Donn Esmonde has got to be kidding me.
On Sunday, he gloated about the Higgins-Brown decree that threw Bass Pro off the Central Wharf site.
Today, he goes after the next bugaboo for the effete set: chain stores.
I called it on Monday, and it only took two days to come true.
He adds to his list of Esmonde-approved comparatives. In August, he named South Street Seaport, the Distillery District, Fell’s POint, and San Diego’s Old Town.
Add Syracuse’s Armory Square to the list.
There are plenty of models for the historic 12 acres — from Baltimore’s Fell’s Point ( http://www.fellspoint.us) to Syracuse’s Armory Square ( http://www.armorysquare.com) to Toronto’s Distillery District ( http://www.thedistillerydistrict.com). There is hardly a chain store to be found among them. The people running our downtown waterfront, from politicians to the state’s development agencies, need to take a road trip.
With Bass Pro off the front burner, the governor needs to put folks on the waterfront agency who know urban design and heritage economics. Getting this right will open the development door to the downtown waterfront — without sweetening the deals with taxpayer- dollar candy.
Each of the other-city sites put 21st century uses into a 19th century streetscape. None of them has or needs a megaretail “anchor” to make them work. They enhance the character and uniqueness of the city in which they stand. They not only succeed on their own, they make the surrounding area more valuable for development.
Yet Buffalo can’t do that, because there’s no 19th century streetscape to renovate, and every building to go up will be no more authentic than Epcot’s Venice or the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas.
Esmonde notes that Toronto’s Distillery has no chain stores, yet it thrives. It thrives because it’s in Toronto, which is Canada’s New York City. If it was in, say, Cleveland or Erie, PA, it might be a different story. (How’s business at the Flats?). I’ve already addressed Fell’s Point and the Distillery in this post, pointing out the massive condominium projects going up around that attraction. Of them, Esmonde writes:
Indeed, a 30-story apartment/condo building is going up on the district’s edge. It is a model for what should happen here. Instead of tossing millions of dollars at “silver bullets,” we need to take what we have and build on it. Do the historic district right, and traditional development will follow.
“Instead of [the concept of] bringing in Bass Pro and building around it,” said Deputy Mayor Steve Casey, “we need to build the historic project and go from there.”
Firstly, I wasn’t aware of Steve Casey’s expertise in urban planning and business development. Secondly, you and I both know that if someone wanted to build a 30-story glass-and-steel condominium tower shadowing the precious, sacrosanct canal block, Tielman and Esmonde would throw fits that would make a two-year-old take notes. I have no doubt that someone is already gearing up to battle Benderson on the Aud, Donovan, and Webster Blocks.
A 30-story condominium in a city that can’t figure out how to rid itself of thousands of vacant, derelict properties that are decimating neighborhoods and are almost daily arson targets.
Landscape architect Roy Mann, whom the PresCo used as an advisor back during the original legal challenge, used Faneuil Hall as an example.
Esmonde doesn’t bother to cite Faneuil Hall because it doesn’t fit his vision; Quincy Market is full of chain stores. Coach, Ann Taylor, Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, Gap, Brookstone, Sharper Image, Urban Outfitters, Crate & Barrel. All taxpaying places of employment and commerce that Donn Esmonde and others don’t think are worthy of inhabiting a retail district.
Turning to Syracuse’s Armory Square, which I had never before heard of, Esmonde cites it as an example of a heritage tourism destination that doesn’t need an anchor to attract people.
For sure, there’s no Bass Pro or Nordstrom or other retailer there to draw people in and act as a pre-existing magnet for other development and retail.
Instead, it has the Syracuse Museum of Science and Technology. In addition, it’s also renovation of existing structures rather than a complete new-build. Whether or not, as Esmonde claims, Armory Square “succeed[s] on [its] own” is open to debate.
The three rules of real estate are location, location, location. A megadraw like a Bass Pro (or how about an LL Bean so close to Toronto?) would serve to break the chicken/egg scenario that now plagues all of downtown’s retail reality. If Main Street and the downtown core were so desireable, they’d be swarming with retail activity. We’ve built a lot in Buffalo in years past, yet they didn’t come.
If Esmonde and others want the canal district to be all about heritage tourism, then it should be fenced off and turned into a Mystic Seaport. I fear that anything less will be met by endless criticism from the same people who think Bass Pro isn’t cool enough to be on the waterfront, or who think that chains are evil outposts of “corporate” America.
The Buffalo Record 
The Guy never mentions how many millions it cost to redo the commercial slip or re-construct the streetscape. It’s as if all that was for free. If the public only knew where there money was being spent and 0 jobs created..
