New PBA head brings fresh perspectives to the post
by Joe Sullivan
When Dale Smith became director of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Florida real estate operations in 1993, he inherited a lot of baggage. Despite the foundation's national reputation for enlightened philanthropy, it was widely viewed as heavy-handed in the disposition of its massive land holdings in Palm Beach County.
"Florida Real Estate had acted like the hardest-nosed developer in an area that was increasingly anti-growth," the ruddily-complected Smith recalls. Yet Smith's charge was to sell off 15,000 acres of developable property (along with 25,000 acres of environmentally sensitive wetlands).
How he succeeded in that undertaking is exemplified by his role in shaping the planned community of Abacoa. Its 5,000 residential units and 1.5 million square feet of office and retail space are interwoven with greenways and mixed in ways that required the town of Jupiter (in which it's domiciled) to adopt an entirely new zoning code. The process of building acceptance, as Smith describes it, started with establishing a dialogue among surrounding property owners and public officials and then involving such prominent exponents of New Urbanism as Peter Katz and Peter Calthorpe. It was furthered by his instrumental role in getting Florida Atlantic University to establish a campus in the new community and in landing a spring training complex that's shared by the Montreal Expos and the St. Louis Cardinals.
Starting March 1, Smith faces a similar set of challenges as the new CEO of the Public Building Authority. Its pivotal role in shaping a $380 million downtown development plan has thrust the PBA into a much broader role than its traditional mission of overseeing the construction of new schools, libraries, garages, and other public buildings, including the city's new airport and convention center.
While there's broad support for downtown redevelopment, questions abound about the assertedly closed-door, narrowly-focused process by which PBA's plan was conceived in conjunction with private developers Earl Worsham and Ron Watkins. Moreover, elements that bear resemblance to an enclosed suburban mall are drawing the ire of New Urbanists bent on the preservation of pedestrian-friendly open spaces. And then there are the chicken-and-egg questions of how the city's proposed $130 million commitment for infrastructure gets funded in relation to the $250 million in private investments needed by Worsham Watkins as their component of the proverbial public-private partnership.
Smith's consensus-building skills on controversial issues were what made him stand out among 200 candidates screened in the search for a successor to Mike Edwards. The highly-regarded Edwards had resigned, effective at year end, in no small part because of cumulative frustration over being caught in political crossfire over other issues in which the PBA has been embroiled, such as the justice center.
"The thing we kept hearing about Dale from references is that he's a consensus builder, that he's collaborative rather than top-down in his approach," says developer Bob Talbott, who chaired the search committee of PBA's board of directors. Since PBA's board has itself been widely perceived as top-down oriented, the importance attached to these attributes seemingly connotes a change in its approach as well. And Talbott tried to underscore this in his portrayal of the PBA's role in shaping the downtown development plans. "The challenge for us is to listen to everyone's recommendations and try to incorporate as many of those as we can without compromising the development," he proffers.
If building design and construction management experience had been the top criterion, Smith is the first to acknowledge that he wouldn't have gotten the job. "I ran a large apartment complex that MacArthur partnered and in Abacoa I was overseeing other people's work, but I've never managed a project on the scale of the new convention center," he says. (Dick Bigler is the PBA's convention center project manager.)
But why would this 47-year-old, nearly life-long Floridian want the job in the first place? Its $146,000 salary is considerably less than he was making at MacArthur, and his politically-savvy predecessor at PBA did not get burned out for lack of relationship or communication skills.
"Knoxville impressed me as an area that was really ready to move forward, and I was also impressed that the PBA had been given such a leadership role in downtown development," Smith says. "I love being really involved in a community across a broad spectrum of community issues, and the scope and scale of all the projects that are upcoming and ongoing offered me that kind of involvement."
On a personal basis, he adds that after completing the sale of MacArthur's properties and essentially working himself out of a job last year, "My wife and I wanted to move to an area with seasons. We also wanted a small to medium-sized area, but one with good educational and cultural amenities. We especially like cities with large universities, and we think the Knoxville area is beautiful. I grew up camping in the Smokies with my family."
Prior to joining MacArthur, Smith spent five years as executive director of the Economic Council of Palm Beach County. The council is made up of the 125 largest employers in the county. Unlike your typical chamber of commerce (there are 16 of those in the far-flung county) the council is solely concerned with its business climate in the broadest possible sense of the term. So Smith was involved in everything from educational, health care, land use, and transportation issues to racial relations and the make-up of county government itself.
In 1998, he spearheaded a successful campaign to change the composition of Palm Beach County's seven-member county commission from all at-large seats to all district seats. The result was more diversity on that body—racially, geographically, and philosophically. Shortly afterward, at county commission's behest, he chaired a committee on minority contracting.
"The nastiest environment had been created by the way in which county commission had not dealt with minority contractors, and on the other side you had large, politically powerful contractors who were averse," Smith recalls. "At the committee's public meetings, everybody was posturing. But I met one-on-one with each of the members and then drafted a set of policies out of those discussions. Some groused publicly, but I knew they could all live with it."
Real estate development remains Palm Beach County's largest economic engine, but it was on a collision course with residential and environmental interests who believed the county was already overgrown. A big part of Smith's job was to try to bridge the gap between them.
"Dale can't be described as pro-development or an environmentalist. He was above all else a pragmatist who always tried to strike a balance," says Mary McCarty, who was county commission chair during much of Smith's tenure on the council.
The editor of the Palm Beach Post, Eddie Sears, also sings his praises. "Dale was the smartest, most honorable guy whom I could always trust," says Sears.
Even before taking up his post at PBA, Smith interjected himself into the controversy surrounding elements of its downtown development proposal. In a posting on the K2K Internet discussion group that is the bastion of downtown-centric activists, Smith took cognizance of a number of prevalent K2K viewpoints.
"The strategic differences between making the convention center successful and that of making a successful downtown are, in fact, very different. It seems as if almost everyone is properly focused on the latter, " he emailed the group. And in a light-hearted way he acknowledged that, "No one likes the idea of enclosing Market Square, although you have to admit that the name 'Dumb Dome' is so appealing that it almost makes you want to build it so that the name isn't historically lost."
After critiquing several other elements of the plan that's now out for public comment, Smith went on to suggest the formation of "a small planning committee...to guide the process.... This group would plan a symposium sometime in May or June which would include about 200 invited participants... The primary agenda would be break-out groups of 10 to 12 people developing proposals for the key issues of what to do with the various sectors of downtown, desired uses and undesired uses, transportation uses (such as areas suitable for traffic-calming techniques, public space locations, and design, etc., etc.)."
While Smith also recognized a need for speed in making downtown development proceed concurrently with the convention center, his proposal seemed to imply holding up the works long enough to complete the planning process that he had floated. This caught PBA's board of directors by surprise and, while board members won't say so publicly, caused considerable consternation.
In a subsequent clarification, Smith said, "I am not suggesting stopping movement of the private development plan, nor am I anything but supportive of its overall direction... In my earlier note, I was primarily suggesting that a parallel effort for a 'master planning' process for the downtown be initiated, if that makes sense to the city and its residents."
Still, some heads were shaking. "He's got a lot to learn," said Tom Ingram, president of the Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership. But Knoxville may have a lot to learn from Smith as well.
March 1, 2000 * Vol. 10, No. 9
© 2000 Metro Pulse
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