Downtown project has some leaks

By KELLY ERNST

Special to The Capital-Journal

Everyone agrees, including us, that downtown does need and deserve to be revitalized. However, the invention of the Watertower district will not accomplish this. If businesses are given the opportunity to locate in the Watertower district with government subsidized funding or in an old, boarded up, deteriorated building on Kansas Avenue, which will they choose?

The chain stores will come into Watertower, the dollars earned will leave the city, and the number of empty buildings in the real downtown will grow.

Our city leaders state that the growth of the Watertower district will create in-fill and other businesses and retail will jump at the chance to takeover spaces on Kansas, Quincy, Jackson, 8th Street, and so on. But who is going to take the risk and open a business blocks away from a government funded and protected project?

Even if there were some brave souls to venture into the old downtown area, what type of business would survive competing with the businesses that are being afforded the free ride at Watertower? How about a brew pub? No, there will already be one of those in Watertower. Then maybe a barbecue place, other restaurants, toy store, book store, camera store, workout facility, coffee house, or bar. Oops, those are all slated to be in the project, too.

Which brings up the next issue of unfair competition. All of us have enjoyed shopping and supporting the locally owned stores downtown for years. You like the fact that your money spent stays here, and small business is the backbone of any community. That will be threatened by this project through unfair assistance to big business.

None of the current downtown business owners is afraid of direct competition, or we would not be in business. We welcome the challenge to offer our customers more than the other guy. But when the city knowingly and willingly picks businesses that will be in direct competition with small, existing businesses and then subsidizes national chain stores to operate at lower costs than us, that is no longer fair competition.

When questioned about some assistance being afforded to the existing businesses, city officials' comments included that we would need to become more creative with our business practices and advertise more. But don't ask us for any assistance or funding, they added.

Revitalization is a good idea, but it should start from the center of downtown and work outward. Maintain Kansas Avenue as the centerpiece, not Quincy. The city should be more creative in its practices and find ways to lure business to the real downtown area and not an extension of the boundaries of downtown. Then, after the main streets are back, look south for your Watertower project or north for your park by the river. Those projects would then have a better success rate. How does it look to have abandoned buildings one block from our Capitol building?

Lastly, the funding of this proposal needs closer scrutiny. How many of you will be willing to shop or work out or whatever at Watertower if you have to feed a parking meter?

And when the businesses that the city are attempting to lure into Watertower complain about the parking meters in front of their stores, those same meters will undoubtedly show up on Kansas, Jackson and Quincy streets. Because that is how the city proposes to pay for this project --- parking revenues.

Kelly Ernst owns Gentlemen's Rack Ltd. in downtown Topeka.

WATERTOWER PLACE

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