DOUGLAS MAG 504 MULTIMEDIA PUBLICATION
VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1
ENTERTAINMENT MAGAZINE
R&B/SOULS/JAZZ MUSIC AT IT’S BEST
JOIN US IN DEVELOPING A REVITALIZATION PROGRAM FOR OUR DOWNTOWN
INTERNATIONAL JAZZ DAY AZ FOUNDATION & AMEC RECORDS PERSENTS
1ST ANNUAL
DOUGLAS AZ HERITAGE MUSIC FESTIVAL:
MAYOR
ROBERT URIBE keepmusicaflaot.org
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New revitalization proposal By: IJD Foundation’s Arts Commitee
BY Doc Jones
Understand the Douglas community first step in the revitalization process is to understand the Community’s context. First we will be, looking at the past. What is Douglas community’s history and heritage? What assets drew the city’s founders to create this town in the first place? Next, look at what is the vision for the future of Douglas Arizona under the direction of the newly elected honorable Mayor Robert Uribe. What is the demographic makeup of Douglas right now? What are our assets? What have we lost? What do we need that we don’t have? Finally, ask what do the people of the Douglas community wants to become under the direction of the Mayor Uribe. What is the vision for Douglas? What kind of place do we want to pass on to our grandchildren? Who do we want to be in our town 10 years from now? And what is our unique potential moving forward? The first section of this proposal is designed to help us find answers to these questions. Doing so will help us understand what the Douglas community values, and help us in bring people together around the idea of revitalization. As those projects advance, understanding our community’s values will also help us talk about our work in successful ways. The following section this proposal will outlines how to find answers to all of these questions. Strategy 1: Engage community members revitalizing a downtown is about bringing people together, and it’s best to do that from the very beginning. Bring together everyone with a vested interest in downtown to gain a complete understanding of what our community hopes to get out of revitalization. This might reveal perspectives we did not realize before, or assets we weren’t aware of. It will also help create built in support for the project like the Heritage Jazz festival moving forward, and will give our project staying power.
Before anything else, we are happy to announce Jim Russell city manager and David Carranza economic/community development director under the direction of the Honorable Mayor Uribe will lead this fundamental component of our revitalization work: Strategy 2 • They will designate a senior-level staff member to serve as liaison to all stakeholders involved in or affected by the revitalization process. • They will designate a staff member to convene and coordinate department heads. Ideally, create a new senior-level position on the Mayor’s staff with the authority to convene and coordinate department heads, and commit to actions on behalf of the City. Once we have designated one person in charge of engaging community members, that person should begin a comprehensive public engagement process. Before beginning an engagement process, we should carefully consider where on this spectrum we intend our efforts to be. A sincere commitment on the part of the Mayor, city manager, economic development, and city council will play a huge role in this process’s success or failure. Bringing everyone to the table should not be a hollow gesture, or merely a way to check a box. (Before we start, we must ask ourselves, “Are we prepared for the outcome of the public engagement process to materially change the program we intend to pursue?”) This is a genuine way to make our project stronger and more effective. Our aim must be to create a stable, ongoing partnership between public staff, business leaders, neighborhood advocates, and landowners or developers. Here are a few ways to do that: • Bring in the business community starting with Rosa Anel Lopez. Create a partnership or association of local businesses and landowners. At the beginning, bring these people together to collect their ideas and identify their priorities. We must ask, this group to be the title sponsor of our newly created Annual Heritage and Jazz Festival and all other festivals we will produce to bring new people and revenue into the Douglas economy.
