J&A Helps Define Cool Cities

Detroit's Affordable Housing Challenge

Revitalife Workshop Announcement

St. Louis Ain't Singin' the Blues

Ruth's House to Open!

Duluth Warms Up to Preservation

J&A Holiday Greeting

J&A Helps Define Cool Cities

At the Detroit Regional Chamber's Leadership Conference on Mackinac Island, Governor Jennifer Granholm strapped on a pair of dark sunglasses and declared the need for "Cool Cities."

Thursday, Governor Granholm kicked off an exciting day of dialogue, led by the author of the Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida. Florida asserts that members of the creative class demand a lifestyle built around creative, rich, multi-dimensional experiences, not conforming to the strict separations of work, home and leisure and we believe the physical expression of this desire is vibrant, diverse, mixed-use, urban, historic districts - where work, home, art, culture, and community collide in a dynamic, high quality of life - A HIGH QUALITY OF PLACE.

We share Mr. Florida's theory that creating cool places needs to focus on incremental, not mega-deals and we believe that economic development should be place-based.

So, what is a cool city? Juergensen & Associates, through our work with the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, produced Michigan's Cool Cities: Challenges, Successes and Opportunities.

 

Michigan's Cool Cities: Challenges, Successes and Opportunities

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Detroit's Affordable Housing Challenge

As the national dialogue around affordable housing grows (see earlier articles) and after the release of the Millennial Housing Commission's report nearly eighteen months ago, one might wonder how Detroit will respond to its housing needs.  

We're excited to see Detroit LISC's selection of Anika Goss-Foster as their new Program Director.   For over ten years, the philanthropic community, through LISC, has been consolidating and focusing its resources on a handful of community development corporations (CDCs) and they have made great progress.  Ms. Goss-Foster's swift appointment will hopefully avoid any hiccup in the momentum they have established.   (She'll join us next month to share her observations about the Detroit CDC industry.)

It's clear that not only in Detroit, but also around the country, CDCs have had a huge impact on restoring market forces to the communities in which they work.   There is little doubt that the successful, privately financed English Village, with prices now at around $250,000, would not have been possible without the hard work of the Church of the Messiah Housing Corporation's affordable housing a few blocks away.   Bagley Housing's joint-venture with Burton-Katzman similarly demonstrates that for-profit developers are clearly following where the nonprofits have been working for years.  

At the same time, however, the dramatic loss of population has resulted in declining resources for CDCs to do their work as Detroit lost $7 million of its $17 million allocation of HOME Funds – a resource for affordable housing distributed by the Federal Government.   Still others are concerned about shifts in state policy. MSHDA's Low Income Housing Tax Credit Qualifying Allocation Plan (QAP) is undergoing several changes with suspicion that the re-write may take away a perceived Detroit favoritism.  

Changes to the QAP are needed for sure.   For the last few years, the best scoring projects were newly constructed, scattered site homes.   And while Detroiters seem forever infatuated with their detached single-family homes, is low density, single market development really what our community needs?   Tax credit financing comes with certain controls that should protect the community, however, wasn't the RIMCO portfolio a scattered site, low-income rental development?  

Revitalife Workshop Announcement

The Revitalife Program, managed by Juergensen & Associates, is conducting three property disposition workshops in January for those interested in obtaining tax-reverted property through the Revitalife Program.  The workshops are designed to guide participants through the application and property disposition process.

Space is limited participants are asked to RSVP by calling Karen Goodyke at 313/831-4111.

When:    

Tuesday, January 27 - 1:00 pm

Wednesday, January 28 - 1:00 pm

Thursday, January 29, 1:00 pm

Where:  

Barth Hall, Behind St. Paul's Cathedral (near WSU)

4800 Woodward Avenue

Detroit, Michigan 48201

CLICK HERE FOR A MAP TO BARTH HALL

Those interested in obtaining property are strongly encouraged to attend these helpful workshops.   

