... but Horizonheads rebel, and presto: Horizons Lite
Funny thing happened on the way to the Foot of Main
By Tim Tielman
The Republican Pataki administration is proving it
can be just as obstinate in wasting taxpayersí money on counter-productive waterfront
development gimmicks as the former Democratic Cuomo Administration was. Replacing
the Cuomo/Gorski State Urban Development Corporation/ Horizons tandem is some the
Republican-controlled Empire State Development Corporation. This thing has a local
office, which appears to have convinced the city that to get state money, the city's
agency for waterfront development, Downtown Development, Inc. (DDI) will have to
kiss their buns. The buns/lips interface is an ad hoc group DDI set up called the
Technical Committee.
The Technical Committee -- which has a nice authoritarian ring to it, one must admit
-- is a safehouse for Horizons groupies, an insiders club. The outsiders, such as
your correspondent, are on the Issues Committee, whose job it is to raise issues
so they can be ignored. In the tradition of Byzantium, in modern day Buffalo politics
you don't kill your enemies outright -- at least not so many -- you install them
in a back corridor, such as DDI. Of course, you run the risk of a plotting among
the potted palms. And a palace revolt is what we had.
The city released a second paper in its waterfront thinking process (reprinted in
large part to the left) on January 17. The waterfront reached critical mass faster
than anyone suspected: the Horizonheads blew up.
So the city capitulated faster than you could say capitulate. By the time a late
February meeting with the issues committee occurred the technical committee's Horizonheads
had succeeded in getting a rump Horizons harbor, complete with slips for visiting
yachtsmen (who doubtless will make use of the $10 million multi-modal transit facility
planned for next to the arena).
Truth be told, the Sabres are a driving force in this. They want a clear viewshed
from their Harbour Club eerie high above Main Street. To get a clear view without
turning one's head (eating at the public trough requires focus and commitment), the
600í Little Rock has to be moved. That, and get some toy boats to fill this harbor
which would be nice to look at, except for the ice fishing shanties that will be
there during hockey season ("Oh, Fred! Isn't that cuteósomeone fishing for food!")
This will attract people
Since everything down there will not be paid for by the people demanding something
be built (ìÖand its gotta be big -- but don't make me payî), can we name the arena
or ìyear round attractionî in honor of all the Other People's Money being spent?
How about the O.P.M. Den?
waterfront plans past
Master plans for districts and cities as a whole fail for any number of reasons (see
Herbert Gan's analysis, right). So it is with all the past waterfront plans that
people have been dredging up with an eye toward getting the latest one - finally!
-- pushed through. They fail to realize, or wish us not to know, that these were
basically the artistic obsessions of eccentrics. Messy details like money and consequences
and political feasibility in a democratic system of competing interests was conveniently
ignored. So it is with this harbor excavation obsession. Basically it is the product
of Old White Middle Class Men and The Women Who Love Them.
The Year-round attraction Trap. Or, how to rescue a $40 million project by making
it an $80 million one. This would be, of course, a festival marketplace, a bastion
of chain stores. Why do these things always smack of government-sanctioned fun? Can
we take it as a given that no one will visit such a thing in winter, just as Manhattan's
Winter Garden shopping mall at Battery Park City is empty on winter weekends? Build
it and they won't come, guaranteed
Interesting factoid re festival market places
The logic of spending $40 million to destroy local history, and untold additional
millions to ìattractî developers to a project, the very act of of which manifests
financial instability, is further eroded when one considers that national chains
are the normal inhabitants of these malls-in-drag. Brian Douglas Scott, on the board
of directors of the International Downtown Association, reports on the tracking of
the reinvestment of profits of a McDonald's franchise: ì75% of the surplus leaves
the area, with 25% reinvested locally. Simple manipulation of the analysis produces
evidence that a local store in a locally owned building will cause 85% local reinvestment
by a similar business, with only 15% leaving the community.
playing to a strength vs. playing to a weakness
The Buffalo waterfront has an unassailable monopoly in warm, sunny weather. It is
the closest place in miles where people can enjoy the dual attractions of being outside
in the company of a lot of other people looking at a large body of water. It is what
people want to do in summer.
So it's not warm and sunny all the time. That doesn't stop a Darien Lake from building
for a three-month season. It doesn't stop a ski area from existing, but rather defines
its parameters.
Playing to a weakness -- attempting to overcome a perceived negative by shutting
out the only thing which attracts people -- is not well thought out. There is tremendous
competition for the consumer's attention a lot closer to people's homes (ìbut ours
will be so uniqueÖ" -- stop it, will you, just forget it). Why this obsession
with drawing people when people are unavailable to be drawn?
Why not build an architecture of summer and leave it at that?