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THE CITY

The Dollars and Sense of the Matter
By Jim Atkinson |

First, let me explain. What follows is written only under extreme duress and threat of bodily harm. I would not attempt under normal circumstances to explain to you why there is no way in hell to accomplish most of our 100 ideas to make Dallas a better place (see page 35) without tax hikes, generous bond programs and investment risks by private developers because I know you already know that. But the publisher, bless his heart, decided one day in what I’m sure he felt was an aesthetic moment of breakthrough thinking, that, “Gee guys, all this stuff sounds great, but there isn’t any of it that isn’t going to cost a bundle, and gee, don’t you think we ought to come up with some brilliant, sexy ways to finance all this without overburdening the average taxpayer and without asking the private developer to take ridiculous risks?”

You have to understand that publishers, bless their hearts, spend their free time pretending to be editors. They tend to understand the limits of legitimate journalism about as much as Gerald Ford understands the economy. It is nothing for them to drop a perfectly typed two line memo on your desk at 5: 28 p. m. requesting by 6 p. m., “five tight, terse anecdotes about corruption at the courthouse that name names to spice up the book. ” When you explain, in a panic stricken voice, that such information often takes months even to get a lead on, they say stuff like, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going… “

So here I am with a billion or so dollars worth of pie in the sky and a direct order from the publisher, bless his heart, to figure out how all of it can be done without overburdening the average taxpayer or over-extending the private developer. I went through the motions of checking through Fed grants and private foundations on the thinking that (a) if there’s Fed money available for studies of Polish farm roads, then maybe there’s a little left over largess for, uh, more immediate needs, and (b) in a place like Dallas, there might be more loose money floating around in private foundations than in the City treasury.

Sorry, but there isn’t any big windfall in either area. Dallas does have 65 to 70 Fed grants, amounting to $50 to $60 million total. The problem is, most of that money has earmarks, conditions, commitments, and provisions written all over. There is very little of the sort of “play money” necessary for the projects we propose. Some $7 million more in revenue sharing is due to come, another $28 million in Department of Housing and Urban Development community development funds, and $32. 6 million over six years in mass transit money -all basically unear-marked – that could help with some of the neighborhood restoration, downtown revitalization and transportation projects we propose. But even here, the Fed money can only be helpful in terms of initial capital expenditures. Ongoing maintenance and future growth in these areas inevitably would go back to you know who.

Private foundations, pretty much the same story. Lots of private dough -a rough accounting shows over 50 “large” foundations with total assets of about $180 million (this doesn’t include funds with less than $500, 000 total assets)-but it all seems to be going to fairly predictable places. With few notable exceptions, most foundations in Dallas unload their money on (a) colleges and universities, (b) the United Fund and other assorted community charities and (c) the churches of their choice. There’s very little creative giving of the kind needed to finance, for example, our proposed artists colony.

As I see it, the foundations can be helpful, at the minimum, in two areas: cultural activities and small amenities like trees on downtown streets, benches in parks, etc. However, it requires that many of them consciously break their set patterns of philanthropy and begin to seek interesting and innovative causes to subsidize.

Private corporate money could also be helpful in those two areas. There is simply no reason why a large bank or insurance company can’t finance trees along sidewalks in front of its building and major pieces of public art for its plazas and lobbies.

But we’re still talking the small stuff. The large and significant improvements we propose -and I feel safe in going ahead and saying this because the publisher, bless his heart, never reads my column anyway -can only be initially financed, maintained and improved by the taxpayers. And when you talk about mailing Main Street, cleaning up the Trinity and building Town Lake, a downtown sports arena, extending Turtle Creek downtown, expanding existing parks and so on, you are talking about an awful lot of money.

But consider this silver lining: The taxpayers’ upfront investment on, say, mailing Main Street, or building Town Lake, can actually pay itself off over the years. Improvement in these areas would increase business, which would help appreciate the property, which would ultimately increase the City’s take on property taxes. That’s not to mention the aesthetic and environmental benefits which would be derived from such improvements, which cannot be measured in terms of dollars. Such undertakings involve something of a risk on the part of the investor -the taxpayer -but they are risks well worth taking.

Speaking of risk-taking, a few words about private developers. Many of our proposed improvements – re-doing Highland Park “Shopping Village, developing a strip of shops and entertainment areas along an alley, new sports franchises, new theaters-involve private developers flexing a little. This may not be the best of economic times to be talking about risk ventures, but you have to be careful how you define “risk. ” It’s easy enough to say that anything outside of a Valley View-style shopping center, an apartment complex, or a steak-and-salad-bar restaurant, is a “risk. ” But look at the incredible success of some “risky” developments: Jim Coker’s Olla Podrida, Tom Garrison’s Stoneleigh P, Ray Nasher’s NorthPark, Trammell Crow’s Market Center, to name a few. These undertakings, at their respective idea stages, were considered risks of various proportions. Yet they are all booming successes. The way the tastes of this town have diversified, and continue to do so, a re-do of Highland Park Shopping Village or an al-ley development might not be the “risk” it seems.

A final thought: The City and the private developer can, in many cases, diminish their respective risks by joining hands. The Union Terminal area Reunion development is a classic example of how combining public and private resources can make a seemingly risky project feasible. This may well be the one “brilliant, sexy” way to finance major improvements that the publisher, bless his heart, demanded. The only other one I’ve come up with is plain old guts.

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