Establish regular communication between downtown business owners and city staff. • Partner with community organizers like William Doc Jones. Community-based non-profits, civic organizations, churches, social groups, business owners, like International Jazz Day AZ Foundation etc. that can help bring diverse community interests to the development table. Ask these groups about the challenges their community members are facing. • We must collect public feedback this is very important. Create a wide array of ways for residents to weigh in on this process. Public meetings, polls and surveys, and online crowdsourcing platforms are three good ways we can start. Think creatively about the people in your community and how to bring them together. • We must identify and get input from long-term residents as early as possible. Allow long-term residents to weigh in at the earliest possible stage of the project. Conduct surveys and hold community meetings to learn what long-term residents want to preserve about their neighborhood, what they would like to change, and what they want to gain from new development. Understanding their needs and concerns will make the project stronger and help earn their buy-in from the start. • Expect disagreements—and have a strategy for how to handle them. Neighborhood changes can stir racial and socioeconomic tensions that go far broader and deeper than any one community. When local change rubs against this nerve, tensions will flare quickly. These conflicts are deep and important, and should not be ignored. Handling them successfully requires a history of trust with at this stage of our new administration we will have to earn, as well as a more formal approach to conflict resolution. The best strategies seek to build trust early and resolve tensions before they become entrenched battles. • Commit to ongoing engagement. Engage with residents in an ongoing way, and give them regular, recurring opportunities to understand what’s happening and to voice their concerns. Being consistent and predictable with this process will help build trust between the city, developers, businesses, and residents. Hold community meetings and information sessions at several different times and locations, and create a mailing list and send project updates by email. We must start a social Tv, Radio media channels for the project and encourage community members to follow and share their thoughts online. Project-sponsored gatherings like our 1st block party on Feb17th, festivals like our 1st Annual Heritage and Jazz Festival in October, and other community events will be a good way to we can make the project visible. These events can also remind a neighborhood that it is, in fact, a community. These are also good opportunities to highlight local businesses and attract people to see the new progress. • Create a mechanism or schedule for ongoing engagement activities, and communicate about the process throughout the year. Be sure that this commitment includes a plan for digital outreach and social media that will be developed by Doc’s multimedia company. • Come together around shared values. For all the differences we will see across communities, there are certain universal desires – basic safety, opportunities for kids, and convenient access to needed amenities – which will pull together disparate parties. Create a narrative for this project that everyone in the community can share. In public events, in branding, and in project plans, emphasize our community’s history and character, and how this will create positive community change. Focus on the values that residents want to see in their community moving forward. Local mores and norms help guide and protect a community, but a shared identity also offers an invitation to newcomers. We must do our research once we have collected feedback from the community; it’s a good time to do our background research. Community feedback is a great opportunity to understand our community from an anecdotal perspective, but there are a variety of data sets and tools available to comprehend our community from a quantitative standpoint. Our research will also help identify the feasibility of the various components of this new redevelopment plan.
• Perform a market study. An analysis of the current and potential inventory of housing, retail, and office space will help us determine what the real estate market is and what it could be. The study can help us determine the surpluses and shortages of uses in the market. • We must gather demographic information. Key demographic indicators to examine include ages, income levels, housing values, unemployment rates, gender, household sizes, and other demographic categories. This information will provide surprising insights into our community’s needs. • Conduct a survey. By conducting a survey residents, citizens, and other stakeholders will provide opinions in a format that allows our researcher to interpret the results in a quantitative manner. • Complete a fiscal impact study. The analysis allows us to understand the amount of tax revenue, jobs, and other benefits this project will generate while simultaneously taking into account the cost to provide services such as sewer, water, roads, schools, etc. To be most useful, the study should incorporate an analysis of the net impact over time of the pattern of development on the municipal budget. We must create a strategy with specify goals and make a plan to achieve them once we have gathered community feedback and researched the feasibility of redevelopment, the third step is to create our strategic plan under the direction of the honorable Mayor. His plan will frame and guide the process for revitalizing our downtown. This process should start by bringing together a select advisory group which includes representatives from neighborhood groups, retailers, investors, developers, property owners, churches, the mayor, and key city councilors, the heads of select city departments, non-profit organizations, artists, homeless advocates, and others. The group should be relatively small (no more than 25 individuals) in order to both build a sense of trust and cohesion and, ultimately, to ensure the process stays focused on results. It is also crucial that the individuals be people who are interested in successful solutions, not narrow political gain. This group should be select but it should not be secret: consider allowing community members to observe meetings and/or provide copies of the group’s materials publicly. One potential way to structure the work of this group