The Positive Voices

With all the buzz and excitement about Grand Action proposing to build a brand new indoor/outdoor “urban market” in downtown GR – at an estimated price-tag of $27 million – I’m a little bit reticent to throw a wet blanket on all the glee. But I will anyway. An independent commercial entrepreneur proposed a similar project on the same site six years ago (at about a third of the cost) but failed to find enthusiasm and financing. Now that Grand Action has proposed something three times as expensive, the odds of it getting built have increased dramatically. And the GR Press’s Editorial Board says it “could be Grand Rapids’ next big thing”. Let me demur. Not that I think it can’t be built. Not that I think it won’t be gold-plated and impressively “just spiffy” with all the bells and whistles. Not that I think that local Boho’s aren’t already quivering with anticipation at the mere thought of it. It’s just that I wouldn’t bet that the eventually-built reality will really amount to “all that.” Russian intellectuals have a word – “poshlust” – meaning something grand and grandiose-looking on the outside, with a little worm or weakness gnawing away at its innards. The creators of such things are often motivated by a sort of overwhelming lust to be posh, the gnarly little lizard heart of arriviste nouveau riche Grand Rapids. One of their irrepressible boosters boasted that this market could rival Faneuil Hall in Boston. Last time I was there, with a busload of teenagers, it was a place to drop them off to eat and buy a T-shirt – an alternative to the suburban Mega-Mall food court, with little else to recommend it. Another booster compared the project to Pike Place Market in Seattle. This kind of hyper-boosterism is just jaw-dropping. Pike Place Market is more than one hundred years old, covers nine acres with more than 250 yearround vendors and even more in season. The Grand Action proposal envisions 16-20 yearround vendors with spaces for forty more outside, weather permitting. The difference is, as Mark Twain used to say, “between lightening and a lightening bug.” According to fans of the market on local blog sites, this next big thing is expected to work economic miracles, not the least of which is the prediction that it will successfully revitalize downtown shopping. That would indeed be a miracle, but don’t hold your breath. It may not sound like it, but I’m actually a huge fan of farmers’ markets in cities. Over the last ten years I’ve researched them, promoted some local ones and visited many in other cities. The problem with Grand Action’s scheme is that many of the potential economic spin-off benefits are highly at-risk of being thwarted by other realities likely to be a factor at their chosen site, just a short stroll down Ionia Avenue from the VanAndel Arena. The expert consultant hired by Grand Action makes some extraordinarily rosy predictions for this market – $25 million a year in sales with $2 million in rental income for the market and only $1.5 million in operating expenses – and an estimate that the market could generate 1,270 jobs and have a $775 million economic boost for the region, over ten years. Those would be record-setting achievements for even well-established successful urban markets, let alone initial start-ups. Most markets take years to break even. A 33% profit margin would definitely fall in the miracle category. According to other experts on urban markets, the key to success for most markets has been to keep initial expenses extremely low. Higher cost start-ups, especially built-from-the-ground-up year-round indoor markets, are considered the hardest business model to get to a break-even point. And Grand Action admits that their market plan is smaller “in conceptual form” (i.e. number of vendors) than successful urban markets they studied and supposedly emulated. I suspect the consultant is presuming the $27 million start-up cost is a gift, not a construction debt to be paid off, which would definitely be an advantage. Still, the cost of maintaining and operating 40-plus thousand square feet of indoor space plus a lot more outdoor space year-round will not be dirt cheap. The economic impact and jobs numbers are even harder to parse. Urban markets that start-up in lowrent commercial neighborhoods, with plenty of already existing inexpensive retail or commercial spaces available nearby for spin-off and start-up businesses, can have very large economic benefits. Not the least of which would be revitalizing a business district and launching a lot of local Mom & Pop business ventures – businesses that tend to re-circulate their revenues in the local economy. The site proposed by Grand Action, bordered by the towering retaining wall of US 131 on the west, Wealthy St. overpass on the north, Ionia Ave. on the east and Logan St. on the south, doesn’t really match that description. For neighbors, the site has a freeway, Heartside Park, some empty lots and a few large old factory/ warehouse buildings. The closest buildings with retail storefront spaces are along Division Avenue, a long steep climb up the side streets to the east. The nearby buildings are not easily usable by the kind of spin-off and start-up retail businesses that urban markets