Episode Summary

  1. Consider ways to reduce commute time as part of the strategy to revitalize your central business district. Maybe there's an opportunity for Oakland to get the most out of its $855m investment right there?
  2. There's always that guy. If you can't turn a parking spot into a park, then turn a car into a park, and park that car in said spot.
  3. Development is not transactional. It is 100% relational. And one of the easiest ways to ruin a relationship with your community is being deceptive about the public incentives you're receiving.

Longer commutes translate into less people back in the office (paywall possible, 4 min read)

Man puts park on back of truck. (3 min read)

Oakland ballpark update (landing page)

Episode Transcript

Hey everyone. I’m Kyle Gulau and on this show, patterns of development, we take less than 10 minutes each week to deconstruct what's going on in real estate, architecture, and urban planning.

First up this week, people are slow to get back into the office. In fact, I think today, Elon Musk sent an email out to his employees requiring they be in the office 40 hours a week. According to the Wall St. Journal there is a correlation between commute times and the likelihood of employees returning to the office.

The New York metropolitan area had the longest average commute time before the pandemic at 37.7 minutes, according to the Census Bureau. And continues to have one of the country's lowest commercial occupancy rates. On the flip side, Minneapolis and Austin, where average commutes are approximately 24 minutes, are experiencing office occupancy increasing slowly back toward 2019 levels.

Richard Florida, professor at University of Toronoto's Rotman's School of Management and School of Cities is quoted in the article. Here's a little sound bite from Richard, "Economists and psychologists have long said that a long commute is the most immiserating condition of daily life. So it makes sense that this is what people want to avoid."

To quote Konrad Putzier's writing, " Employee opposition to commuting means that landlords and cities aiming to refill their office floors may need to do more than renovate old buildings or put more police on street corners. It may require investing in housing, highways, public transportation and other infrastructure necessary to reduce commute times."

These investments might mean we need to think a little less about cars and a little more about humans. I stumbled across this article titled, "meet the man making a statement about public space by converting a truck into a parklet."

It's written by Chloe Orji published in Euronews. Initially, Adam Tranter converted a parking spot into a small green space in his community. He laid down astroturf. Added some planters. And added chairs for people to sit.

Well. Eventually, someone complained they didn't have a parking spot. So the city removed the park for violating parking requirements. Instead of giving up. Adam bought a truck and put a park in the back of the truck. And then parked that truck in that parking spot.

The truck is awesome by the way. It's not a 2003 F150. It's a 1970's Blue Piaggio Ape flatbed. The truck bedsides flip down and in it there are plants and a bench for people to sit.

Absolutely brilliant. I think a testament to how backward some of our rules and perspectives are skewed toward thinking less about humans and more about car storage. And this is such a great illustration of that distorted lens we view our space.

The appeal of converting a parking space into a small park is of course it's human-sized work and can get done quickly. Opposed to larger developments which can take years of planning and discussions before vertical construction can even begin. Big development projects take a long time. And 1 year ago, I discussed a Bloomberg article outlining a project to build a new ballpark in Oakland California. I wanted to revisit the project and see what was going on.

I went back through my notes and what's strange is that both my source links no longer work. In fact, other articles around that same time (May/June 2021) appear to be dead ends as well. I feel like it's some sort of glitch in the matrix, clicking on something in my browser, and nothing happening. Weirdest thing.

Anyway.

A year ago the Oakland A's, the professional baseball team located in Oakland California, was publicly discussing its plans for a new baseball stadium. That planning continues today.

In 2021. Bloomberg reported (in the article with the link that the no longer words) that the A's are estimating their costs at about $12 billion and asking for the city to chip in about $855 million via tax increment financing to help with new infrastructure construction like roads, sidewalks, and other transportation improvements. That's approximately 7% of the project.

Let's play this out. The team comes to the negotiating table and says...well...we could leave. We won't. But we could. So let's make a deal. Not a hollow threat. Teams could leave. And have left. Most recently, in professional football, the St. Louis Rams became the Los Angles Rams. In fact, Major League Baseball released a statement saying, "they were concerned with the rate of progress" and that the current stadium is not a viable option for the future of baseball. So the team says to the city,  give us the best incentives and we'll stay. Oh, and hurry up. A nice little dilemma.

Now a couple of things have changed since 2021. I think the ballpark's development team is getting ahead on the PR front...the MLB has a page for the development that highlights 4 features of the project: Waterfront ballpark, Privately Financed, 34,000 capacity, and mixed-use.

What bothers me the most is the header "privately financed".

In the smaller text below the words privately financed, is "infrastructure will be paid for by funds that exist because of Tax Incremental Financing." I want to be clear. Under the header, of "privately financed" is a sub-bullet that acknowledges the use of Tax Incremental Financing dollars. Which of course is public money.

Let's shift gears and look at this from the developer's perspective. According to a project timeline on Wikipedia, the planning for a new ballpark has been going on for 20 years. That's a long time. Lack of progress indeed. You can't run a business like that. You can't run a league like that.

Another piece to this puzzle? Who else would do work like this? Invest $12b and build a whole bunch of stuff? Who else has the juice? The interest? The attention? The resources? Who else is going to invest into this waterfront and create a new mixed-use ballpark and work towards lofty economic development objectives?

It's a multifaceted problem. The catch here, and pardon the pun, is that the citizens of Oakland are still effectively loaning money to the project. Future tax dollars that would go to the city are going back to the developer. So it's not just a privately financed deal.

There is an unfortunate pattern here. And it appears to be an intentional misdirection of the project's capital stack. Why do you think developers are a go-to for bad guys in movies and tv shows? Sheesh.

Which leads us to our patterns of the week:

  1. Consider ways to reduce commute time as part of the strategy to revitalize your central business district. Maybe there's an opportunity for Oakland to get the most out of it's $855m investment right there?
  2. There's always that guy. If you can't turn a parking spot into a park, then turn a car into a park, and park that car in said spot.
  3. Development is not transactional. It is 100% relational. And one of the easiest ways to ruin a relationship with your community is being deceptive about public incentives you're receiving.

That's all for this week, talk to you soon.