is to schedule two one-day sessions, a month apart, to create the strategic plan. Before the first day, assemble a briefing book with the 7 findings of our public outreach and feasibility study. The first day will be used to introduce the group to one another, to understand the contents of the briefing book, and to lay out the possible options for our strategic plan. In the second meeting, we should lead participants to discuss and ideally agree on the general and specific items most appropriate for our downtown. Here are some of the things that conversation should include: • Community vision. Based on our public engagement work articulate our community’s goals and vision for revitalization. • Douglas neighborhood character. Define the boundaries of downtown and where the focus of our work will be. We might also outline things like how dense that area should be, and how it should relate to the immediate surrounding neighborhoods. • Housing. What kinds of housing should be available downtown if any? Consider including a wide array of housing types, with some areas of moderate or high density, at both market rate and affordable levels. Be sure that any housing options we include are legally allowed. What type of retail options should be downtown? Consider a mix of types, including entertainment (movies, restaurants, night clubs); specialty retail (clothing, furniture, and other boutique stores); regional retail (department stores and major chains); and local-serving retail (grocery stores, drugstores, dry cleaners, etc.) A mix of retail types will give a neighborhood critical mass, identity, and a reason for people to live and work there. The precise elements and proportions will of course depend in part on the scale of our particular downtown. • Business recruitment. How will the city of Douglas recruit new businesses downtown? Plan to include both “export” businesses—those that sell goods and services to customers outside our area—and regional-serving companies. Business recruitment usually occurs later in the revitalization process, after a critical mass of urban entertainment and housing has been established. continue p16
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• Culture. What unique cultural facilities could be enhanced, moved, or created downtown? This can include things like (in the future) small arenas, stadiums, performing arts centers, museums, historic sites and buildings, and other attractions (just a thought). This can help attract visitors from around the region to our downtown, who can in turn support local businesses. • Public infrastructure. What public infrastructure we will need to change as part of this project? Focus on essential issues like water and sewer, structured parking, and enhanced security and cleanliness, among others. Parks and open space, and, when appropriate, we might want to create opportunities for special development, should also be included. • Community involvement. Map out our plan to make sure citizens have continuous opportunities for input and involvement in the revitalization process. • Marketing. How will we market downtown to residents and businesses this is where Doc Jones event planning and media skill will come in handy? If we plan to draw people downtown with events, plan how we will market those as well not only to Douglas residents but surrounding communities. If residents currently have a negative view of downtown, we will need to work hard to change their perceptions. This is also an important part of attracting the investment community. • Support needs. The question the city must answer first is will Douglas be able to do this revitalization work alone, or will they need external support? Consider creating a business improvement district or a transportation management organization, as well as temporary task forces, a parking authority, an arts’ coordinating group, and others. • Phases. It is not possible for us to do all this all at once or in one term, so we must establish phases for our revitalization work. Focus on doing catalytic projects first—those that will motivate future changes to follow. This approach will help community members see progress underway, and remind project champions of the end vision we are working toward. The outcomes of this conversation should form the basis of our strategic plan. At the end of the second day, determine together the immediate next steps for formalizing the plan and its implementation, including who will be responsible for those next steps and when they should be accomplished. The plan should be summarized in writing very quickly after the second meeting and distributed for comments. Final plans are usually only 10 to 15 pages long and should be sent out to the city council and citizens as part of the marketing and community involvement strategies. Then it’s time to implement our plan. The remainder of this document outlines some of the most important aspects of that. Consider how to integrate this work into existing city processes, and schedule regular check-in meetings to make sure you are meeting the goals and deadlines laid out by the plan. Create an attractive, walkable place Once we have a strategic plan in place, it’s time to put that plan into action and change the built environment. This second step involves five strategies: make the area clean and safe; activate empty spaces in the short term; facilitate redevelopment in the long term; improve public spaces; and provide multiple transportation options. Make the area clean and safe making downtown feel safe is the first order of business for any revitalization work. Without a baseline atmosphere of safety, all other downtown amenities or services will struggle. A place must not only be safe objectively but also feel safe subjectively. Cleanliness—streets that are generally free of litter and graffiti—is closely related, as it affects both the aesthetic impression of a place as well as perceptions of personal safety. If crime or cleanliness is a problem in our downtown, take all necessary steps to address it: • Conduct a safety assessment and work with local businesses to identify areas in particular need of attention. • Establish a visible security presence in the neighborhood. Partner with the local police force to have officers dedicated to the area in squad cars as well as on foot or bike patrols. Consider whether an additional private security effort would be appropriate. • Establish city trash and street cleaning level of service, and coordinate any private cleanliness efforts with city agencies.
