Toronto considers selling naming rights to public spaces

[briv]

From the Canadian Press:

Waterfront Toronto considers selling naming rights to public parks, spaces

April 9, 2008TORONTO ? Canadians have become accustomed to corporate sponsorship of buildings, the branding of sports stadiums and even the renaming of movie theatres after banks, but now there's a push to expand the name game to public spaces - including Toronto's Lake Ontario waterfront.

Waterfront Toronto - a joint agency of the federal, provincial and municipal governments with a 25-year mandate to implement a $17-billion revitalization program - is looking for a consulting firm to help develop a sponsorship program and naming rights strategy.

With only $1.5 billion in seed capital from the various levels of government, Waterfront Toronto's mandate requires it find ways to pay for the massive revitalization project and to maintain new parks and other facilities, said vice-president of government relations Marisa Piattelli.

"It is incumbent upon the organization to look at fiscal sustainability for the project over the long term, and that's above and beyond development sales from lands and that kind of thing,'' Piattelli said in an interview.

"We have been thinking about doing a property inventory of our assets, looking at other great waterfronts internationally, and how they have leveraged non-governmental sources as revenues for the project.''

Piattelli said naming rights are just one of many strategies Waterfront Toronto would consider as it looks for revenue sources, adding there would be public input both directly from the community and through the three levels of government.

"You're going to need a lot of people being completely comfortable with the approach, and we are going to have to develop a case for whatever the rationale is in terms of how to do this,'' she said.

Lawrence Solomon of the Urban Renaissance Institute said it's hard to know where to draw the line when corporate sponsorship moves into public buildings and spaces, and suggested people may not be prepared to tolerate, for example, an Enron Courthouse or Loblaw's City Hall.

Citizens must decide if they want the revenue from corporate sponsorships and naming rights that might prevent local tax hikes, said Solomon.

"I don't think this should be a decision for governments,'' he said. "I think it's something that should go to a referendum, and let citizens within municipalities decide what their comfort level is.''

Ontario Public Infrastructure Minister David Caplan noted the proposal was in its very early stages, but said corporate sponsorship had helped Chicago revitalize its waterfront and the construction of the "world renowned'' Millennium Park.

"We don't have a lot of experience with it, so I think it's prudent to take a look at it, to gauge where it would be applicable, what the ground rules would be, is there an appetite for it,'' said Caplan.

"I think Waterfront Toronto is moving forward in a cautious and exploratory manner, and I certainly support that.''

Toronto Progressive Conservative Peter Shurman said he thought it was "a great idea,'' pointing out that many public hospitals have wings named after large benefactors.

"Why not give these opportunities to organizations that want to publicize themselves by being benefactors and put the money in the public purse,'' he said.

But the Ontario New Democrats strongly disagree with Waterfront Toronto's plan to look for a new naming rights strategy and corporate sponsorship program.

"I think what this represents is the corporatization of what is public space. It would be better if companies just paid their taxes,'' said NDP Leader Howard Hampton.

"I think it's dangerous to have all your public spaces suddenly owned, or named, or monikered by private corporations. It plays into the whole idea that everything is for sale. I think we ought to show greater care and greater consideration of our public spaces.''

The branding exercise has already gone further in the United States, where, for example, you can find a Mattel Children's Hospital in California and a similar one in Rhode Island branded by Mattel's rival in the toymaking business, Hasbro.

The debate over corporate naming of public spaces is only starting to heat up in Canada, but there was little public outcry when a Montreal community started looking for corporations to buy naming rights to all sorts of taxpayer-owned facilities.

Suburban Cote St. Luc agreed last fall to sell or lease the naming rights of taxpayer-owned facilities such as the municipal swimming pool, gymnasium, the seniors' centre and a seniors' garden.

Cote St. Luc decided it would not sell naming rights to parks but rather to facilities within the parks. Baseball fields, chalets, a lake and a tobogganing hill can all be sponsored and renamed.

Caplan said other municipalities in Ontario already have the power to decide if corporate naming and sponsorship of public buildings and spaces is appropriate for their community.

 

[unterbau]

Will the encroachment of advertising into every nook and cranny of public space ever stop?

 

[czsz]

It has. Remember when Boston was planning to sell naming rights to T stops?

 

[unterbau]

It has. Remember when Boston was planning to sell naming rights to T stops?

Really? When was that? Must have been before my time

 

[czsz]

It was in 2001:

Bid to Sell Naming Rights Runs Off Track in Boston
By CAREY GOLDBERG

Where, the naysayers demand, will it all end? Will the landmark Quincy Market downtown become, say, McDonald's Market? Or the floriferous Public Garden become, say, the Fidelity Public Garden?

The focus of their complaints is a plan by the Boston subway system, the oldest in the country, to borrow a stratagem from sports stadiums and auction off the naming rights to four of its busiest stations.

Bidders, who do not seem to be lined up out the door, have until next Thursday to submit offers; they would have the right only to add their names to station titles, not replace them.

For years, stadiums have sold their names to corporations in deals sometimes bringing in tens of millions of dollars, and the tactic is spreading to shopping malls, museums and convention centers.

But Boston's plan, experts on naming rights say, is the first they have heard of involving subway stations.