are capable of generating. There are plenty of other likely obstacles to Mom & Pop businesses locating nearby. The site is very close to the arena and other redevelopment projects. The urban market plans have not been a secret. The odds that the nearby property is not already owned or optioned by downtown real estate speculators or Grand Action insiders are slim to none. And, if the market gets built, they’re not likely to offer space at the kind of bargain lease rates typical market spin-off businesses can afford. The Press, downtown and Grand Action leaders have mentioned the kind of “revitalization” they envision for the area around the market. Surprise! Bars, restaurants and loft apartments. Like, you really thought they would come up with anything else? Their site plan for the market predictably includes spaces for a bar and restaurant. Ixnay on the downtown shopping revival pipedream. Expanding the Arena-area “entertainment district” southward a few more blocks is the only business plan city business leaders grasp. “Entertainment Districts,” the latest stale incarnation, permutation and direct linear descendant of the misbegotten “Festival Marketplace” redevelopment schemes from the 1950s, have a 60-year perfect track record of never, ever resulting in a significant revival of downtown shopping. Anywhere. But most urban business leaders, here and elsewhere, don’t have track records of retail success either. They make their fortunes on real estate, government contract, bar, restaurant and condo/ apartment development deals. They have no profit motive whatsoever to be the least bit concerned that City residents have to get in their cars and drive to the suburbs to buy most of their conventional consumer goods. This might explain Peter Secchia’s wild ravings last September. In a Public Pulse letter, Secchia asserted, “In November 1976, we had six retail shops on Monroe Plaza” and that Republican leaders considered canceling or rerouting the Welcome Home festivities for Jerry Ford (after his untoward displacement from the White House by Jimmy Carter) so that he wouldn’t have to see the economic desolation of downtown GR. This is self-interested mythologizing (“lying” in Abe Lincoln’s parlance) of a mindboggling order. The Monroe “Plaza” designation didn’t exist in 1976. Without counting the plethora of service shops, banks, bars and restaurants on Monroe, or the many businesses on other downtown streets, the 1977 City Directory (the closest chronological collection of 1976 business information) lists 47 shops selling retail consumer goods on Monroe Ave. between Sheldon and Lyon streets - four major Department stores and shops selling jewelry (7), shoes (6), women’s clothes (4), men’s clothes (4), specialty food (4), furs & leather goods (3), cards & gifts (3), sporting goods, cameras, electronics, records, drugs, art, and more. There were only a couple of vacant storefronts, far fewer than the average today. “Six retail shops” is closer to the meager number of surviving purveyors of consumer goods on all of downtown’s streets today – after Secchia and his ilk saved us from ourselves. So it’s understandable that they would want to promote an alternative revisionist history that portrays them as saviors rescuing us from a far worse fate. Grand Action’s Urban Market plans similarly lack plausibility in key aspects. Even visibility from the freeway, which Grand Action inexplicably considers to be its paramount virtue, is dubious. The site is deep in a hole below roadway level and only a lone tower rises high enough to be noticeable to freeway drivers. It is significantly undersized in vendor numbers and potential product variety, which compromises its customer appeal. Potential alternative assets – office, commercial kitchen, storage and distribution space (or art studios, restaurant and bar) – are unlikely to compensate for weaknesses in shopping attractions. And its realistic potential for generating retail synergy and expanding shopping opportunities in downtown GR is likely to be minimal. Managers and supporters of the existing Fulton Street Farmers’ Market don’t consider Grand Action’s market plans any kind of serious competitive threat to their enterprise. That doesn’t do much to bolster Grand Action’s predictions of phenomenal economic impact. On the positive side, a few property owners, speculators, developers or business proprietors are likely to hit jackpots on some bar, restaurant or condo/loft apartment development deals. But why ordinary citizens like you and me should wish them such windfalls is a mystery. Local skeptics (besides me) have publicly asked why, with our City budget imploding, huge police, fire and public service personnel layoffs, City service reductions and restrooms in our City parks padlocked (which doesn’t eliminate, but merely relocates where normal deposits are made), City leaders would even consider spending $27 million on such a project. The actual local taxpayer subsidies would probably be a small component. But the very idea of funding such a dubious and lavish project in the middle of a City budget crisis, with voters being asked to raise their own income taxes, implies seriously misplaced priorities on the part of downtown business leaders.