Sunday, February 21, 2010

Rethinking the Behemoth; Preserving the Banal, Part I: Understanding the reasoning behind locating new sports venues.

While I have made risky assertions in the past (and justifiably been raked through the coals for a few of them), this particular post may take the cake. I hoped to solicit family members to take the photos I needed of a cluster of buildings in the city of Evansville, Indiana, but at this point it appears too late. To my knowledge, those buildings have been demolished. Thus, I must rely on press releases and the imagery provided by Google Streetview to develop this assertion. I haven’t been to Evansville for at least fifteen years, so I welcome any chances to disprove the argument I make in the paragraphs below, particularly if my understanding of the space of which I am writing is completely flawed. The spirit of my argument should shine through.


[All arena images courtesy of the architectural firm, Populous, and available at through the Evansville Courier-Press.]

The City of Evansville has long discussed proposals for a new multi-use arena to replace the faded Roberts Stadium on the near east side of town, originally constructed in 1956. In December of 2008, after deliberating quite some time on whether to renovate Roberts or build a new arena downtown, the Council approved a proposal to begin plans for the latter of the two options. Civic leaders immediately began determining the ideal site for a new sports venue and announced a decision that it would rest in the blocks between Main Street and Walnut Street, where they intersect 7th Street/Martin Luther King Blvd directly across from the Civic Center, as indicated by the red box in the map below.


This downtown arena decision merits a quick overview on the development history of Evansville’s center. Like every other city in America, downtown Evansville lost its primacy in the post-war suburbanization period, suffering an exodus of businesses and prominent retail. The city’s most high-profile efforts at revitalization stem from the development of the prominent Casino Aztar on the Ohio River in 1995, the first riverboat casino in the state of Indiana, and the only significant one in the tri-state region (Indiana-Illinois-Kentucky). Its success along the Riverfront Pavilion spawned an Aztar Hotel, an additional boutique hotel, dining, and space for live concerts or major events. Other high-profile downtown features include The Centre, which is a convention center and auditorium, and the recent Children’s Museum of Evansville, inside the historic Central Library. These destinations have helped breathe life into the city’s center, but it has yet to invigorate the historic commercial Main Street, or attract any other trickle-down privately led development. As in many other cities of its size, Evansville’s leadership decided in the past to transform the artery into a pedestrian zone, installing narrow rights-of-way, benches, lighting, restricted automobile access, and slight curves to the road between each block, a la Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis. It failed to invigorate Main Street and in fact most likely reduced economic activity there. The City reintroduced cars after a few years, while the streetscape amenities have generally remained intact.

Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel and the Council have indicated their full intention inserting a new destination into downtown through this arena, ideally surpassing the aforementioned Roberts Field in its ability to attract large crowds. Clearly the goal is revitalization of the Main Street, so it behooves the leadership to find a site where the large crowds generated from events at the arena can spill out onto the adjacent streetscape. In that capacity, the location for the new Evansville Arena appears to be a wise decision.

But in downtowns, when something new goes up, in most cases something else must come down, even if it’s just a parking lot. Here’s what the City has decided to demolish to make way for the arena, also available for scrolling around through Google Streetview:

The two- and three-story buildings to the left of the street will face the wrecking ball. In fact, in all likelihood it’s too late, and they already no longer exist. A local company, Architectural Renovators, responded to a bid to extract the most historically significant features from the façades, but the structures themselves are gone.

Lest I seem like a fuddy-duddy who gets sentimental about each and every old building, I will concede a few things. The length of Evansville’s Main Street offers plenty of other historic commercial structures, many of which are in better shape than these; only two of the eight storefronts on this demolished block were occupied; the principal strategy in selecting this site for the arena was to help generate pedestrian traffic that could enliven the blocks of Main Street between the Civic Center and the Riverfront, ideally creating a vibrant commercial corridor between two nodes of activity. City leaders clearly applied some thought to their decision, but did they think it all the way through? This site on Main and Martin Luther King was not even among the original three contenders; the top previous choice was just a few blocks away (indicated by the blue box in the Evansville downtown map above), at the lot of D-Patrick Ford Dealership. Here is a Google vista of the original preferred site:

D-Patrick Ford was nixed because the City and D-Patrick couldn’t agree on a price; however, over time, the car dealership’s desirability waned because the site was not immediately adjacent to Main Street. In addition, the owners of the neighboring Executive Inn agreed to participate in the arena proposal that fronts Main Street, so that a major brand such as Marriott or Hilton could demolish part of the aging hotel and improved the other section, resulting in a comprehensive development that would have this configuration:
If one attempts to aggregate the values of all assets in the Winning Site (the red box on the map) versus the Losing Site (the blue box), the City's decision makes sense. The Winning Site, consisting of a series of blighted and largely vacant old commercial buildings, probably costs far less in compensating the landowner than an active auto dealership. But that doesn’t necessarily mean those old buildings are more expendable.

The decision to sacrifice these old buildings for the sake of a new arena in Evansville seems predicated on two false assumptions: 1) that big-ticket destinations revitalize downtowns because the foot traffic they induce will “spread” to the struggling surrounding area; and 2) that small historic commercial buildings cannot find their niche without some larger attraction upon which they depend, almost parasitically. From these assumptions, we witness eight small buildings and part of a hotel demolished for the sake of a new arena, which ideally will stimulate life in the remaining blocks of the Main Street upon which the arena will sit. Those now-extinct buildings most likely sat there for a century. Will the arena that is about to replace them have the same life span?

In the second half of this post, I will delve further into these two assumptions, exploring how they might play out in Evansville from a worm’s-eye view, as well as comparing this approach to sports venue locations in other cities.

