District of hope: Three years in, another city's business district wins approval
Three years in, another city's business district wins approval
Tuesday, June 9, 20091
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WESTFIELD - Next week, Northampton's fledgling Business Improvement District will get wings, when members install a first board of directors.
The milestone comes three years after Westfield, a slightly larger city to the southwest, did the same, becoming the third municipality in the state to launch a BID, behind Hyannis and Springfield.
The Gazette visited The Whip City to learn more about how its business district has evolved. Have the money and efforts been worth it? Is the BID improving the city's downtown?
By most accounts, the answer is a measured yes, though change has not come overnight, according to interviews with property and business owners and others with a stake in the city's fortunes.
"In a short time, we've made a lot of progress," said Prob Reshamwala, who bought the Tobacco Barn on Elm Street with his wife, Mina, in 1982 and today serves as vice president of the Westfield BID's board. "I think so far, what we've done is very successful. Nobody has said, 'This is bad.'"
Among the lessons learned?
"The only mistake we've made is we're trying to do too much, but that's normal in a new organization," he said.
Unlike Northampton's BID, which divided downtown property owners and spawned a lawsuit, a large majority of Westfield property owners supported creation of a business improvement district. They saw it as an effort to breathe new life into its battle-tested, though far less bustling, downtown.
Westfield had its dissenters, to be sure, and the BID's creation came well before the country's economic tailspin. But the numbers speak for themselves: Of the 231 commercial properties in the district, 190 are in and taxed accordingly.
So far, the Westfield BID has focused on a "deep cleaning" of the downtown. The organization's Clean Team is compensated out of its $265,000 annual budget.
The uniformed troupe clears snow from sidewalks in winter and has been removing graffiti and chewing gum from the commercial center's buildings and sidewalks. The team sweeps the city's sidewalks and municipal lots each morning. It does landscaping and has hung more than 70 flowering plants on downtown lamp posts.
"We have a lot to prove and we're still in our infancy stage," cautioned Lisa G. McMahon, the BID's executive director. "It's not a race. You're trying to put good foundations down."
Investing profits
A former director of the Amelia Park Ice Arena, McMahon is as fired up about her mission as she is about prospects for Westfield's downtown. She was tapped two years ago to lead the BID and remains its only paid staff member (part-time administrative help is coming). Among her many charges is ensuring that money property owners have invested in the BID through a special tax is spent wisely and effectively.
"This money is on the backs of my property owners," McMahon said in an interview at her small office in a historic Court Street building. "For most of them, it is their profits."
Unlike Northampton's downtown, a tourist hot spot that is far more colorful, pedestrian friendly and commercially successful, Westfield's core commercial district is subdued and less peopled, yet has "good bones," as McMahon put it.
Westfield's mix of restaurants and retail shops is decidedly smaller than Northampton's. Businesses located in historic buildings mix with vacant storefronts.
During a recent visit, a Gazette reporter stopped at The Tavern, a stately looking restaurant in a former post office, Erin's Own Irish Imports along Elm Street and Victory International, a sparklingly clean Russian grocery that could well be set in the middle of St. Petersburg, Russia, among other establishments.
Like Hyannis and Springfield, the mission of Westfied's BID is tailored to the city's needs, said McMahon, who is a familiar face to most downtown merchants.
"A BID is very fluid," McMahon said. "You can make changes as you go. What works in Westfield doesn't need to be what's happening in Northampton."
The Westfield BID is working inside a larger effort to revitalize the city's downtown with a goal of filling vacant storefronts and pulling Westfield State College into its orbit. To that end, McMahon has a seat at the table as the college works through its multi-million-dollar plans to develop student housing downtown and to strengthen town-gown relations.
Unlike Northampton, where the gates of Smith College flank one end of Main Street, its students and faculty part of the downtown fabric, Westfield State's campus lies two miles from the center.
"We are a town with a college. We want to be a college town," McMahon said, noting the city's other assets, including Noble Hospital and Stanley Park.
"The downtown does not represent what a wonderful community Westfield is ... at this moment," she said. "But that's going to change."
College's step
Last year, the BID was instrumental in drawing the college to open up an art gallery in the historic Rinnova Building on Elm Street, which had been vacant. The organization frequently partners with nonprofits to sponsor events, including concerts, a new farmers' market downtown and a popular restaurant and pub tour, in addition to larger events.
Two of those nonprofits, Westfield on Weekends and Westfield Arts on the Green, have been spearheaded in large part by Gerald E. Tracy, who grew up in the city and left for many years before returning.
"I came to Westfield seven years ago and I felt like it was an empty canvas to be painted," Tracy said.
Tracy opened the Tea Pot Gallery, an arts cafe and gallery at the corner of Elm and School streets, and is leading an effort to turn a nearby building into more than a dozen studios and gallery spaces. Like other municipalities in the area, the city hopes to attract more artists.
As for the BID, Tracy said he was willing to join and pay $1,800 annually in special fees because he believed it would improve the downtown at a time when the city has been unable to do so.
"As the city fails to have the funding to do things, the BID just takes its place," said Tracy. "Do I see $1,800 in money coming back? Not necessarily."
Like others, Tracy said the BID needs to grow to be truly effective. He's in it for the long haul, he vows, but noted some may have less patience.
The BID "needs to grow and it needs to grow financially," he said. "It's going to take some time. They don't have the people power. What they need to do is probably some serious fundraising."
City investments
In addition to some in-kind services, the city provided $50,000 and $75,000 in the BID's first few years, using federal Community Development Block Grant money. That caused controversy in local government.
Today, the BID is working on a new three-year memorandum of understanding with the city that is expected to include a $50,000 annual contribution. In the next year, that money likely will be used to provide low-interest loans of up to $5,000 for property owners to bring buildings up to code and to improve safety and accessibility, according to McMahon.
In Northampton, city officials have agreed to contribute $35,000 annually to the BID using parking receipts, an estimated $500 for billing and collection services-and a one-time, $35,000 purchase of a street sweeper for the district.
For his part, Mayor Michael A. Boulanger described the Westfield's business improvement district as unique in that it is driven by enthusiastic people, notably McMahon, whom he described as "a dynamo."
"I'm not sure that the success of any BID is not due in part to the person who is running it on a full-time basis," Boulanger said. "She (McMahon) has been very energetic in improving the facades to buildings. She has done wonders to bring events that have drawn hundreds of people and help make downtown Westfield alive with a feel of vitality."
Asked to name a challenge facing the BID as it moves forward, Boulanger said it is making sure property owners see progress.
"I see the positive impact that Lisa and the BID are having on the city," he said. "But I'm not so sure a remote building owner does. I think the challenge is ensuring that the participants are aware of every bit of progress going on and maintaining the enthusiasm of the people."
Others say filling vacant storefronts and attracting new restaurants and businesses remain front-burner issues for the city. The BID, they say, can be a vehicle to make that happen. Only by doing so will the downtown draw more visitors to its commercial core, including a younger generation, which many here hope to attract.
"They have to see what the advantage is coming into this downtown," said Reshamwala, adding that he's noticed an uptick in the number of businesses exploring opportunities in Westfield.
"Today everything is inward instead of outward," he said. "People are coming back to their downtowns."
During the past year, the Westfield BID has ramped up its marketing efforts, creating an attractive Web site. The group also has lined the district with red and blue banners displaying its new brand image: an antique street lamp along with the bullish message: "The District, Westfield: It's The New Downtown!"
"We hear it's a little ahead of ourselves," McMahon said of the new logo. "But we're celebrating the optimism and what we do have downtown."
Dan Crowley can be reached at dcrowley@gazettenet.com.