St. Louis Ain't Singin' the Blues

Two hundred years ago, in 1803, while being criticized by his peers, Thomas Jefferson negotiated what turned out to the deal of the century – well really, several centuries – the Louisiana Purchase.   Central to the country and with its strategic location on the Mississippi River, St. Louis quickly became the Gateway to the West.   A century and a half later in1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the law authorizing the construction of the now infamous Gateway Arch.  

Completed in 1965 and designed by Detroit's own (albeit adopted) Eero Sarrenin, the sculpture-esque, stainless steel, 630-foot structure dominates the skyline and sits adjacent to the Mighty Mississippi.   Amidst 92 acres of carefully landscaped parkland, complete with trees, ponds, a grand stair case to the river and cleverly designed and well-integrated 1,250 car parking deck, the grandness of this simple, yet powerfully symbolic park and architectural gesture was decades ahead of the national trend of riverfront, parkland development.   Detroit, are you listening?    

From my observation, the impact of this nearly 40 year-old effort has not been fully realized.  A major throughway, I-70 separates the Gateway Park from downtown.   Parking decks and buildings that turned their backs on the expressway also make for a pretty unfriendly pedestrian experience.  

However, if you look close enough, it seems like there's a lot happening in the central business district and that the Downtown St. Louis Partnership is doing some things right.  At night, downtown wasn't bustling with people energy.  Anchored by FamousBarr, the local version of the old downtown department store, the enclosed mall-like St. Louis Center is only 47% occupied and recently went on the sale block.  

Around the corner, the building stock along Washington Avenue includes a great concentration of late 1800 and early 1900 buildings, predominately 6 to 8 stories in height.  These buildings are in typically fair condition with very few breaks between them.  The Edward Jone's Dome/America's Center convention and sports facilities, typically gargantuan in most cities, are scaled nicely into the Washington Avenue corridor and the Renaissance Grand's addition not only respects the existing historic hotel, but its conference and parking facilities also respond to the scale and massing of the surrounding warehouse buildings.

Along the Washington Avenue corridor, Downtown Now has created quite the buzz around nearly 1,100 lofts for sale and rent.  Driven by their catchy “Talk About Downtown, Talk about Living” campaign, a Welcome Center for potential residents (like one you might expect to see in a suburban subdivision) promotes individual developments and the lifestyle amenities of living downtown, while tours of residences, restaurants, cafes and bistros are also regularly sponsored.   Other residential development is also occurring in the historic Laclede's Landing, closer to the waterfront and adjacent to the Gateway Park.  

Beyond being the home of the Arch's designer, Detroit has a lot in common in with St. Louis.   St. Louis is one of the only few places in the country where all the Big 3 still have a significant presence.   The Gateway City is also home to a Fox Theater and like Wayne State, St. Louis University is the 300-pound gorilla in midtown.   The downtown seems spread out, large geographically and maybe, a little disconnected between Union Station, the Gateway Park, Washington Avenue and the Edward Jones Headquarters that sits like an isolated, suburban-like complex outside of the central business district.   Yet, its local economy is much more diverse and feels like as a relatively small city, its doing some exciting and dynamic things.

Ruth's House to Open!

Within a couple of weeks, the $250,000 renovation of Ruth's House will be complete and accepting its first residents.  Named for Ruth Ellis, the newly renovated duplex and its six bedrooms will provide housing to Detroit's homeless gay, lesbian, bi-attractional, transgender and questioning youth between the ages of 18 and 24.  

Ruth's House is the first project of the Ruth Ellis Center and J&A assisted the organization in gaining control of the property and securing the funds needed to acquire and rehabilitate the building.

A grant in the amount of $116,000 from Michigan State Housing Development Authority along with an additional $100,000 from the Michigan Housing Trust Fund loans provide the majority of funds.   Construction began in June of 2003.   The Ruth Ellis Center Board has raised the balance through private philanthropy and individual donations and donated materials.

