before any governemt funds were invested, the local chapter of the AIA, in partnership with the Rochester Regional Community Design Center had already put together funds and talent for a design charette and review of the Midtown site. If the City is going to use public money to evaluate the property, then the City should be involving the public and local architecture and design professionals more openly.

Even if the ultimate goal is to turn the property over to a private developer, the City needs to carefully craft the RFP to reflect community goals and to ensure that it gets what it needs. Otherwise, the option, and perhaps purchase money will be wasted.

Lower Math

The D&C takes a less than exacting look at Renaissance Square's funding arithmetic. Still waiting for someone with a financial calculator to come up with an operating budget.