Articles

The economic slowdown is hitting efforts to revitalize downtown St. Louis. Lenders are demanding higher proportions of pre-sales or pre-leases to secure financing. Prices are falling, and retailers, under a squeeze, are reluctant to commit to expansions when the downtown residential market is slowing down. 

The article underscores the fact that downtown regeneration involves intervening in complex systems. The trick, of course, is to find leverage points -- anchor investments that can change the underlying dynamics. This strategy gets harder as the economy slows.

Yet, these leverage investments are still around, and the job of the EDPro is to continuously find these investments and manage expectations of the transformation. 

Read more. 

The diversion of heavy traffic around small downtowns can be both a blessing and a curse. By-passes take heavy traffic off the roads through downtowns.

But they also create new commercial strips that -- if nothing is done -- drain the commercial life from the downtown.

That's why it's interesting to see how Carson City, NV is meeting this challenge. The new by-pass opens in 2010. A downtown consortium has formed to accelerate downtown development as a mixed use district.

You can read more about their efforts here.

Here's what the promoters of downtown hope to accomplish: View a picture.