May 14th, 2010
Perspectives on downtown development
Questions for Downtown Master Plan organizers
Highlights of interview with Doug Bisson, community planning manager at HDR, Inc., a central organizer in Omaha’s Downtown Master Plan process.
How would you characterize downtown residential developers, such as those behind the Downtown Living Tour, in relation to the Downtown Master Plan? Also, the perspective of downtown residents in relation to the planning process.
There was one developer on the steering committee, and it was Mike Moylan. He’s the developer of The Paxton. His role was to take the downtown developer perspective and make sure everything we were doing fit with what the development community’s goals were. There was great coordination between him and the planning team.
Also, ultimately on the advisory group there were several downtown residents and additional downtown developers that participated. And everything we’ve heard is that the downtown plan basically meets their goals. Things that they’re looking for: they all want more retail, more active life down the sidewalks. They want things that were going to cater to future downtown residents.  So we talked a lot about creating community gardens, dog parks, and active open spaces. As more people move downtown, it’s not just good enough to have an open space that’s more passive in nature, you to need more active use areas where you can run around, play catch, like a driving range and play space for more active type recreational activities. As more people look toward downtown: what are they going to need, what’s going to draw them?  We tried to incorporate those elements to achieve that.
Regarding downtown residential development and downtown residents, is there anything you’d like to say about trends or the efforts Omaha made to make accommodations?
A concurrent market assessment was done [at the time of the Downtown Master Plan], and what the market numbers are really showing is that household typology within the United States and within Omaha is changing. There exists a greater demographic that will be interested in downtown living. How do we translate that into the plan? We wanted to make sure to provide different housing typologies that would accommodate different residents and their needs. So the plan itself identifies three-story townhomes, apartment flats, high-rise living, mid-rise living — just a number of different residential opportunities. Each person as they’re looking at moving downtown will have a different take on how they want to live.
Another key element, is that people say, “Wow! Downtown is just for young professionals or empty nesters.” What we’re realizing as we’re looking at trends across the country is that this couldn’t be farther from the truth and that families are moving downtown. We talked to folks in Portland, and one of the things they regretted as they did their downtown development was not including space for an elementary school, because so many families were moving there with young kids. So we identified a space for an elementary school on west side of downtown. And we’ve really focused family-type activities — parks that cater to families with young children, safety town that was adjacent to The Rose Theater. So the whole western portion of downtown plan caters to more family opportunities.
When you step back — you’re trying to attract everyone from students straight out of school, to newly married couples, to families, to empty nesters, to retirees. You want to make sure to provide something that provides something for everyone.
That opens up the whole arts and cultural scene too. We talked about the arts district north by Hot Shops and the Mastercraft Building and creating really creative-type neighborhoods to how do you attract more cultural venues downtown and how do you build off the Qwest Center and a ballpark. We’re getting away from the central business district — an area being solely for business — coming full circle to being a true downtown where you can live, work, shop, play, and learn all in within walking distance.
Questions for Greater Omaha Chamber regarding downtown development
Highlights of interview with Rod Moseman, vice president of economic development, and Karla Ewert, vice president of communications, at the Greater Omaha Chamber.
1) Tell me what you see as the most important and vital parts of downtown development at the present date.
Rod Moseman: When I deal with clients, especially those that perhaps haven’t been here in 10 years, 15 … I tell them that there’s a brand new entrance to downtown and a brand new skyline. That always opens up that visual impact. I also sometimes say, “We are not your father’s Omaha.” And that usually leads into, “What do you mean?” and I can speak to all the developments.
Karla Ewert: We can quantify $2 billion worth of development in downtown in the past 10 years… and that’s a pretty big number for a city much larger than us. And that gains attention right there. I think our numbers and our visual changes we’ve seen in the past 10 years are remarkable.
2) What do you see as the most important and vital going forward?
Moseman: Continuing momentum. Seeing the NoDo master plan come to fruition.
Moseman: Short term, the stadium. We’ve seen nearly a ¼ of a billion dollars in development in the NoDo area just since the plan was released [five years ago].
Ewert: And that’s with all the hotels and the Slowdown and all the retail.
Moseman: NoDo is 300 acres almost. That is a huge piece of property that is strategically between our central business district and the airport. That doesn’t exist in a lot of places, so we virtually have the opportunity to geographically double the size of our downtown. And again, very few cities can say that.
3) How do you view the Downtown Master Plan?
Moseman: For prospective investors, knowing that there is a vision and there is a plan, is important. It gives them a certain sense of confidence, shall we say, that stakeholders in the area, as well as the community, have gotten together to put that collective input together — and there’s a vision.
4) Do you see the DMP being implemented with the guidelines that were recommended?
Moseman: Even in [the 1972] master plan, yes, there was what we know today as the Gene Leahy Mall connected to something called Marina City. Now what we see is the ConAgra campus with the Heartland of America Park and fountain – is it that much different? Not really. Yes, there was a different vision, but generally, it tracked pretty well. You’re not going to draw a box on a plan and say this is going to be a 10-story corporate office building. User comes along and they want to put a 20-story in there. The measure of it is, when you look at the plan, you’ve got these four or five blocks that have been marked, if you want to call it, as potential office locations. Will they all end up that way, some kind of version of that. Again, there is a vision. But it’s remarkable.
5) How would you characterize the downtown residential developers, such as those behind the Downtown Living Tour?
Moseman: Enrich the inventory, because there’s new towers, there’s adapted reuse. So you’ve got a nice mixture.
Ewert: The developers are high quality professional people, even though they come at it from different experiences, they’ve delivered. I remember walking through Kimball Lofts when it was a warehouse, and now they’ve produced. I think we had a lot of skeptics that thought there was going to be nothing but empty facilities downtown and these developers didn’t know what they were doing and they were going to walk away from the table. Even during the challenging economic times for condo sales, even though sales did slow down, the developers and financing partners didn’t walk away.
Moseman: It’s happening, but not at the cost of what’s going on in the suburban areas. That’s another important thing. It’s not like things have been shut off anywhere else.
6) Any other comments you have regarding downtown living and urban relocation?
Ewert: What’s so interesting about it is that people are really living down there, in their neighborhoods. People are walking their dogs. People are buying their groceries. People are getting their gas. They’re going to the Holland. I mean, literally, I can leave the parking lot at the Holland and be at my parking garage at Riverfront Place in three minutes. That’s remarkable. We’ve got the children and family kind of things with the Children’s Museum and the Rose. And the young professionals are here.
Moseman: Cultural institutions are largely clustered here. Financial institutions are clustered here. County government, city government are clustered here. So again, Omaha is unlike some other places where that might be more distributed.
Ewert:  The Holland, for instance, is a big catalyst for what’s going on. Or the bridge that has brought the community to the riverfront. The whole downtown tends to bring the city together, whether it’s the Old Market or what’s going on at Film Streams or Slowdown or the young professionals.