Downtown panelists look at options for equitable development as area grows

As downtown Austin continues to be transformed by a number of major infrastructure projects as well as real estate development, area stakeholders want to put in safeguards to prevent the city’s core from becoming inaccessible to artists, cultural groups and others at risk of being pushed out by high prices.

Achieving more equity in the downtown was the focus of a recent panel discussion held by Downtown Austin Alliance, which looked at the impact of major reconstructions of the Austin Convention Center, Interstate 35 and its cap-and-stitch initiative, the Project Connect mass transit system and the ongoing transformation of the Red River Cultural District and the Waterloo Greenway. DAA’s offering into the equity effort is the recently launched Downtown Austin Space Activation program, which is intended to offer vacant downtown storefronts and office spaces to local artists for short-term use.

Jenell Moffett, DAA’s chief impact officer, said the use by artists is intended to expose them to new audiences and give them a stake in the area while also showcasing the real estate for potential new long-term tenants. So far, the Downtown Austin Space Activation program has one space fully active on Congress Avenue with bookings into November. She said conversations are ongoing with a number of other properties, including one with a full floor potentially available for longer-term artist occupation.

“When we’re looking at storefront retail vacancy, we are looking at those vacancies as opportunities to bring these small (arts) businesses to downtown. Downtown for a long time has been perceived as an inaccessible place, perceived as not affordable and just not attainable,” she said. “To make matters worse … if the downtown is being redeveloped and constantly being improved upon with these major projects, that then brings more focus and investment in the area that could have adverse effects on businesses that are already struggling. What we’re trying to do through the DASA program is create that space that while these things are changing in downtown, to show people there is a space for you.”

Moffett said she and many other downtown stakeholders have looked at the success of similar space activation programs in major cities such as Baltimore and seen the positive impacts of major support from corporations such as JPMorgan Chase. She said Austin has historically struggled to generate consistent private sector giving for similar projects even though the city has a roster of major corporations operating within the area.

“It feels like we tend to struggle alone or we tend to struggle in these silos, but there are several communities all across the country who have worked together to solve these problems and have leveraged corporate private dollars to help do that,” she said. “There does seem to be a disconnect between the private sector and the not-for-profit public sector here in Austin that might be unique here, that might not be apparent in larger, more established cities. I think that is something that we could investigate more.”

Nicole Klepadlo, executive director of the RRCD, said her organization and other cultural districts expected to form in the city in the years to come will need more formal relationships with city hall to strengthen those groups and prevent them from being displaced.

“It’s going to take business development strategies, and it’s going to take incentives and tools, and it’s going to take the city putting a conscious effort into saying we want to work with property owners down here, and we want to work with maybe a new developer down here,” she said. “We know things are not going to stay the same, but for those things that are going to be here, our community is providing so many value-adds in terms of economic benefit and cultural benefit and tourism benefit,” she said. “It can only get better if there is strategic investment put into it.”

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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