by Joe Sullivan
The recently announced relocation of this year's Dogwood Arts Festival is just one of several signs of slippage in Market Square's redevelopment plans. Delays in reconstruction of the square's public space and stage that prompted the festival's relocation to makeshift venues on Gay and Market Streets. Those delays are also likely to cause deferral of the much-acclaimed Sundown in the City concerts that drew large crowds to the square on Thursday evenings last year from April through October.
But missing public events on the square for probably no more than a month or so appears less consequential to the square's overall revitalization than stretch-outs on other fronts. Foremost among them is the likelihood that the facility to house a supporting cineplex on Gay Street won't be completed for at least two years.
When Chattanooga-based developer Jon Kinsey was selected to head the redevelopment effort in early 2002, a cineplex was the sine qua non of his proposal. Only with its pulling power could enough restaurant and retail activity be generated to restore commercial vitality to the square itself, he contended.
But plans for the cineplex have been caught up in a protracted site selection and design process. That's because city officials opted to encapsulate it into plans for a new downtown public transit center that would be eligible for federal funding. In order to get the federal money, though, multi-stage approvals are required from the Federal Transportation Authority, and that prickly process is just beginning.
The preferred site for the $17 million center is on the east side of Gay Street, just across from where Krutch Park is to be extended to Gay Street from the west, which will provide a pedestrian friendly link to Market Square. A consortium of architectural firms was selected by the city last month to assess the feasibility of the site from an environmental and design standpoint. One of its members, David Collins of McCarty, Holsaple, and McCarty, estimates that it's likely to take until fall to get FTA approval for what he terms the pre-design phase of the project. Only then can full-fledged design work begin on the facility, including its cineplex component. After another round of FTA approvals in 2004, actual construction of the facility might take a year or more later. So 2005 is the earliest year in which a cineplex could be open.
If Kinsey is frustrated by this timetable, he's not showing it. "Progress is being made as quickly as possible," the ever-politic Kinsey says, and he continues to voice confidence that a cinema operator can be enlisted once the project gets to the design phase. (The transit center would only provide a shell for a cinema; an additional $2 million in city funding is likely to be required for its interior.)
Other partners in the Market Square redevelopment effort are showing signs of impatience, though. "I've had more than 10 calls from people interested in restaurant or retail space on the square, and they all say 'Call me when City Council funds the movie theater,'" says David Dewhirst, a Kinsey partner who owns 10 of the 32 parcels of property adjoining the square. "The city has put $8 million into the public space and facade improvements on the square, but everything goes back to whether we are going to get the cinema as an anchor."
Another Kinsey point of emphasis has been additional funding for more promotion and staging more events on the square. With the blessing of city officials, Kinsey approached the Central Business Improvement District about taking on this role under a management contract with the city. The CBID was receptive according to its chairman, Wayne Blasius, but little progress appears to have been made toward cementing an arrangement.
One reason is that many Market Square property owners want more control over promotion and programming of the square. An organizational committee of eight owners elected by their peers is in the process of forming a property owners' association, with bylaws intended to give it more cohesion than prior ones. Its spokesperson, Pat McHugh, furnishes a mission statement that sets forth the association's role as follows: "to implement and sustain the vision for Market Square; to partner in the management, promotion and programming of Market Square; [and] to balance the needs of residents, businesses, property owners, government, and the community through ongoing communication and collaboration."
Conspicuous by its omission is any mention of the square's developer. Kinsey's very selection by the city's redevelopment agency was predicated on his assuming responsibility for coordinating development on the square. But even if not much coordination is going on, Kinsey and McHugh insist that relations are harmonious. "Pat has been great to work with. He's provided outstanding leadership," says Kinsey.
For all of the slippage on some fronts, commercial activity on the square is by no means at a standstill. To the contrary, it's remarkable how much new activity is springing up even while the square's public space remains sealed off by a chain link fence during its reconstruction. A new pub has been doing a steady business and a cafe has opened since the fence went up last fall. And signs herald the opening this spring of a book store/newsstand and a Japanese restaurant. Moreover, a reported $1.8 million is going into the reconstruction of everything behind the facades of two conjoined buildings. Those will house an Earth to Old City gift shop and prospectively other retailers on the ground floor, with 11 loft apartments above.
Still, it's going to take a great deal more to measure up to the criteria for success that McHugh and Kinsey presented to City Council Tuesday evening. Those criteria take the form of a matrix, with measures of everything from occupancy and rental rates to sales per square-foot and property values on one axis. The other axis classifies various levels of all of the above in four categories ranging from excellent, to good, to fair, to unacceptable.
The definition of excellence includes ground floor occupancy rates greater than 95 percent, rental rates of more than $18 per square foot, and sales of more than $300 per square foot. Those are numbers that compare favorably to most suburban shopping centers. And Kinsey was clear that "we need to be excellent."
The question becomes, "by when?" To which Kinsey responded that "it depends on when all the elements of the plan are put in place... A year after everything is done would be a fair time for the evaluation."
In addition to a cineplex, Kinsey's definition of everything also includes city construction of a garage just west of Market Square. As originally proposed, a 350-space garage would have cost the city $5 million. But at Tuesday's City Council meeting, Kinsey unveiled a plan for increasing the garage's size to 523 spaces and its cost to $8 million. Between 40 and 60 residential units financed by the developer would go atop the garage.
If Kinsey's standards of success can really be attained, the delays now being encountered in reaching them are well worth the wait.
February 20, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 8
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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