The South Street Seaport has a ton of chains, including ye olde Abercrombie & Fitch shoppe, bath & body works, and a footlocker, and that’s just off the top of my head
time to fire up a letter to the editor
Used to live in Syracuse. Armory Square is mostly re-used EXISTING buildings, including the Hawthorne Inn, which is owned by Hyatt, which is…ta da!!…a chain. Oh, and a Starbucks. Is there a Bass Pro? Nope. But neither is there a viable waterway nearby. Were local, state and federal dollars spent re-developing the EXISTING buildings? You betcha.
The shopping center of Syracuse and region? The Carousel Mall — on the shores of Onondaga Lake. Oh, the horror!
Esmonde should go back to chasing Dale Volker around.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.buildings09sep09,0,7267955.story
Skim down to the American Institute of Architects’ 10 “Principles for Livable Communities.”
I think this list provides context for arguements for and against Bass Pro, for and against Sychamore Village, etc. but puts in a much more rational context than:
“East Side is Poor”
“Chains are Dumb”
“Make this field a historic district”
“Chains draw people and money”
I’ve not brought this up before, but it fits.
The City: Norfolk, VA. Time: 1970’s. Norfolk’s Downtown waterfront (on the Elizabeth River) was a maze of empty, rotting wharves and warehouses. Across the river in Portsmouth, the view consisted mostly of the US Naval Hospital and its compound, which as been there since the 1830’s and is NOT going to disappear.
The City Fathers got together and saw something similar to what we see at NF–Greenspace and a few modern buildings on the OTHER side, and on the Norfolk side–SHIT.
Buildings were condemned, the site cleared, and by the end of the decade, shovels were in the ground for what is today called simply WATERSIDE.
Across the street from Waterside, there are Mixed use office buildings, the Norfolk City Hall, Courts, and Jail.
On the Water side of the street is an office building, an Omni Hotel (which of course charges more for its waterside view) Waterside mall, a 2 story job that has had every space full and a waiting list for years, A Marina has been built with 1story eateries like Phillips Seafood and Hooters so boaters can refresh and relax, then a large greenspace called Town Point Park.
Next to Town Point, stands NAUTICUS, the National Maritime Museum, and anchored next to it, the USS Wisconsin, one of the IOWA class of WW2 Battleship, open to the public, with many guides former crewmen who made a career in the Navy and retired in the Norfolk area.
Part of Nauticus property has now become the Norfolk Cruise Ship Port, where I left for a 10 day jaunt to the Caribbean 3 years ago. 10 bucks a day for protected parking, and only 6 hours from Charlotte, instead of the 17 to Ft. Lauderdale.
So essentially, after the old buildings were torn down, Waterside was the Canal district, just less land. What has been done to the space is a boon to the city.
It took from the mid 70’s to the early 90’s to complete, but AT LEAST THEY HAD A PLAN, AND PROGRESS COULD BE SEEN EVERY YEAR.
Buffaloons, from presevationists to SNOOZE columnists to the corrupt lousy Authority system prefer NOTHING to SOMETHING.
Steve Casey is on the money on this one. The current discussion has moved from mall-type development planning, with a supposed anchor store attracting other national retailers, to real urban development.
The demo of the Aud (perhaps that front facade could remain as a “memorial” and would help block views of the I-190) will create new opportunities to extend the original canal street network and maybe even the canal network northward onto the Aud site, allowing investment supportive infrastructure to be refashioned here.
The commenters on this page are drawing distinctions where there are no differences. The Canal District project is resurrecting existing historical artifacts and restoring an urban landscape – not individual buildings. There was never an argument about the goal or the intent of the project, but restoring a vanquished urban landscape is most certainly preservation, just as the rebuilding of central Warsaw exactly as it had been was an act of preservation following the war. Existing streets, the existing Commercial Slip, and the existing building foundations will all be incorporated into new development that celebrates history and refashions what was only a parking lot into a neighborhood that closely resembles the intriguing, winding maze of canals and narrow grante streets of the old Canal District.
Finally everyone, except a few lone bloggers, are on the same page again and progress is imminent. Things are back on track. Bravo to the Mayor!
Perhaps Larry Quinn, Mindy Rich and Ken Schutz will bother showing up in person at the next ECHDC meeting when they realize they’ve lost and the community has won and this project can recommence construction soon. Looks as though ECHDC Chairman Jordan Levy is still in love with delay – “progress” wasn’t in the minutes.
Corporate America is only evil when government complicity is involved.
he is nuts, not even worth reading the donnnnn columns anymore. same stuff every time. he has been crying about the inner harbor since i was in high school- i will have a masters before he is done.
Put me down for hating chains. Same stores every single fickin’ city, every single mall the same. When I visit a new city, I am always annoyed when I see this. I want to find uniqueness, privately owned boutiques, local designers – even if it’s just T-shirts, otherwise, why even bother going out shopping.