Oct. 10, 2004

City leaders need to listen to this downtown entrepreneur

Jon Talton
Republic columnist

I'm happy a large piece of Arizona State University is coming to downtown Phoenix. But I'm just as pleased that people like Kimber Lanning are already there. Making sure both can succeed will be the enduring test of the city's future.

Lanning owns Modified Arts, a gallery and performance space that anchors the Roosevelt Row district of galleries. You've been there on First Friday events. If you haven't, don't complain that Phoenix has no soul.

And don't complain to Lanning. "People here have this weird inferiority complex," she said. "I tell them, 'Don't blame the city for your own boring lives.' "

This oasis of creativity grew despite decades of civic malpractice and sprawl-driven abandonment. It's still fragile. No wonder Lanning takes a passionate interest in the downtown plan being crafted around ASU.

Dark-haired and intense, Lanning came to ASU to study architecture, dropped out to start Stinkweeds record shop in 1987 and was drummer for the band Half String. But she speaks the language of business as much as art.

"Cautiously optimistic" is the verdict she rendered on the plan as we sipped drinks at Lux, the independent coffee shop on North Central Avenue.

Mayor Phil Gordon has made extraordinary efforts to reach out to downtown artists and entrepreneurs. "But," she said, "we may be putting the cart before the horse."

The city is focused on big projects. But if leaders don't also address the small, vital things, Phoenix will fail again to achieve an appealing, livable downtown. She mentions a few:

• Provide incentives to unlock vacant land, a major source of blight. "We've got to get these vacant properties unstuck," she said, so they can be used productively. The absentee owners who bought property cheap should "feel it in their pocketbooks" if they try to bank land for years.

• Stop the tear-downs. Tax policy makes it less expensive for a property owner to bulldoze a building. This has left downtown Phoenix with acres of ugly vacant lots. It defeats the creation of a dense, energetic streetscape that makes a downtown special. Tearing down older buildings also removes space that local businesses can afford.

• Go after absentee owners who allow their lots to be trashed and neglect their properties as an excuse to tear them down.

• Change the preservation laws to respect buildings that might not qualify for the National Register of Historic Places but help make downtown Phoenix authentic. Among them is the 1950s Circles Records building on Central.

• Support local small businesses, with tax freezes for longtime owner-occupied buildings and assistance on loans. "You can't outmall the malls," said Lanning, who helped organize Arizona Chain Reaction, which encourages consumers to shop locally. Local shops make a downtown special.

This is the view from street level rather than from the executive suite. It comes from a woman who kept faith with the city and made a stand downtown. Who has arrived at work to see a neighboring building leveled with no notice, never mind the damage to her property. Who cleans the blighted lot next door but then must deal with the hassles of city enforcement that still isn't geared to making the core thrive.

Lanning and others like her believed in downtown before it was the No. 1 agenda item. They need to be there, thriving, when all the big projects arrive.

©Arizona Republic 2004

 

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