In some cases, crime or cleanliness may not be as much of a problem as public perceptions of the neighborhood. • Create a Business Improvement District (BID). A BID, usually funded by a tax or levy on businesses within a set area, provides a range of services to promote and enhance the neighborhood, including cleaning streets, providing security, making capital improvements and streetscape enhancements, and marketing. BIDs are often the organization primarily responsible for a downtown’s revitalization, and their responsibilities can include much more than just safety and cleanliness. • Create a team of street ambassadors. Street ambassadors act as a concierge to assist visitors, field questions and provide motorist assistance, offer first aid, help homeless in the neighborhood, and pick up trash. This is often something a BID is responsible for. Beautify public spaces Beautiful public spaces give visitors and residents a place to sit, relax, people-watch, and enjoy the neighborhood—a simple way to encourage people to spend more time downtown. Public spaces should be well maintained and attractive, and provide a central focus for gatherings. Some things other communities have used to improve their public spaces: • Invest in the streetscape. Repair broken sidewalks, and consider adding features like street benches, planters, bike racks, trees with a healthy canopy, and tree boxes. Make sure the arrangement of windows and doors favors pedestrians and is not dominated by sides of buildings, or parking structures. • Create outdoor lighting geared towards pedestrians. Put in ample lighting designed for people walking, rather than automobile traffic. • Establish a façade improvement program. Provide financial incentives to businesses and property owners to upgrade and visually improve building exteriors. Façades are usually privately owned and are not public spaces strictly speaking, but they have a significant impact on the look and feel of a public space. • Create “pop-up” shops. A great way to fill empty storefronts is to invite local existing businesses, manufacturers, crafters, makers, artisans, or other entrepreneurs to open a temporary pop-up shop. These flexible spaces allow business owners to experiment in a new location without the high up-front costs of building out a new retail space. Do everything we can to make securing the space and permitting its use easy and affordable. • Allow for interim uses of vacant lots. Temporary uses can serve as a great interim measure for vacant lots downtown. For example, seasonal cafés or restaurants in the summer, or holiday markets in the winter. The City might consider leasing the lot from the landowner, if necessary. Be sure City regulations allow for this use. • Establish a farmers’ market. Weekly markets give people a reason to come downtown regularly and support small, independent businesses. • Bring in food trucks. Mobile cart and food truck eateries can bring a critical mass of people to places they might not have been before, and also show the potential for revitalized economic activity in an area. • Invite artists to create installations. Work with a local artists’ alliance to create public artworks in vacant spaces. Artworks that include light elements are particularly engaging after dark. • Install outdoor kiosks. Use them as an information desk for visitors, or rent them out to entrepreneurs selling souvenirs, jewelry, artwork, etc. No matter what we decide, appoint a member of the mayor staff to maintain this effort, give it an ongoing presence, and promote the temporary uses. Facilitate redevelopment in the long term As the interim uses discussed above begin to draw people to downtown, it will be easier for residents and developers to see the potential for revitalization. Leverage that potential into longterm redevelopment projects with some of the following strategies.
