Ellington

The recent unveiling of a new plan for a massive downtown convention-center complex has us worried that Jackson and its leaders will never stop going down the "if you build it, they will come" road for tourism and business. Yes, Jackson needs a smart, useful civic structure to serve exhibition, meeting space and other needs. But no gleaming alabaster and glass structure—no matter how big it is—will ever solve the city's problems in one fell swoop.

According to Tradeshow Week, the average consumer show occupies 84,000 square feet of exhibition space; the average medical show requires 73,000 square feet. The proposed 370,000 square feet for Jackson's new center thus seems a bit excessive. While cities around the country are building and expanding their convention centers, convention bookings were slowing even before the recession and Sept. 11, and conventions may not bounce back to mid-1990s levels for many, many years. Meanwhile, the excess capacity of convention space in larger cities argues against a "build it and they will come" mentality.

The $70 million convention center is designed to hunker down on multiple city blocks behind the already-planned $17.5-million retro-named "Telecommunications" conference center, which appears to be yet another big government building that will be basically worthless to the average Jacksonian. Furthermore, it is designed to fill a need that we no longer have (the training of massive numbers of technology workers) and breaks perhaps the most important rule that farsighted cities around the country are applying when implementing downtown investment—avoid single-use structures.

Two basic rules can take us a long way toward creating the vital downtown that Jackson needs. The first rule is that any government investment should be designed from the outset to have minimal impact on the existing buildings, businesses and street grid, while maximizing the number of uses that the new construction brings.

For instance, a plan drawn up in the 1990s for downtown Jackson called for exhibition space as part of a multi-use civic outdoor mall of museums, performance areas, shops, a hotel, green space and meeting rooms. It did so without closing or altering streets, so that traffic patterns wouldn't be negatively affected, and no part of the neighborhood or bordering neighborhoods would be marginalized by suddenly finding themselves behind a huge loading dock.

More recently, discussion has turned to a facility that could be used for professional ice hockey, concerts and exhibition space, along the lines of Birmingham's civic center (which currently incorporates a more rational 220,000 square foot exhibition space, 100,000 square feet of meeting rooms, an arena, and a 1,000-seat theater).

Another option is to encourage private investment in a convention/conference hotel that can actually pay taxes soon. While we don't anticipate many proms and weddings being held in the Telecommunications Center, such local events would be held in similar spaces in a downtown Hilton, Hyatt or, perhaps, a refurbished King Edward.

A more sensible approach to a multi-use civic structure dovetails nicely with the second rule of urban revitalization—it's the simpler things that will improve downtown. The city should explore changing building codes that require off-street parking or setback construction. The city should also discourage parking lots and encourage other downtown investment, including an awareness campaign of the grants and subsidies available for locally owned shops, restaurants and offices. The more attractive and people-focused downtown is, the more professional workers will want to live in Jackson proper. Those workers, in turn, will demand that their companies stay and grow in town.

As citizens, our duty is to vote with dollars and to get out and experience what downtown has to offer—and then let elected officials know what changes need to occur. Consider patronizing the businesses in downtown that stay open for dinner, while encouraging the places where you eat lunch to stay open a little later. And, on those nights when you can't stick around downtown, think of foregoing another night of fast food and grab some takeout in a downtown restaurant on your way home.

If you've visited Portland or Seattle or Denver or even Little Rock, Birmingham, Memphis and Nashville, you've seen some interesting downtowns that have been brought back with a combination of multi-use civic structures and enterprising small business. That can happen in Jackson, too, but not just with massive construction. It should be done with an eye for some of the smaller things we can do which, eventually, will add up to huge improvements.