Let’s talk about the current Downtown plan. Not the one the David Romo took aim at in his recent article on Newspapertree [link]. Not the one being talked about in every corner of our City. Not the one fomenting and inciting excitement, anxiety, anger, fear, hope, cynicism, recalls, skepticism, speculation, conversation about who we are and what we want to be and what we don’t want to be. Not the redevelopment plan proposed by the Paso del Norte Group (www.elpasodowntownplan.com).
The current one. The one in place right now. The one that got us where we are today.
The Divestment Plan.
I’m not sure who was in charge of this plan. The authors remain unknown. No one consulted the public. City Hall weighed in only with its silence. Public meetings of stakeholders and design workshops did not inform the plan. The micro-historians, the urban planners, the creative class, the voters, the artists, the yuppies, the bobos, the residents, the anklebiters, the bi-nationalists, the bikers, the poets and the farmworkers were not asked to provide input.
So we do nothing. We thumb our noses at the Paso del Norte group. Thanks, but, no thanks, fancy pants. We’re good to go with the Divestment Plan. It is my contention that we will chart the history of the Divestment Plan, as a slow march towards cultural destruction and predatory economic manipulation that feasted on the region’s poverty and robbed us of our Downtown and our identity. Without action, this is our path, that is where we are going. And in some regards, that is where we are today.
Downtown real estate trends under the Divestment Plan
The economy of Downtown El Paso is almost totally reliant on pedestrian traffic from Mexico. Millions of shoppers spend their money on El Paso Street or Stanton Street, starting at the Bridge and working their way north. This area is fondly known as the Golden Horseshoe by merchants and building owners alike because it commands some of the highest lease rates in town and because it represents one of the most lucrative retail markets in El Paso. If you own property or sell goods in this part of the world, you are turning a healthy profit.
While the economic activity derived from millions of people crossing the border to shop in Downtown El Paso is a shot in the arm to our economy, the prevalent business model used to serve this segment of our market has significant consequences for our tax base, our identity, our history and our long term economic stability.
The prevalent business philosophy that drives much of the Downtown economy is to pull as much money as possible out of the marketplace while putting as little as possible back in. This certainly is not a one-size-fits-all description of Downtown businesses, but it is the prevailing business model that has shaped our Downtown, that has made it what it is today. Where this business model is most clearly reflected is in property values.
As a homeowner, I carry about the same tax burden as this commercial property owner in one of the hottest retail markets in El Paso even though our buildings are both about the same size.
Since 1997, when we moved into our house on Louisville Avenue, our property values have shot up from $47,000 to $91,000. And we just got notice that this year, the CAD puts our value at $120,000. Hijo. While this is great news if we want to sell, it is hard on the pocket book when tax time rolls around. Rising property values seem to have little impact on Downtown property owners. Except for a little glitch in 1998, this Downtown property owner’s values stayed about the same even though his property is at the center of one of the hottest retail markets in El Paso.
You and I pay a price for a Downtown where robust economic activity does not translate into a significant contribution to the tax base. Homeowners end up paying more than our fair share of the tax base to support essential City services. The Paso del Norte Group reported that the City taxes collected last year from the 127 acres that are included in the redevelopment zone was $414,000. In contrast, Cielo Vista Mall is only 24 acres and it contributed $369,000 in City taxes. Take as much money out as possible, put as little as possible back in.
In his NPT article, David Romo pointed out that that the proposed plan and the area slated for redevelopment ignored an important part of our history, a part not found in many books and not celebrated by many historic markers. Through a community process, you and I have an opportunity to make sure that that history is recovered and that it becomes a focal point in the entire redevelopment of Downtown.
Today, under the Divestment Plan most of our historic treasures in Downtown El Paso and Segundo Barrio, both inside and outside the redevelopment district, are at risk because of the prevailing business model (pull as much money out as possible, put as little as possible back in) and because there is not enough economic activity in areas outside of the Golden Horseshoe to make many of these buildings economically viable. The Caples Building, the Kress Building, the Mills Building and the Newbury Building stand spectacularly silent. Broken windows and tacky 70s facades litter the Downtown landscape.
The Colón Theatre on El Paso Street is one of my favorite buildings Downtown. I couldn’t tell you the history that occupied that building, but it was built, I am convinced, by someone to whom irrational exuberance was a way of life. (If you want a sense of the magic of this place, read Denise Chavez’ novel, Loving Pedro Enfante, which starts out, “In the darkness of El Colón movie theatre, larger than life and superimposed on a giant screen, Pedro Enfante, the Mexican movie star, stares straight at me with his dark, smoldering eyes.”) The Colón Theatre is not in the redevelopment district, but like most of the historic buildings Downtown, it has been terribly neglected.
Land values and building values determine the economic value of a property. When the land value becomes twice that of the building value, a commercial appraiser or someone in the real estate industry will tell you that the property is much more valuable as vacant land. Tear it down, they will tell you.
So according to the Central Appraisal District, the Colón and this block on South El Paso Street, regardless of its history or what it means to us as a community, is economically obsolescent. Might as well tear it down. The land that the Colón sits on is six times more valuable to the property owner than the building. This is why, under the current Divestment Plan, huge swaths of Downtown El Paso have been covered in asphalt. The great parking-lot-ification of Downtown has consumed historic building after historic building and laid waste to the essential character of downtown. No where is this more visible than along Paisano Street.
