HomeMy WebLinkAbout07/15/2014 10 Downtown Tours ReportBUSINESS OF THE CITY COUNCIL
YAKIMA, WASHINGTON
AGENDA STATEMENT
Item No. 10.
For Meeting of: July 15, 2014
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ITEM TITLE:
SUBMITTED BY:
SUMMARY EXPLANATION:
Report on Downtown Tours
Sean Hawkins, Economic Development Manager, 575-6274
A report on the downtown tours conducted in May and June. The tours included visits to
Wenatchee, WA, Portland, OR, Missoula, MT, Bend, OR and Medford, OR.
Resolution: Ordinance:
Other (Specify):
Contract: Contract Term:
Start Date: End Date:
Item Budgeted: Amount:
Funding Source/Fiscal
Impact:
Strategic Priority: Economic Development
Insurance Required? No
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Description
❑ Report on Downtown Tours
City Manager
Upload Date
.7/9/20144
Type
Cover Memo
Memorandum
To: Yakima City Council & City Manager O'Rourke
From: Sean Hawkins, Economic Development Manager
Date: July 9, 2014
Subject: Report on Downtown Tours
A small delegation visited a number of regional downtown districts over the past two months.
Each visit was filmed and interviews were conducted with key players, business owners and the
public in each community we visited. I expect to have a series of short videos to air on YPAC
and the City's YouTube channel by late July. The following is a short description of what we saw
and learned from each visit.
Pybus Public Market — Wenatchee, WA
Wenatchee is a City of 32,000 with an average household income of $46,500 or $2,000 above
the City of Yakima. Its downtown is improving, in part, due to the development of a year round
public market as an anchor for downtown activity and tourist traffic. The Pybus Public Market is
located on the bank of the Columbia River adjacent to Downtown Wenatchee. This public
private partnership has been a huge success and anchor for downtown traffic since opening in
the spring of 2013. Its success is part luck and part planning. As part of Downtown Wenatchee's
planning process nearly ten years ago, they included this project as a key part of their
downtown revitalization strategy. The City pursued state and federal funding to develop the
infrastructure for the project. The luck part revolved around a wealthy retiree who was looking
for a new project to be involved with and he invested in the public private partnership to oversee
the project on a day to day basis.
The market serves as a business incubator for the local community. It features numerous small
spaces that businesses can rent to test their business idea and sell products. Spaces start at
$500 per month and increase in years two and three. Spaces are also available for daily and
weekly rental as well. The market is full of local restaurants, meat vendors, flower vendors,
produce vendors, and local crafters. As of May 2014, the market is 100% occupied. The
Wenatchee Farmers Market sets up twice a week outside of the market and saw a 25% rise in
sales the first year. They expect overall market sales to double in two years by being
associated with the year round public market.
The market has attracted other investment in nearby blocks including a microbrewery,
restaurants, retailers, and offices. A Seattle developer is designing a boutique hotel for a lot
north of the market that formerly housed the City's public works department. City officials said
this development would not have occurred without the vibrancy the market has brought to
downtown.
Interior shot of Pybus Public Market
Public Space Successes and Failures — Portland, Oregon
Downtown Portland is a laboratory for the success and failure of public spaces and features
over 20 plazas and parks. We toured public spaces in Downtown Portland with George Crandall
of Crandall Arambula as our guide. We toured two spaces that are deemed successes (Pioneer
Courthouse Square and Directors Park) while visiting two that are deemed failures (O'Bryant
Square and Chapman Square). The take away from this trip was that public spaces fail when
they are located off the beaten path, have numerous hiding places, and are designed to be only
an attractive place with no functionality for events. Both 0' Bryant and Chapman Squares were
hard to see while walking or driving past them — neither simply drew you into them. They both
had large bushes and other landscaping that contained numerous hiding places for undesirable
activity (we looked). While both of the places were attractive, their lack of functional design
meant that they were not used very often and they did not generate economic vitality around
them. Neither were well lit and the locals spoke with told us they didn't feel safe walking through
them.
Pioneer Courthouse Square and Directors Park are both outstanding and active places. Pioneer
Courthouse Square is located at the crossroads of downtown and is surrounded by active edges
of business and retail activity. Its open layout makes it easy to host numerous events, activities
and community celebrations. It has a Starbucks and other kiosks located along it's perimeter
that aid in the success of the location by bringing additional traffic to the downtown. The design
of the space invites people to walk through it and makes them feel safe because there are no
hiding spaces. Pioneer Courthouse Square is essentially an outdoor convention center that can
be set up and arranged for a number of downtown activities and over its 30 years in existence
has gained the title of "Portland's Living Room".