12 comments:

Christine said...

Lord knows I've made a case for sports venues in downtowns in the past...and have done economic impact studies showing--surprise!--a positive impact, but I often wonder exactly how much impact a venue can cause without other interventions or a perfect storm of other serendipitous events. Look at the Nationals stadium...everyone, including real estate developers, banked on how this would spur a revitalization in that area of DC. To some degree it has, but millions of office sf remain vacant, and lots of projects were put on hold. No doubt, the economic slow down had something to do with this, but I think part of it was the inevitable speculation that happens with these types of things.

That was a random ramble, but on the exact topic of your post, I think it's a shame that the site chosen was one that requires dismantling "historic" buildings. I'm also not sentimental about every historic structure (well, I am, but I don't let that part of myself overrun my rational side!), but as I've said to clients, a historic downtown is not something you can create from scratch and is potentially an asset you can capitalize on for economic development. Perhaps they still can, but I'd say a near vacant lot is much preferable for everyone involved.

Christine said...

Lord knows I've made a case for sports venues in downtowns in the past...and have done economic impact studies showing--surprise!--a positive impact, but I often wonder exactly how much impact a venue can cause without other interventions or a perfect storm of other serendipitous events. Look at the Nationals stadium...everyone, including real estate developers, banked on how this would spur a revitalization in that area of DC. To some degree it has, but millions of office sf remain vacant, and lots of projects were put on hold. No doubt, the economic slow down had something to do with this, but I think part of it was the inevitable speculation that happens with these types of things.

That was a random ramble, but on the exact topic of your post, I think it's a shame that the site chosen was one that requires dismantling "historic" buildings. I'm also not sentimental about every historic structure (well, I am, but I don't let that part of myself overrun my rational side!), but as I've said to clients, a historic downtown is not something you can create from scratch and is potentially an asset you can capitalize on for economic development. Perhaps they still can, but I'd say a near vacant lot is much preferable for everyone involved.

Christine said...

Sorry, I don't know how that happened...well, I do, the "word verification" said I was wrong...so typed it in again!

AmericanDirt said...

Thanks for the comment Christine. I'm pretty sure the buildings that came down in Evansville weren't architectural treasures, but you're right in that their collective presence could never really be created from scratch. Funny how the goal is to revitalize Main Street, and yet they've sacrificed a full block of it in order to do so. ("We have to destroy this city to save it")

CorrND said...

One of the main problems with the siting of the arena is the thinking that it must FRONT Main St. Why? Are people not going to go to the arena if the entrance were somewhere other than Main St.? I think the designers didn't properly value the Main St. frontage in siting the arena there.

Though it wouldn't accommodate the full depth of the existing buildings, you easily could have pulled the arena back 50' from Main St., left most of the frontage for shops, and instead put the entrance for the arena on MLK or 6th.

It's not really that those particular buildings and shop fronts are so valuable as it is the Main St. frontage that's valuable. The arena doesn't gain anything by being right on Main St.

Andy said...

Just as a notice: I added a belated comment, a comparison with the market hall of German city Hannover, to your great story about the City Market. Maybe it's of interest for you. Keep up the great work!

AmericanDirt said...

Never fear, Andy, I get all responses sent directly to my e-mail, even the old ones. I appreciate all responses and will definitely write you (and CorrND) back when I have a bit of time. Thanks for your interest!

Andy said...

"the principal strategy in selecting this site for the arena was to help generate pedestrian traffic that could enliven the blocks of Main Street between the Civic Center and the Riverfront"

Idiotic strategy, imho. Sport events are rare (= not daily) and who wants to walk by the long walls of the outside of a sports stadium? Also, sports fans aren't interested in shopping, only in having a beer after the game. Really, are there any successful examples where a main street has been vitalized by placing an arena there at all?

AmericanDirt said...

CorrND:

I agree with you completely, and referenced you as a blogger because I share your low regard for the curb appeal of an arena, even if it has windows. As far as I'm concerned (and I reveal on my second post), an arena of this sort could be located just about anywhere and it will still likely prove a success. The question is whether it would squander the potential success of another structure by replacing it.

Andy:

Economic development is always hard to measure because it depends so much on cause-effect analysis. No doubt the boosters of these sports venues can find compelling stats to prove how building them have boosted the downtowns in comparable cities. But arenas and stadia rarely if ever stimulate the sort of new development most civic leaders are seeking (i.e. housing). Do people really like arenas so much that they would want to live in a new condo right next to one?

CorrND said...

Thanks for the reference!

Rereading my comment above, I realize that it sounds like I don't care about the old/historical storefronts. I do, and I think they should have been preserved. I just I think the Main St. frontage ITSELF is even more valuable than those particular shops. Theoretically you could replace those with something similar, but if you plop an arena down, you got nuthin'.

Anonymous said...

You still have the proposed site of the D-Patrick plan wrong. I'm glad you got the orientation correct now, but you have the site wrong. It's the two blocks directly to the north. Please do more research. If you can't even get the site correct, all your arguments are a joke.

AmericanDirt said...

Because of the configuration of Evansville's grid in its downtown, I can't tell if by "north" you mean further down Walnut Street, at the site of the Public Library, or north heading toward another location on Main Street. Unless Google Streetview and the press releases are both wrong, the D. Patrick site is still along Walnut between SE 4th and SE 6th Streets. However, the proposed site could be 20 blocks away, and that wouldn't compromise the integrity of my original argument: that the current site for the arena is not at all the best location, given what had to be destroyed in order to make room for it. Thanks for writing.