CARLTON FLETCHER: Element missing in downtown development

Come on, come on let’s work together.

— Canned Heat

As the long-anticipated craft brewery on Pine Avenue in downtown Albany moves closer to its opening date and the Flats at 249 residential development shows steady progress, city of Albany officials are moving quickly toward what they should see as a day of reckoning.

Both Dr. Tripp Morgan, whose Pretoria Fields Collective owns and will operate the brewery, and Pace Burt, the hometown developer whose work on the mixed-use housing project is part of a body of work that is recognized as groundbreaking across the Southeast, have made it clear that any success they hope to enjoy with their projects will depend on continued development downtown.

Albany city officials, in particular Downtown Manager Latoya Cutts, understand the necessity of maintaining momentum in the district, and Cutts is devoting much of her efforts into not only finding businesses interested in making the move but also into finding the “right” businesses.

Glenn Singfield and his family — son Glenn II and wife Tandra — are expected to bring a top-tier restaurant downtown in the Pine Avenue location adjacent to the brewery, and a number of other businesses are reportedly about ready to pull the trigger on moving into storefronts along Front Street and Pine.

The approach Cutts and city officials have taken to development efforts makes good business sense, but there is perhaps one element of their equation that is lacking. By limiting participation in planning the downtown development process to government officials — and semi-government agencies like the Albany-Dougherty Inner City Authority and the Downtown Development Authority — the city is missing out on valuable input that could make or break redevelopment in the Central Business District.

Where are true representatives of the citizens and businesses whose support is an absolute must?

Certainly city officials might argue that the ADICA and DDA boards fill that bill. But, with a few exceptions, those agencies have frequently found themselves caught up in agendas of board members that have nothing to do with “what’s best for downtown,” leaning more toward “what’s best for my own personal interests or the interests of a specific group I support.”

City officials who are convinced that they — and, usually, they alone — hold the answers to all of the questions surrounding downtown redevelopment can look at the governmental hijacking of a popular event as an example of what happens when bureaucracy steps in and takes over something successful and leaves it lacking by doing so.

Albany’s “Mardi Gras” festival was the brainchild of a few then-downtown merchants who, basically, thought it would be cool to have a street gathering to showcase the offerings of businesses in the district. They jumped through the required bureaucratic hoops, put together the festival idea (which, incidentally, was never intended to be a “Mardi Gras” festival, per se, but was turned into one when the theme that had been selected by the merchants stuck, to the ire of many purists who get the significance of “Fat Tuesday”) and turned it into one of the biggest events in the city that weren’t related to Albany State University’s homecoming.

When city officials saw how big the gathering had become, they more or less decided to join in on the planning, eventually pushing the folks who had made the festival work — people like Phil Cannon, Bo Henry and Stephen Brimberry — aside and implementing their own “better” ideas. Eventually — and sadly — “Mardi Gras,” under city leadership, has morphed into a shell of its former self, attendance plummeting, even with hundreds of runners in town for the popular Snickers Marathon held the same day.

With ADICA and DDA now so politicized — and, to a degree — granted authority beyond their original scope — and often, ability to manage properly — Cutts and city officials would be well-advised to seek actual input from truly independent citizens who have no personal agendas other than growth in the city as they pursue continued downtown development. A citizen planning council might not be a bad idea.

Government works best when it works toward goals that stand to benefit the public at large, not just a specific group whose primary interest is clearly self-interest.

Contact Carlton Fletcher at [email protected]. Follow @ABH_Fletcher on Twitter.

Staff Photo