Festival of Flowers in Pioneer Courthouse Square
Directors Park is a new public space located one block away from Pioneer Courthouse Square.
Its footprint is small (100x200), but its impact is huge. The size and layout of Directors Park is
an excellent model for us and you would be amazed to see how many people you can fit in a
space of this size. It has a well -used fountain area that was filled with children and their parents,
flexible space that is filled with movable seating when there isn't an event going on, a shade
area pavilion and a kiosk serving lunch and drinks. The pavilion is wired with LED lights that
produce a light show at night that aids in the feeling of safety in the downtown district.
Directors Park filled for viewing the 2010 World Cup Finals
Directors Park at Night
Director Park placed over Proposed South Plaza Site
Missoula Downtown Association, Missoula, MT
Missoula is a similar size city as Yakima with a similar household income. It is the home of the
University of Montana. For 20 years, downtown has been a major priority of local government
using a tool called Tax Increment Financing to assist in infrastructure projects, facade upgrades,
public space development and public art throughout the downtown district. In just the last two
years alone, Missoula has added 45 new businesses to their downtown district and has seen
upgrades made to many of their oldest buildings. Missoula is a downtown where a dive bar is
located next to an upscale restaurant and this variety of uses has created a dynamic downtown
open to all walks of life and citizens.
Since the mid 1980s, Missoula has used its public space, Caras Park, as a key anchor for
downtown activity and community building. Caras Park has a built in stage, shade structures,
hard scaped pavers, small green spaces and public restrooms and is managed by the Missoula
Downtown Association. In 2013, Caras Park hosted 90 events and 80 of them were open to the
public. Over 1,000,000 people visited Caras Park in 2013 and in summer 2014 there is an event
every Thursday — Sunday during the months of June, July and August. Caras Park is "plug and
play" for event organizers. Nearly any event can be set up quickly since the power, water,
restrooms, chairs, and tables are located on site.
Caras Park during Downtown Tonight Concert Series
Missoula, as a whole, has 5,700 public and private parking spaces in its 50 blocks of downtown.
As a point of comparison, Yakima has 5,700 public and private parking spaces in 20 blocks of
our downtown core. Missoula actively manages their parking through the Missoula Parking
Commission who has three enforcement officers monitoring their spaces to ensure the best
spaces are available for retail customers. The Missoula Parking Commission works very closely
with employers to find solutions for employee parking.
While Missoula is experiencing many successes today, they still face a wide variety of issues.
The neighborhood west of the downtown district is in worse visual condition than the
neighborhoods north and south of Downtown Yakima. Aggressive panhandling and public
drunkenness is a huge issue for Missoula and the local courts. City Council and business
owners have worked closely together to find solutions for the issue with limited results. The City
and business community have worked together to fund a year round police officer who just
focuses on downtown issues.
Bend and Medford, Oregon
The consistent message that came from our visit to Downtown Bend was that people like to go
to Bend because there is "always something going on". During the summer, there are a number
of events that happen each week downtown such as a Wednesday Market, Saturday Farmers
Market, Sunday concerts and First Fridays. Bend's downtown boasts a 97% occupancy and
features only one downtown chain, a Starbucks. Bend is a small downtown in size - eight
square blocks.
Bend's downtown organization makes a major focus to ensure that the pedestrian experience is
of the highest quality by focusing on landscaping, lighting and cleaning. Bend fiercely guards its
downtown identity by focusing on design standards that allow developers flexibility in style but
ensure a cohesive building to building experience which makes it one of the best walking
downtown districts in the country.
Medford is a southern Oregon town that boasts a number of similarities to Yakima. Medford's
household income is $3,000 less than Yakima's with a similar size population. Recent new
business tenants include REI and Trader Joe's. Two years ago the City of Medford began the
development of two park blocks in association with the development of a new headquarters
building for Lithia Motors. The two park blocks are roughly 88 feet by 300 feet in dimension
each. The first park block features flexible space for booths, fountains for kids (that are lit at
night), a play area, green space and shade structures. The second park block is a large grassy
area with a stage on one end and a planted community Christmas tree on the other end. The
first park block is an excellent model for Yakima as it is a very flexible space using attractive
materials while the second fits more of a Franklin Park Rotary Pavilion feel. The cost per each
park block was roughly $3 million each but they also put $8 million into updating streets and
infrastructure in blocks surrounding the park blocks.
Medford Park Block from Above
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Medford Park Block placed on Proposed South Plaza Site