The vision is economic: Changes till downtown ground
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What you want
In developing the Vision Fairbanks Downtown Plan, Fairbanksans chose their top five attributes for our downtown: more retail catering to locals; make it clean and safe; create parks and trails; improve parking access and supply; improve bike/pedestrian circulation. It’s not a visionary list. It’s actually pretty ordinary.
What put the “vision” in Vision Fairbanks are the steps it takes to earn these ordinary outcomes. The Vision Fairbanks implementation strategy is no weakling list of minor tweaks for marginal and ephemeral gain. It is a bold list of tried-and-true “structural changes” to till the ground for economic development and a revitalized downtown.
How to revitalize?
The basic idea is to make the downtown good for people. Make it good for people and — we can argue chicken and egg all day long — people come and businesses follow, or businesses come and people follow to the downtown made good for people (see list of 5 above). Market forces and the private sector will drive revitalization — which is also to say the public sector has a unique role to play, especially in the early stages with those elements solely the domain of government. Like roads.
The first structural change is to revise traffic circulation and improve downtown infrastructure. Without the right infrastructure, a gold mine isn’t viable. Downtown needs the right infrastructure, too. Two-way traffic, wider sidewalks, and on-street parking ease commerce by increasing convenient parking, making pedestrians feel safer behind a buffer of parked cars on a wider sidewalk that retailers will be glad to have fronting their business!
The expectation has been to revise Cushman and Barnette streets to two-way traffic. However, the local road planning authority decided to span the Chena River with one-way bridges on these streets. City engineers, whose job it is to build two-way traffic into the one-way bridges, are seeking a second opinion from consultants about whether it will work. The fate of the state money devoted to investing in downtown infrastructure will be influenced by the City Council and determined by the Fairbanks Metropolitan Area Transportation System later this year. We Fairbanksans must not miss a chance to improve downtown’s infrastructure.
The second step in making the downtown good for people is to create ground rules that protect the investment environment. A new zone type, the City Center District, will encourage “a compact, pedestrian-oriented town center consisting of a high-intensity employment center, vibrant ... mixed use areas ... a broad range of housing types for an array of housing needs; an ... attractive and memorable destination for visitors and residents; and ... high-quality urban design.” The City Center District will go to the Planning Commission before year end.
That’s great, you say, but downtown needs more than good infrastructure and ground rules. What about the problems of high construction costs, parking, and chronic inebriates? If the known, persistent problems haven’t been solved yet, structural changes — bold new approaches — can open new possibilities. The important thing is that Fairbanks has a policy framework for downtown to accommodate the many complementary initiatives it will take to revitalize downtown.
Challenges
Several years ago, Fairbanksans argued whether or not we needed to invest in our downtown. Now we’re arguing over which way is best and what should come first — so we’re getting somewhere! The greatest challenges today are challenges of attitude and errors of scale. The attitude says that downtown is an indistinct part of the city with needs identical to the rest of the city — and fails to see downtown’s potential to transform our community and our region. The error of scale mistakes a tweak for a game-changer, mistakes fresh trim paint for a traffic revision, mistakes the level of effort required to achieve decisive, lasting improvement downtown.
Why downtown?
What is the leading downtown north of the Alaska Range? Does it have attributes that a corporation would see as a plus for locating their headquarters? Does it have the attributes that a talented, prosperous work force finds desirable? Are your children or grandchildren that work force? Are you proud of your downtown?
Downtown is already Fairbanks’ “living room,” a seat of many signature events, site of our genuine pioneer history and showroom of our community character. Downtown can be even better. Great downtowns don’t just happen. But if we work in unison, the sum of a rather ordinary list can build a downtown that is truly extraordinary.
David van den Berg is the executive director of the Downtown Association of Fairbanks, an association of downtown professionals and retailers that partners with the city of Fairbanks and the Fairbanks North Star Borough in economic development downtown.
The one other thing that MIGHT work would be turn Alaskaland into a gaming area. A casino in the Nenana and the Harding Car. have the convention building be the room for shows of many kinds. We could give Dawson City YT a run for its money.
The other main thing is find a way to bring some shop that will cause people to come. Talk to Woolsworth or Berlington Coat Factory, find an anchor-store to draw people. Maybe work with the guy renovating the old Polaris and make the first two stories into a store, offer those companies a big city tax break or something.
Other than that, perhaps a tax break for small businesses in the downtown block. Sponsor a "bazaar day" in the same vein as the rubber ducky race and summer solstice festivals, but geared towards this time as a winter harvest festival. There are lots of small empty spots downtown but even with foot traffic they aren't likely to draw national retail stores like Footlocker so much as small independents run by Alaskans. That alone makes it a hard sell, as there's already a glut of touristy shops and homemade bazaars in town.
I admit the police have done a much better job regarding the inebriate problem downtown over the past year, but the reputation's still there. Maybe open a shelter they could hang out at?
If the parked cars are a buffer for pedestrians in the down town areas then why isn't the same philosophy required and used in all development areas. Where all the box stores have been constructed, pedestrian safety concerns must have gone out the window. When you walk out of any of those stores, you walk right into the traffic lane. There's no buffer there of any kind! If a buffer wasn't important there, then why is it important down town? You need some consistency in your requirements!
When those development projects were presented to the city, was there no review of possible or probable impact it would have. Does Fairbanks not have a Division of Architects and Engineers to flesh these problems out? Now traffic control and flow are a major concern. It should have been a concern before the first nail was driven.
Large businesses know the negative as well as the positive impacts they will have on the communities. If the infrastructure needs to be up graded because of a large development, then partners in that development should insure that it is financed and gets done. That's a cost of doing business. Now the tax payers pick up the tab. God bless the taxpayers for allowing these large developments to come to town!
You need to develop a Master plan process complete with required standards. Then you won't have to look like a fire fighter trying to put out a forest fire withe his feet!