Foothills Digest - Fox & Hound Article - Spring 2019

The following is the 7th out of 8 Fox and Hound articles available from the Foothills Digest.  It is the sixth and final collaboration with Gabriel Sherwood. I enjoyed those collaborations, because one can see that it was about our ideas relating to the Economic Development and Vitality of the area. We came to many of the same conclusions about the status of our area, but we had many different thoughts about how to achieve goals that would make things better for all.

The following article is about "How would we spend Government money to achieve our desired results of Economic, Social, and Cultural Vitality making for a better Quality of Life for the citizenry?"

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It's Spring again. The time for birth and rebirth. Time for Evolution and Revolution. Time for fresh starts and new beginnings. Gabriel and I finished up our series about Economic Development. When we discuss the Vitality of where we live, it is defined by Economics, Culture, and Politics. You just can't get away from those forces and the impact they have on our individual and collective lives.

Gabriel and I were thinking about where we wanted to take this seventh discussion. Seven's supposedly a lucky number. It is thought to be the number of perfection and completeness. Well Gabriel sent me a message and asked what we were going to talk about. I told him to choose. He was talking about the money local governments are spending trying to make things happen. He wants to talk about that and possibilities and most of all he wanted the focus to be positive.

Well, let's see how we did...

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(The Hickory Hound: Thom Shell)
In looking at the economics, culture, and politics of our community, what issue that involves all of those dynamics, is urgent and important to address, so we can advance our communities forward towards growth and well-being as we progress through this century.

What do we do about dead buildings, wasted space, and urban sprawl in our communities that creates the least intrusion in the rights of property owners, while maximizing the economic and cultural viability of our community?

In the last 15 years, we have seen our local communities have to come to grips with a transition towards a new economic reality. We saw many manufacturing facilities become defunct and close their doors. There was a negative impact on business owners, managers, and laborers that caused an overall lack of progress in our communities. In a world that constantly spins forward, our being stuck in a rut meant that we were actually falling behind. Property owners understand that maintaining property is a constant battle that costs money. Not maintaining property causes one to actually fall behind economically.

I am not new to this issue. 10 years ago, I made videos that are still on Youtube of vacant properties in our area that needed to be addressed. The Hollar Mill and Lyerly Mill buildings are two buildings that had sat empty for years that I videoed. Look at those buildings today compared to what they were then. I may not have been all on board, when it comes to how those buildings were redeveloped, but I wasn't the owner of those properties. At the end of the day, I am glad that those properties have become positive economic assets in Hickory

Most people alive today seem to think that "Big Box" stores have always existed as part of the country’s landscape, but they pretty much came into existence in the middle of the last century. They evolved when retailers decided to put most available goods on display in the store, instead of keeping the inventory sealed off in storage.

Walmart, Kmart, and Target all opened their first stores in the year 1962. Today, we take for granted the existence of these kinds of companies. These stores required huge, undivided space, with high ceilings to accommodate their voluminous inventories. They also required huge parking lots, centering their economic model around customer convenience. Their diversity of products meant that customers could one-stop shop, buying everything they needed. Their economies of scale enabled these companies to buy huge amounts of goods at lower wholesale prices and pass those savings along to customers.

With more marketplace evolution, the rise of online retail has further changed the landscape. Now customer convenience has progressed to where products are delivered to your doorstep without leaving home . Year after year, over the past generation, we have seen more and more of these "Big Box" stores go out of business, leaving communities littered with empty buildings.

How do we repurpose these buildings? In some cases, similar sized evolutionary companies are looking to fill these spots. Amazon Inc., largely responsible for the new retail reality, has decided to open some brick and mortar stores, but this type of repurposing will put a very small dent in this issue, because of the same reason that Amazon began dominating the retail sector to start with. The bottom line demand of customers are price and customer convenience.

The practical option, in many circumstances, is demolition. Many of these buildings were cheaply built with projected lifespans of 25 to 30 years. We have seen, through the "Big Box" era, where a building was demolished and the same (or a similar) retailer rebuilt in the same footprint. Demolition allows for land to be repurposed and building parts to be recycled.

The enormous size of these properties are adaptive to many functions. Such stores can be utilized for apartment housing within a mixed-use development. Aside from residential use, these shell buildings have been redeveloped into office space, civic accessibility, museums, and healthcare facilities. Many "Big Box" property owners are transforming these sites into mixed-use destinations with multiple restaurant pads, smaller shop spaces, and public plazas.

Mixed-use environments create dynamic community hubs of commerce. Restaurants, offices, and healthcare facilities can activate sidewalks and build foot-traffic. The housing is an excellent alternative in re-using a footprint, as opposed to creating more developmental sprawl.

In our communities, we have thought about ways to take our limited economic resources and leverage them to redevelop and enhance our landscape. I think it is vital to have a 21st century mindset in using public money to do what is best to improve our local ecosystem. The first step towards improving our community is to maintain the assets that already exist. The 21st Century approach means that it is imperative that we reduce, reuse, and recycle assets that are not performing as intended.

We must develop governmental policies that do not create roadblocks that hinder outside of the box ideas related to economic development. Policies and ordinances should be open to possibilities, not towards making transitions and evolution impossible to protect existing, antiquated business and cultural concepts.

In a city like Hickory, I would direct at least $10 million (total) of public funds towards developing a Mixed-Use Development node in each of the four quadrants of the city ($2.5 Million in each quadrant). The money could only be used on abandoned "Big Box" or Manufacturing properties.

