10 Tough Questions with Mahesh P. Butani

Mahesh Butani has an interest in re-developing old buildings in downtown Hamilton. Mr. Butani is an engaged citizen, businessman and  blogger. I think you will find his answers insightful and interesting. Please post your comments.

1. As someone who has experience putting together deals for investment in our downtown, can you describe the challenges of attracting investment into Hamilton. On the flip side, when deals did come together, what elements were in play that contributed to success?

The challenges of attracting investment into Hamilton are markedly different for different parts of the city, as they are for different types of development projects.

Hamilton's primary investment challenges spring from its 'image factor' that of its skyline and its downtown core. While dealing with the skyline issue is far more complex on account of its scale and impact; mitigating the image issue of the downtown core is relatively simple in my view, as it spring partly from faulty analysis of its growth patterns and partly on account of perception arising from an 'issues aggregation' effect.

Attracting residential/commercial investment in our core five to ten years ago for small to mid size projects had different challenges than what are faced today. Back then it was overcoming the financial institutions reluctance in approving mortgages for new or redevelopment projects on account of higher vacancy rates, many derelict properties, and very few pioneering projects attempting to define rejuvenation.

The City bridged the mortgage gap at an early stage with critical downtown redevelopment programs, making many projects viable and spurring the natural re-growth of the core which directly and indirectly attracted hundreds of new residents to the core, and in turn continued to boost investor confidence over the years. There are however a few examples of project failures, but they are mostly a result of poor project conception, bad timing or execution, outlandish marketing or an over-reach in tactics that works in mature markets, but are not appropriate in an older city centre like ours where incremental growth is the proven primary driver of rejuvenation.

On hind sight, had financial institutions funded projects rampantly in that early phase of our cores re-growth cycle, we may have been witnessing a depressed market, instead of being in the relatively secure position that we are in presently experiencing the early stages of the second phase of downtown redevelopment, comprising of incrementally bigger and more articulated mixed-use projects in strategic areas of the core.

As a result of continuing private and public investor confidence - a very large percentage of small to mid-size properties along the two primary axes of our core are either already redeveloped or are under planning.

A case in point being King Street East, between Wellington and James  There are around 50 to 55 properties on the north side, and around 40 properties along the south side. Visual verification today clearly establishes that of the 90 to 95 properties in total on this east-west axis, only 4 to 8 properties await redevelopment and or are boarded up. The same is also true for James Street, the major north-south axis in the core.

Unlike Locke Street, where the wave of rejuvenation moved outwards from the redeveloped commercial Locke into the residential east and west.  In the downtown core, one can see the opposite pattern of the wave of residential rejuvenation moving inwards towards the core  from a fast revitalizing waterfront in the north, and similarly from Corktown and Durand in the south. These patterns are apparent by walking around downtown and also reviewing property values in the core over the last decade.

Presently the redevelopment and investment challenges on the two main axes in the core are concentrated in and around a few key hotspots:

The three to five large parcels of land/buildings which are awaiting the right business models from a few socially enlightened developers.

The King Street stretch of the Lansdale neighborhood to the east of the core, which is facing the brunt of failed social development policies  but which unfortunately falls outside the municipal definition of the core.

And the Barton to King William stretch to the north of the core  which is the next frontier for incrementally large to mega development projects on many large vacant lots. Â It is this cluster of new well articulated mixed-use projects which will provide the high density that the core is awaiting  to sustain the ambivalent street-front/retail of the two historically significant axes which gives our downtown the urban texture and historical character.

The store-front/retail quality on the King Street axis is suffering a higher degree of growing pains than the James Street axis presently on account of the geographic peculiarities of the core with its twin east-west expressways; and the continuing fallout from the lack of a concerted store-front/retail strategy . In spite of these conditions, all the occupied store-front/retail on both these axes are showing signs of incremental growth, and in a few site specific cases, stagnation or failure for reasons mentioned earlier  with a fluctuating vacancy rate of around ten to twelve percent.

A highly refined interim retail strategy with a tactical plan needs to be rapidly developed by the local BIAs to support struggling small store-front entrepreneurs and develop a much better retail mix.