Donations to the project, as well as home furnishings (towels, sheets, supplies, plates, silverware and kitchen utensils) and food are being accepted by calling Grace McClellen at 313/964-2091 or at RuthEllisCenter@sbcglobal.net.

Duluth Warms Up to Preservation

One might expect to wear your muck-lucks for a late-November trip to northern Minnesota, however the weather for this visit was sunny and warm. Under contract with LISC’s Duluth office, J&A has been assisting several nonprofits on a variety of housing and commercial development challenges for the past three years.

November’s weeklong visit with the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Preservation Development Initiative (PDI) (please see the November newsletter) allowed me to see Duluth in a new light. The sunshine helped.

A dynamic and diverse group of stakeholders worked for four days to better understand the value of historic preservation as a tool for economic development. The immersion process with my colleagues from the National Trust was exciting and exhausting. Over just a few short days, through tours and in back-to-back meetings, we met with hundreds of community leaders, representing a variety of and sometimes-divergent views.

We also had some quiet time with Mayor-elect Herb Bergson and we are hopeful that the impact of the PDI will live beyond our visit and the report, expected out in January. The week ended with a lunchtime presentation to nearly 200 community leaders. The impressive media spotlight that resulted continues to create quite a buzz in the community.

For me the experience was a true HIGH! Applying our expertise in historic preservation and economic development, our team made candid observations about the community’s challenges and provided what I believe, are solid recommendations about Duluth’s future. We shared the sense that something might actually come of it.

The whirlwind week would not have been possible without the support and co-operation of a large number of people. A special thanks goes to Tess Dandrea from the Chamber, Krist Stokes from the Greater Downtown Council, Renee Appel from the Convention and Visitors Bureau, Heidi Timm-Bijold, Chuck Froseth, and Joel Franklin from the City’s Community Development Dept., Pam Kramer of LISC, and Carolyn Sunquist from Duluth Preservation Alliance and Member of the Board of Advisors for the National Trust. Thanks also to my fellow team members and to Mac Nichols, PDI’s Director – I had a blast!

Reflection and Appreciation During the Holidaze!

I am not really sure if I've gotten busier (anyone who knows me would probably say YES!!!!) or if because Thanksgiving, the traditional kick-off of the Holiday Season, has been so late the last two years, that it feels more like the Holidaze!  

Regardless of whether you celebrate as part of an organized spiritual tradition, are tired of the apparently Americanized and over-commercialized Christmas or whether there's some Grinch or Scrooge in you, every year I unpack my red sweater, holiday ties and Santa caps and look forward to spreading a little Holiday cheer.  

Some time ago, when it seems I had a lot more time on my hands, I ran around the Detroit-metro area in my sweater and Santa cap, delivering greeting cards and candy canes to a handful of folks who did something special for me that year.   I miss that.   But today, that'd be a very, very, very long list and Northwest would love me for all the places I'd have to visit.  

At the same time, as my parents have aged and my siblings and their kids have been scattered around the Midwest, I continue to have renewed appreciation for precious time with my family.   A workout regimen over the last two plus years helped me dropped inches from my waist and 60 points from my cholesterol putting me in nearly the best physical condition I have been in, in probably a decade.  

For my business, it wasn't too long ago that Juergensen & Associates was a loosely held collective and I worked on small local projects, from a bedroom converted to an office.   Today, some of our seasoned professionals are still with us, but our staff – with part-timers, contractors and temps – has grown to eighteen, in four locations and the scope of our practice is national, and I believe, trend setting.  

So, as I look forward to quiet time with my family and friends, I will reflect on how truly fortunate I am and from all of us – Diane, Mike S., Jim, Sue, Reggie, Mike H., Karen, Alicia, Minnie, Dennis, Pat, Lois, Gary, Claudia, Damian, John and Steve – we hope you find Peace this Holiday Season.