And in a city this stuck on its history and civic pride, the idea has evoked enough opposition, and enough questions about the worth of such a deal, that interest looks decidedly damp. At least, no potential bidders attended a pre-bid meeting on Wednesday, subway officials say.

Already, the officials say, they have dropped any minimum bid for the deal. Originally, they set a minimum annual fee of $500,000 to $2 million for each of the four stations: Downtown Crossing, Back Bay, Sullivan Square and South Station.

One opponent, Jerold S. Kayden, a Harvard professor of urban planning and the author of ''Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience,'' (John Wiley & Sons) described the idea of selling subway names as ''a small phenomenon in and of itself, but another example of creeping privatization.''

''It's another step down the path of degrading the public realm,'' Professor Kayden said. ''The message is subtle but pervasive: Government can no longer provide traditional public facilities and services, such as parks, mass transit, perhaps even police and fire, on its own without the assistance of private money.''

A reader, David Hornstein, wrote to The Boston Globe: ''It feels increasingly like the Evil Empire, but we've replaced pictures of Lenin with logos for Fleet, State Street, etc. The obvious question becomes, why stop with train stations? Next in line will be parks, highways, streets and children.''

Another reader, Joseph Wheelwright, wrote, ''Post a bond or raise taxes if you must, but do not make us say the names of corporations when we describe where we go.''

Even Ralph Nader weighed in. He and his anticommercialism organization, Commercial Alert, wrote a public protest to Gov. Paul Cellucci of Massachusetts, denouncing the plan as ''hucksterism that degrades history and community in favor of crass commercialism.''

Transit officials, however, argue that the sale would let them attract needed money without raising fares. The cost of a subway token already rose last year to $1 from 85 cents.

And among commuters one recent morning, the plan seemed to draw a warmer reception.

''Any way you can subsidize public service without detriment to the public is a good thing,'' said Glenn Fratto, a school administrator from Arlington.

And Boston's pride in its history?

''Does this look historic?'' Mr. Fratto asked, looking at the shiny steel columns and hanging signs of the Park Street station. ''You're in a subway. What makes it different from the Fleet Center?'' He was referring to the old Boston Garden, now rebuilt and renamed after the banking giant, FleetBoston Financial.

And Kerrie Kemperman, a graduate student from Somerville, said: ''It's a transit system. It's not a work of art.''

It is a transit system that officially celebrated the 100th birthday of its first subway in 1997, and has undergone many a transformation in its many years. Known officially as the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority -- and familiarly as the T -- it was previously called the Metropolitan Transit Authority, as in the old song, ''Charley on the M.T.A.'' In the 19th century, it was the Boston Elevated Railway Company.

The transit authority's life has been complicated of late by a change in its financing arrangements. A panel convened last year to help it adjust advised that it increase its nonfare income; the naming rights are part of that strategy.

The public response to naming rights has varied, said Jim Grinstead of Revenues from Sports Venues, publishers of a weekly newsletter. A local advisory referendum supported selling naming rights to the Green Bay Packers' new field, he said. But in Denver, Mr. Grinstead noted, public sentiment so opposed renaming Mile High Stadium that some residents are suing to stop it.

Generally, said Dean Bonham, chairman of the Bonham Group, a sports and entertainment marketing company, ''The populace has become much more accepting of the reality that corporations are going to be attaching their names to highly visible public facilities.''

The apparently meager corporate interest may change. Joe Pesaturo, a spokesman for the M.B.T.A., said that the authority ''is getting word that interest exists'' and that ''we need to find a way to advance that interest to the next level.''

But Bostonians can be stubborn. Many still refer to the Downtown Crossing stop as Washington Street, and to the Hynes Convention Center stop as Auditorium.

Might passengers simply ignore the new names, if they appear?

Yes, said Khalida Smalls, coordinator of the city's Transit Riders' Union, ''I can pretty much promise we will.''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E0DD173AF93AA35750C0A9679C8B63

The end of the story (as you can tell from the lack of a "State Street (Bank) Station": the naysayers won.

 

[Ron Newman]

One of them did get sold. State Street station became State-Citizens Bank Plaza for a couple of years. Fortunately this didn't last.

 

[underground]

We should just go back to the way people did it in the old days - get the money before the project's built. That way it's called philanthropy.

 

[briv]

I think it's worth exploring alternative ways to maintain our public spaces. Looking at Boston, I think it's pretty clear that the city cannot maintain its current parkland, let alone adequately fund its expansion. I don't think corporate sponsorship is the answer, however.

I'd like to see more community partnerships with the Parks Dept., where parks are voluntarily maintained by those who use them. I think there are many advantages to this approach beyond the obvious financial ones. For example, it gives communities a much deeper sense of ownership over their parks, which fosters a sense of stewardship and leads to greater vigilance, etc.

Or maybe the city should establish a new volunteer corps, ala City Year, that assists the Parks Dept. and DPW. I don't think there is any shortage of civically minded citizens willing to volunteer their time for a good cause, especially one that benefits them directly.

Or maybe there is some other way. But we should be open to experimenting with the current ways of doing things, particularly when the current ways fall so short. I'm sick to death of hearing we cannot do X because we simply can't afford it. We have to start getting creative.