The developer's proposed business plan would show the city why they need the money, how it benefits the public, and how they intend to develop their property as a centerpiece that can stimulate economic regeneration in that vicinity. The order of such projects would be ranked based upon economic enhancement of the proposed property versus the need of, and impact on, the immediate vicinity.

The above is just an overview of my thoughts. Yeah, details, details, details... but I think you can see this is how we take something negative and turn it positive.


References
Big box stores are dying. What do we do with all the bodies? - Popular Science - March 28, 2018
Innovative Uses for Vacant Big Boxes - GlobeSt.Com - December 13, 2017



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(The Fox: Gabriel Sherwood)
What would you do if you won the lottery? We have all thought about it I am sure, what we would do, how we would invest in the future. On the heels of our recent conversations about economic development in the area, let it be Hickory and surrounding communities who win. Imagine after a long process the Western Piedmont Council of Governments region … Alexander, Burke, Caldwell, and Catawba, Counties … are awarded a one hundred-million-dollar development grant. What could, what would we do with it to improve the region while being the most efficient and offering the most impact?

I advocate planning how much will be invested in transportation access, how much will be invested in communications access, and how much to help people who need a hand getting back up off the streets?We have jobs available, but we have a high poverty rates partly due partly to access to those jobs between communities that really aren’t that far from one another. Hickory’s success is inexorably linked to the success of the counties in which our city’s reach extends.Public funds are vital and should be invested to do the most good to the most people, as a rising tide lifts all.

Experience has taught me the trouble it can be getting to job centers, even if just across amunicipal line, as I regularly loaded up my old ’89 van to make the drive from Hickory’s public housing to Claremont and Conover factories to drop off neighbors. We can do that on a larger level with the capital to expand that idea as it is being spearheaded in Hickory now by certain public servants and potential employers. I would suggest we put that program on steroids and use Greenway’s existing structure to do it.We offer shift-based stops, neighborhood access far off main access lines, and along the way we ask the businesses being served to invest in the programs as well as the people gaining their access. With minimal investments by each entity being served, we could do years of good work.

8 more busses, 10vehicles that carry up to 15 people, and 10 that carry up to 8, and a few for special needs, would require an investment of a maximum of $7 million with alternative fueling options and maintenance warranties. Drivers and administration salaries would require an investment max of$4 million a year after all overhead and would put millions a year into the local economies. The plan would use busses to connect cities with hubsin each town. Then, smaller vehicles to move between communities and production centers in each county. With an investment of 25% of our purse including the operational budget, we can expand and maintain the organization for the first several years. After some time to read the need, we adjust the vehicle count according to the use and move forward to sustained viability and possibly growth to other communities.

Just as important as getting people to theproduction is getting information and education and commerce to them in their homes. There are areas of the four-county region that don’t have good cell phone reception, much less good highspeed internet access. In fact, in downtown areas in some of our towns there is no access while at the same time our students have received electronic equipment to do homework. That has caused some stress for some families, and despite our rural areas we can do something about it.

I believe investing 30 million in grants to communities and citizens to assist in gaining access would lead to a new burst of commerce and civic involvement. The funds would acquire land to build towers in partnership with providers, and negotiation between those providers and municipalities for public access would help drastically reduce the investment going forward.

Students would benefit with the access to their studies, online learning options, and general access to what’s happening in real time. Businesses benefit for obvious reasons and the increase in commerce brings more income for citizens and municipalities alike. The cycle of success often requires limited investments, but it’s the patience and willingness to invest in people that sometimes stops the wheels. I think if we treat people like the end instead of the means, the means takes care of itself as the tide goes up. This plan not only improves lives, but also provides a more proactive business culture. As James and I have spoken of many times in agreement, we have the land and the workforce but just need ways to connect them with the centers of production and commerce … and we can take a huge leap towards it with these investments.

Finally, with planning for supports for our people, we can’t forget those most in need. Holding ten for future needs, thirty million remains in our grant. There is a challenge our area faces, Hickory deals with it every day. Poverty at near 20% and the homeless that struggle around us are a reminder that without responsible growth, people get left behind. Like the opioid crisis, we can’t arrest or legislate ourselves out of this one … people require investment sometimes. I think if we continue the positive steps taken by our governmental and non-governmental forces, and adapt a more people first approach, our economic goals may lay along an easier path.

We have opportunities to take lessons from other places in how we respond to these challenges. Simple access to the internet and transportation will make a world of difference to folks that are kept from things by distance, but for those hiding in the woods around us every day … we need to think big. Thirty million dollars to buy a few unused buildings to transform into temporary housing to offer a bed, a shower, and an address, helps us offer that foothold needed to get started. With work and investment by our people, our business community, and our governments, a challenge can become a strength and a beacon of our investment in ourselves and others. That attracts businesses and younger workers that know their community will invest in them.

All these ideas feed off each other, and a system of self-supported citizens and communities is what we are all striving for. Often people trying to make a comeback are hindered by situations they don’t always control, as it’s expensive to be poor. We can help. We have our internet expansion provide application access, our transportation system gets them there on time, and we get to watch as some folks reenter the area as productive members of our communities.

With these plans we can make a real difference to a lot of people and still hold a quarter of our funds for unseen needs of the future as these programs develop, and perhaps some of it could go to grants to assist companies along the way that need space as our commerce expands. We can’t help everyone and there would be technicalities and conflicts and budgeting issues to overcome and work through, but with efficiency in mind and equality in purpose we can make a difference.