Under the Divestment Plan, a bustling Downtown neighborhood (this includes the core of Downtown and the neighborhoods in the middle of the Golden Horseshoe) lost more housing units and more people in the last 30 years than any other neighborhood in the City. In 1970, there were 6,000 people living in Downtown. Half of this population has been lost. Today there are only 3,000. Since 1970, we have lost 1,700 housing units. The quality of life in the neighborhoods in the center of the Golden Horseshoe have also deteriorated. Some of the housing units that remain are either vacant, dilapidated or next to commercial uses that have no business existing in the middle of a neighborhood. Some of the single family houses where people used to live have been converted to commercial uses such as warehouses. One such warehouse on Oregon Street is recorded by the Central Appraisal District as having a value of only $17,000. Residents in this neighborhood have few housing choices.
A significant sector of the Downtown economy depends on our poverty. Downtown is home to the largest concentration of tax anticipation, cash advance and signature loan shops in the city. These places make loans that are expensive debt traps targeted to vulnerable consumers who have trouble making ends meet. These shops prey on poverty. These shops depend on poverty for their profit. These shops perpetuate poverty.
And we have enough poverty to feed these shops. The Downtown neighborhoods are the poorest in our community. The per capita income of Downtown is $6,500, half of what the per capita income is in El Paso ($14,400). In El Paso, an obscene amount of us live below the poverty line, almost 24%. In Downtown El Paso, 53% of individuals live below the poverty line.
If you chart the real estate trends in Downtown El Paso under the current Divestment Plan, we continue to lose residents, housing units, historic buildings, character, and tax base to a business model that feeds a few at the expense of the many. It seems like the only gains we make Downtown are in the number of people who live in poverty.
Frankly, I’ve had it with the Divestment Plan.
The Paso del Norte Group has presented an investment plan to the public, a plan that invests in our history, a plan that invests in our talent, a plan that invests in housing, a plan that invests in our economy and most importantly, a plan that invests in our future. The driving assumption in the redevelopment plan is that if we are going to revitalize downtown, we have to fundamentally re-shape the economy of Downtown to make it attractive to a larger market.
The only local analogy that I can think of for what needs to happen in Downtown is Music Under the Stars. Any Sunday summer night you can truck down to the Chamizal and find it peopled with every flavor of Paseño. There are retired military people from the northeast, young people, old people, ricachones, poor people, Mexicanos, Westsiders, Eastsiders, Central-siders, South-siders, politicos, the cool, the hip, the not-cool, the not-hip, a lot of belly dancers, Chicanos, Anglos, fronterizos, black people, people from Las Cruces and Sunland Park and tourists. How do we create a Downtown that attracts every flavor of Paseño to live, work, play, hang out and spend money in our Downtown?
The redevelopment plan layers into the existing Downtown marketplace a new mix of retail, entertainment and housing that will attract more Paseños and tourists to our Downtown. Parking lots that gobbled up our history become the staging ground for a new history and a new economy.
The redevelopment plan also opens up new business opportunities for El Paso entrepreneurs. If we are able to create a Downtown economy that brings more foot traffic to Downtown, we create an economy that will support locally owned bookstores, cafes, restaurants, galleries, etc. There have been many a Downtown pioneer (the Bridge Center for Contemporary Art, YaYas, Sam’s Pizza) that have tried to set a trend Downtown only to have to retreat for lack of customers. The plan creates more housing options, calling for 3,000 new housing units at all price points, to be built. We will also create a Downtown that is more attractive to large employers who would otherwise set up shop in suburban office malls.
The plan has been presented. Now is the time for the community, for you and me, to sit down and work through the details of the plan. I see our task as this: we have to create the environment for new investment in Downtown, but we have to make sure that the environment is framed by our values, that what is precious to us about our Downtown is preserved and enhanced and that the people who live in Downtown come out ahead.
Let’s take as an example, the historic buildings that David highlighted in his piece. Many of them are on Oregon Street south of Paisano. The plan lays out a concept called the Bi-National Arts Walk that wanders through this same area.
What if we took this Bi-National Arts Walk concept and created a place for border artists, musicians, poets and writers to sell their art and to make their art? What if we also created within this zone a place for our history to take front and center? A gallery, artist’s lofts, a live music club, the Santa Teresa Museum of the Mexican Revolution , a walking tour with Bowie High School students as the docents that whispers about the time in our history when the creative class ruled the southside and fed the Mexican revolution its inspiration, a coffee shop, mixed income housing, new buildings, old buildings restored, a place that celebrates the fronterizo spirit: this could be our Oregon Street.
I am convinced that we stand at the edge of a moment. It could be a great moment in our City’s history. We could push each other over the cliff and wait many more years for another plan to kill. Or we could take a deep breath, recognize the incredible opportunity that this plan opens up, roll up our sleeves and do the hard work of community building.
I promise you that I will take the time and the energy to do this right, to listen to all of the voices, ideas, concerns, thoughts and ideas.
By the way, the micro-historians, the urban planners, the creative class, the voters, the artists, the bobos, the yuppies, the residents, the anklebiters, the bi-nationalists, the bikers, the poets, the farmworkers and whoever else has an interest and an idea are invited to participate in the community process of shaping this plan. Email or call me (byrdsm@elpasotexas.gov or 541-4416) and I’ll keep you in the loop about the process, the next steps and the progress.
* * *
Susie Byrd is the City Representative for District 2.