This will go a long way in mitigating the image issue and investment challenges for the remaining few larger projects on these two axes and ensure that the ongoing redevelopment in the core is not diluted by negative perceptions and overzealous critiques  just as the second phase of revitalization ramps up in the coming few years from the north side of the core.In this transitional phase of the core what many find disconcerting is the prevailing mix of people in the core.

A little research would reveal that a majority of the people to whom the so called image problem is ascribed to directly are in fact, not residing in the central core, but reside in and around the streets/neighborhoods surrounding the core. And they traverse the core by foot, bicycles, scooters and transit to various social service organizations and a few bars and specialized retail outlets, including the mall in the core, and the Gore Park which is used as a meeting/hanging/trading place in the right weather.

If an interactive property/building/retail inventory map is developed to track the flow of people and movement patterns of individuals and groups from various locations in the core and the surrounding neighborhoods  the exact nature of the issues and challenges in the core would be highlighted  and rapid and simple short-term and long-term solutions could be developed to build on the ongoing achievements of revitalization.

We have allowed a few projects such as the Lister, Connaught, and the Federal building parcel; along with a few debilitating social issues  to dominate the image of the core and the narrative of the city.

Reeling from the resulting issues aggregation effect, we have been searching for a magic bullet to fight this mythical multi-headed Hydra  and in the process we have missed much of the care and attention that was required to strengthen the first phase of redevelopment by way of nurturing the projects already completed with innovative guidance in retail design, business development and marketing.

To overcome these challenges and enhance investor confidence in our core  we urgently need to:

Define appropriate use/s for the few remaining vacant buildings/large parcels that are critical to the long-term identity of the core  The current wide swing of projected uses from hotels to condos to seniors residences to a glitzy super skyscraper to the recent loosely defined affordable housing on the same land parcel, seriously undermines investors confidence and understanding of the local market.

Scale expectations and outcomes of development projects on these parcels with the incremental increase of market demand.

Develop an action plan to quickly and humanely mitigate the negative social impact of locating the many mental health and social service organizations at the street level in the core.

Stabilize the adjacent Landsdale neighborhood to the east of the core by designating the King Street East stretch of the Landsdale neighborhood as a new redevelopment zone with location specific micro-investment/incentive programs to spur innovative store-front/retail revitalization and residential restoration.

All of this will go a long way in enhancing the quality of life and image issues of the core, besides accelerating the investments in the second phase of revitalization of the core.

From my experience what attracted private investment in the first phase of revitalizing the core was the presence of a few risk-tolerant first-movers who saw the upside of depressed property values and location  For them the negative image of downtown was an opportunity and not a liability as is often perceived by visitors and downtown voyeurs.

It is this diverse group of first mover the investors, developers, entrepreneurs and owners, who in conjunction with the city renewal programs, have collectively established a solid foundation of numerous viable small to mid-size projects in the core. A foundation upon which the more risk-averse investors now can take the plunge with incrementally bigger and more articulated projects as the natural demand grows.

As a community which is anxious to see rapid rejuvenation, we need to understand that if we are not vigilant of the hard won successes, and attempt an yet another over reach in project size with poor project definition just to catch up for lost time, or score some political points or even pander to our predisposition to mint heroes and saviors our remaining projects in the core will continue to face investment challenges. And if we are unable to recalibrate our image issues rapidly, possibly even experience a devaluation of the many stable new and redeveloped projects in the core.

2. Complete the following sentence: What people from out of town don't know about Hamilton is that ________.

Its downtown core is transitioning from the first to the second phase of revitalization.

3. Out of a scale from 1-10 (one being the poorest score and 10 being the best score), how would you rate this city council. Explain your score.

I would give the council a rating of 7. Given the fallout of the amalgamation, the shift in its industrial base, the dumping of social services in the city, the wide historic differences in the socio-economic conditions and agendas of all the wards, aggregated with the downswing in the economy things could have been much worse.
Somehow if we can see through past events of our city, and walk through various neighborhoods from the east to the west and from the escarpment to the waterfront - we will be convinced that we have - many things to be proud of in our past, and have many reasons for hope in our present.

The remaining 3 points reflect this council's inability to convey an image of cohesiveness, which deeply impacts our community's self-image and the collective sense of purpose.