New owners have big plans for Gadsden Hotel, Douglas Southern Arizona is keeping one of its world-famou attractions. The historic Gadsden Hotel in Douglas was bought by a local couple on Dec. 15, and they have big plans not only for the building, but for the city. Tucson News Now sat down with Anel and Florencio Lopez, who saved the hotel from closing its doors when longtime owner Hartman Brekhus passed away in September. The couple have a passion for restoring old buildings and they say they couldn’t let Douglas be stripped of the historic hotel. “There’s nothing like this in the world and it’s here in Douglas,” Florencio Said. “You see it from the outside, it’s just a building. You walk into this lobby, it takes your breath away.” Gadsden Hotel is one of the main and few businesses left downtown. Now not only are the doors staying open, the Lopez family says they want to help rebuild the downtown area. From the marble staircase to the original Tiffany and Co. stained glass windows, the Gadsden is known for its extravagance. History is etched into the walls. Legend says the Gadsden is haunted and Anel says she and her husband have also had a few strange encounters. ”We’ve seen the lights turning off, items being moved,” she said. The Lopezes say they plan to bank on that and share the hotel’s stories with everyone. “What we want to do is actually give ghost tours. There have been several little things that have happened to us since we started to move things.” But the 109-year-old hotel needs some work. The couple say they’ve taken on projects in worse shape but never of this magnitude and knew what they were getting themselves into when they bought the hotel. They plan to start from the bottom up. They say the hotel’s foundation is sound, but things need to be upgraded. They’ve shut down the top floors of the hotel until they’re renovated, renting 21 of the 130 rooms. The new owners have already began replacing fixtures with LED lighting and energy efficient heating. The Lopezes say their plan will take several years, but eventually they hope the hotel will be an even bigger draw for Douglas. “We want to bring events to the community, we want to be able to host a wine fest,” Florencio said, adding they have plans to add a wine bar and convert some of the top rooms into condos. The Lopezes say they don’t want to put any of the businesses that rent from the hotel on the street. They plan to stay open through the renovation process, shutting down certain areas as they need to and preserving as much of the historic hotel as they can. “To keep the doors open for all those who want to view it and want to come and step foot here or want to be part of this.”
How the Arts and Cultural Tourism Spur Economic Development It’s the question that all local officials ask themselves: How can we attract and retain profitable businesses and talented people? A key component of such efforts — and one that’s often mislabeled an “amenity” —is arts and culture. Creative businesses play a huge part in the California economy. These businesses comprise the arts, design, digital media and other fields that utilize a creative workforce. More than 134,000 creative businesses employ 500,000 Californians, with another 100,000 freelance or part-time creative workers in the mix. In addition, the Golden State’s 4,553 arts organizations contribute $3.56 billion annually to its economy. But the value of the arts extends beyond the direct economic impact. When Gallup and the Knight Foundation set out to answer the question “What attaches people to their communities?” in a three-year study, researchers found that the key reasons cited by residents for loving their cities were entertainment and social offerings, how welcoming the city is and its aesthetics — in other words, the arts and culture. Creative Placemaking: “Every Mayor’s Dream” Today’s buzzword to describe communities’ investment in arts and culture is “creative placemaking” — which means using the arts to develop an area where people want to live, work and congregate. Urban-planning researcher Ann Markusen defined this concept for the Mayors’ Institute on City Design in the white paper Creative Placemaking: In creative placemaking, partners from public, private, nonprofit and community sectors strategically shape the physical and social character of a neighborhood, town, city or region around arts and cultural activities. The economic impact of clustering creative businesses was explained by Jamie Bennett, director of public affairs for the National Endowment for the Arts. Bennett said, “A theater has 1,000 people show up at eight o’clock and leave at eleven o’clock. A museum might have 1,000 visitors spread out over the course of an eight-hour day. A rehearsal studio might have 30 people coming and going every hour over 12 hours. You put the three different organizations in proximity to one another and, all of a sudden, you have a full day of positive foot traffic on a street — feet that belong to people who need to eat meals, buy newspapers, go shopping and take public transportation. You have every mayor’s dream.” The key is to treat the arts as an essential part of the city’s identity. Successful creative placemaking builds the economy at the local level, enhances surrounding non-arts businesses and provides job opportunities and ways for individuals to participate in activities associated with the arts and cultural events. The results bring people together, spark community pride and create a more vibrant “place.” Other states are actively investing in arts and culture as a challenge to California’s historic leadership in the global creative economy. The National Governors Association (www.nga.org) examined this issue in the report New Engines of Growth: Five Roles for Arts, Culture and Design. The report notes that as technology sectors have shifted from basic engineering to the added values of innovative design and creative products, establishing a network of creative workers is vital to staying competitive.
