czsz
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2007
- Messages
- 6,043
- Reaction score
- 6
Unsure where to put this so I started a separate thread:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/ar...lem_follow_different_paths_toward_resurgence/
Construction is underway on a new $108 million courthouse complex in Salem. The city has a diversified downtown that is popular with tourists.
A tale of two economies
With similar histories, Lynn and Salem follow different paths toward resurgence
By Steven Rosenberg
Globe Staff / August 5, 2010
On paper, Lynn and Salem have a lot in common. Both sit on the Atlantic and have proud industrial histories, which include General Electric?s design of the first jet engine in Lynn and Salem?s storied silk trade. But for decades, their downtowns have been going in opposite directions.
In Salem, the economy is humming with a $108 million court complex under construction, a $40 million T parking garage set to be built, and more than 1 million tourists visiting the city each year. Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll points to long-term revenue studies and overall planning as the key to the city?s economic success. ?You?ve got to plan the work, and work the plan,?? she says.
While Salem?s downtown is filled with boutiques, sidewalk cafes, and restaurants, Lynn?s Central Square looks much as it did 30 years ago. Bodegas, pizzerias, cosmetics stores, and empty lots dot the streets, which grow silent at night. While more than 300 condos have been built downtown in the last decade ? and are now fully occupied, selling at $113,000 to $280,000 ? there are no multimillion-dollar projects or business districts planned for the depressed center. Still, Lynn Mayor Judith Kennedy believes once the economy rebounds, more condos will be built, allowing for a downtown to come to life again in the same way Jamaica Plain, Somerville, and Charlestown have rebounded.
?All of the pieces are in place for this; it just now has to grow from where it is,?? says Kennedy.
Forty-five years ago, both cities appeared to have similarly bright futures. If you lived in Lynn or Salem at the time, chances are you spent most of your paycheck in the city. Department stores, corner markets, moviehouses, and bars lined each city?s downtown. For many, work was just a short walk or bus ride away ? whether it was at General Electric in Lynn or Sylvania in Salem.
While the busy downtowns and nearby factories helped produce a healthy middle class and robust municipal budgets, few realized that the business model that had helped cities expand and neighborhoods develop ? the downtown retail and work experience that had been in place in the US for more than a century ? would end within a decade. As the American economy shifted, retailers relocated to nearby shopping malls and complexes, and many of the factories, where generations of local residents could always count on work, closed and sent their trade overseas.
By the mid-1970s, Lynn and Salem ? cities that were known internationally for shoe manufacturing and cod exports ? were fast becoming ghost towns, with the once grand downtown buildings shuttered, and the nighttime streets deserted save for prostitutes and drug dealers.
At that nadir, the two cities made decisions that had economic implications for decades to come: Lynn tried to lure retailers back downtown by building a pedestrian mall on one of its main streets; it even hollowed out a building and called it ?The Lynn Mall.?? The moves backfired, and most of the remaining merchants left in droves ? including McDonald?s, with Lynn earning notoriety as one of the first urban centers where even that hamburger chain closed up shop.
In the 1970s, Lynn also chose to restrict public access to its waterfront along the Lynnway, allowing a power company to drape overhead high-tension electrical wires and stanchions along its shoreline. This industrial and commercial zone attracted a power plant, a water pollution control facility, and, decades later, retailers such as Wal-Mart and Building 19.
?I think the common thread amongst all those ill-fated decisions was that the decision makers at those times were bad at predicting trends,?? says Kennedy, who became the first woman to lead the city when she defeated former mayor Edward ?Chip?? Clancy by 30 votes last November.
Salem also stumbled in its efforts to bring department stores back to the city, and as part of its Urban Renewal program, it razed nearly 100 old homes in the downtown in 1973. After few retailers returned, then-mayor Sam Zoll made the decision to use federal money to improve the facades of the existing downtown buildings. ?The historic preservation focus was the turning point for the city,?? says Bill Tinti, a former chairman of the Salem Redevelopment Authority.