Tap Your Local Talent Successful creative placemaking acknowledges and supports local arts and culture. “Art and artists are the asset all communities are gifted with,” noted Carol Coletta, director of ArtPlace, a collaboration of 13 leading national and regional foundations and six of the nation’s largest banks that invests in creative placemaking. “In a time when we especially need to jump-start economic and development momentum in our communities, I have to ask, ‘Why wouldn’t you put every single asset you have available to work to make that happen?’ And that includes art and artists.” Creative clusters that combine artists and entrepreneurs have mushroomed in California cities. In Santa Monica, an old rail yard has blossomed into the visual-art gallery complex of Bergamot Station. Originally a railway station in the 19th century, Bergamot Station functioned as a warehouse storage facility until the 1980s when the City of Santa Monica purchased it for a future use as a light-rail station. When the light-rail project stalled, the city approached a local developer and architect to create an artists’ and gallery space. It opened in 1994 and has since become a key attraction both locally and for tourists, with more than 600,000 visitors each year visiting the galleries and other businesses in the complex. In San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, a handful of nonprofits teamed up with entrepreneurs to establish the 5MPlaceWorks partnership where tech entrepreneurs mix with artists and designers. These creative clusters may seem spontaneous, but are the result of direct and meaningful planning and investment. Yet clusters of arts, culture and entrepreneurship aren’t exclusive to major urban areas. Smaller cities can take advantage of local talent to showcase the community’s unique personality and, at the same time, provide important job training and creative interaction for local citizens. Modesto Fosters Creative Innovation Modesto’s new Building Imagination Center is a contemporary art and video-art venue. It’s also an education and artist residency center. Its activities, including investment in local video artists, encourage production and job training for anyone interested — mid-level professionals, recent graduates of California State University, Stanislaus, and members of the public. The Building Imagination Center is part of a greater network of the Modesto arts and culture scene, and its monthly short documentary projects on local subjects enhance these characteristics and bring the community together, according to Jessica Gomula-Kruzic, the center’s director. The center plans to highlight other local cultural assets, such as the American Graffiti Car Show and Festival and the area’s largely unknown architectural treasures, which include buildings designed by Julia Morgan, Frank Lloyd Wright and other notable architects. The center is not solely for professional artists and filmmakers, however. It also offers free workshops that teach individuals how to create short videos using common devices like smart phones. As technology advances, the nature of work is changing, and employers increasingly expect employees to have multimedia skills. One-minute videos for YouTube and websites are being produced by businesses from real estate to restaurants and retail. “We’re hoping to give people the skills to do those things,” said Gomula-Kruzic.
I WILL NEED ALL OF YOUR HELP AND BLESSINGS TO ACCOMPLISH MY MISSION FOR THE REVIALIZATION OF OUR DOWNTOWN
SCOTTSDALE MAYOR, JIM LANE PHX MAYOR STANTON
Douglas AZ Mayor Robert Uribe
AZ & Sonora Governors
6th Annual International Jazz Day Festival AZ 2017 Tour Coming to your Cities Mesa AZ Mayor John Giles
Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild
JAZZ AT LU
TO HER
YOU ARE INVITED TO JOIN US IN CELEBRATING THE KICK OFF OF ARIZONA’S 6TH ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL JAZZ DAY
WEEKEND AT THE STATE CAPITOL
WEDNESDAY APRIL 26,2017 11:00AM TO 1:00PM
UNCH TIME!
R FATHER
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