Meanwhile, tourists began to eye Salem as an inexpensive destination. After several episodes of the TV show ?Bewitched?? were filmed and aired in the city, Salem?s reputation as the witch capital of America grew. As the lure of dressing up for Halloween soared in popularity ? now the second highest-grossing holiday in the US for retailers (other than Christmas) ? lines began to form in front of tourist meccas like the House of Seven Gables and the Witch Museum. As tourism grew naturally into the city?s top economic driver, the city?s downtown infrastructure ? its working seaport, 18th-century architectural buildings, and new influx of restaurants and boutiques ? provided a backbone for more than just tarot shops and occult stores. In 2003, tourism got an even bigger boost when the Peabody Essex Museum completed a $125 million expansion.
Neil Harrington, a four-term mayor who worked with the museum ? and ultimately convinced city officials to allow the museum to absorb a city block ? says the expansion marked a turning point for tourism and the city?s economy. The museum, says Harrington, now serves as an anchor that helps attract other businesses. ?It?s hard to calculate just how positive an effect the Peabody-Essex Museum expansion has had. I just think psychologically for the community it was a tremendous boost,?? says Harrington.
Harrington believes the city?s biggest challenge is keeping Salem an affordable place for residents to live. To keep property taxes down, the city will need to generate more revenue from existing and new businesses. ?It?s got all kinds of attractions, but it?s becoming, in the eyes of some people, increasingly unaffordable and so it?s important to strengthen the nonresidential sector as much as possible,?? he says.
Driscoll, who became Salem?s mayor in 2006, says medium-sized cities need residents to create vibrant downtowns. These days, about 2,000 condos and apartments sit above older buildings in Salem?s center, with the average two-bedroom unit fetching $315,000. And more are planned: The old Salem Jail is being redeveloped into luxury condos. Also, Driscoll believes that nonprofits, which under law do not have to pay property taxes, should compensate the city anyway. Since 2006, she has entered into agreements with several nonprofits, including North Shore Medical Center, which now pays the city $125,000 a year.
Kennedy is also looking to nonprofits to pay more for the right to be in Lynn. While there are more than 100 nonprofits in Lynn, just three have agreements with the city, paying a total of $30,000 a year. While Kennedy?s predecessor, Clancy, heralded a redevelopment project along the Lynnway that calls for moving the power lines away from the shoreline to make room for high-rise condos and retail ? a project that one city study estimated could generate $18 million in new property taxes a year in Lynn ? Kennedy is more circumspect about the pace and the scale of any redevelopment along the coast. She believes the project will take decades to complete and cautions that the city has been hurt before by poor planning.
?I think a lot of people look to a short-term fix and don?t look at long-term implications and trends,?? she says. ?There are no short-term fixes. I play the long game.??
For more than 60 years, Lynn city officials have tried numerous slogans and campaigns to try to attract people to the downtown. In the 1980s, things got so bad downtown that they spent thousands to paint storefronts on empty facades to give people the impression that businesses operated there. In the 1990s, it created a ?City of Firsts?? slogan that informed people about past events, such as the 1942 GE jet-engine project, but that did little to help brand the city. In 2000, it tried to lure Internet hosting companies to a planned downtown cyber district, but by then the dot-com bubble had burst.
The proposed Blue Line extension, the one plan successive city officials have stuck with since 1947, is still afloat but is still considered a long shot by most, including Kennedy. For six decades, mayors have said the lack of highway access and rapid transportation has contributed to the city?s economic decline. ?I think every mayor tried to do his part; I think they all tried to make it work,?? says Thomas Costin, a former Lynn mayor who has lobbied for more than 60 years to bring the subway to Lynn. While millions have been spent on potential designs, the project ? which would cost up to $600 million ? has been placed on the back burner.
With no major sources of new revenue expected soon, Kennedy says it?s possible for the city to spend less and provide the same amount of services. Unlike previous years, no city workers were laid off; the city will spend $6 million less this fiscal year, with a $239.5 million budget.
Says the mayor: ?What we?re trying to do right now is just hold our head above water.??
http://www.boston.com/news/local/ar...lem_follow_different_paths_toward_resurgence/