4. Describe a leadership moment in this present council term. Who demonstrated the leadership, what was the context and why did it impress you?

Getting together for a group photograph for the "Make it Seven" campaign!! The collective leadership moment was self evident when rallying for a common cause.

This impressed me because in spite of the uncertainties of the outcome, there was a sincere attempt to convey the spirit of one voice.

5. Describe a moment of failure in this present council term. What was the nature of that failure? Who do you attribute it to and what could have she/he or they, have done differently to get a better outcome.

The Council's failure to perceive the need to implement a By-law to curb the speed limit of electric scooters driven at high speeds on sidewalks in the downtown core, and cars driven at higher speeds on Main and King Streets; and the failure to bring in a progressive culture of innovation in the 'Parking Crimes & Punishment Department' (all three items form a part of one single failure to foresee and correct the one glaring factor ailing the core  Speeding and Parking!!).

High speeds both on the roads and the sidewalk has had a devastating impact on the core's ability to rejuvenate quickly. This failure is attributed to the inability of the downtown residents, businesses and associations to come together as a group on issues. A simple field experiment with lower speed limits for one month  would prove the point without getting into costly makeover exercises.

6. If you had the undivided attention of all Hamiltonians, including city council, what would you say to council, and what would you say to Hamiltonians, in terms of advice on how we can better succeed as a city?

To the Council:

Endeavour to meet at least one other councilor and their family for an informal dinner once a week through the term, in spite of conflicting agendas and schedules.

Always be wary of forming a quorum at barbeques, games and chat rooms.

Stay the course on the vision of making Hamilton a ' People's Place' as per the internationally recognized definition of the term, in spite of conflicting agendas.

Hand over the baton with grace when you feel you have given your best to the community and have nothing more to contribute to the ever evolving public good in rapidly changing times.

To Hamiltonians:

Form new Citizens Talent Banks and not new Watch Groups.
Start trading in innovative ideas amongst different talent banks and the Council.

Collaborate with your Councillor to achieve your aspirations for Hamilton.

Don't be afraid in forming a quorum at barbeques, games and chat rooms.

Stay the course on the vision of making Hamilton a 'People"s Place' as per the internationally recognized definition of the term, in spite of conflicting agendas.

Mentor with grace those who you feel are capable of leading the next guard to enhance the ever evolving public good in rapidly changing times, and show up to vote for them when your time comes to take a stand.

7. What are your views about our downtown core? What specifically can we do to better the downtown core?

We have come a long way from the boarded up reality of downtown. As observed earlier we are well over the hump and off to a start of the next phase of downtown growth. Our urban narrative needs to be grounded in optimism through the ups and downs of the re-generation cycle.

In this phase, to bring about the urban quality we desire, we need to rapidly mitigate the social issues in the core that impact the self-esteem of our community; and develop a definitive and unique retail strategy to assist the small storefront businesses  while we await the development of bigger projects on the north of the king street axis.

We also need to be extra vigilant about the remaining few large land parcels on the east-west axis, and the larger lands to the north of the core. It is from the quality of development of these parcels that the true potential of our core will be extracted or destroyed forever.

We must also remind ourselves that for the notion of sustainable urban growth to be relevant, it has to be rooted in the notion of affordability, just as the notion of suburban sprawl has come to be rooted in un-affordability.

Our new and redeveloped urban projects need to reflect this reality. Our developers, architects and mainstream & alternate media need to develop a new imagery for the term 'affordable'. They need to make 'affordable' and 'affordability'  sexy and chic. Just as the old imagery made mink coats and silvery high-rise condos sexy and chic.

We don't have to cringe at the word 'affordable' in our times. Our collective future already depends on this term.  We just need to start demanding a higher intellectual and aesthetic standard of it. Successful manufactures and retailers who have grasped this have discovered new mass markets.

The place where many minds in our city, across class, race and income divides, need to arrive at, is the new commons“ a multi-tired, crisscrossing virtual and real network, spanning communities, backgrounds, interest and mind-sets. It is only from this new mediated space that relevant and innovative projects will spring up in our city core.

8. Can we make amalgamation work better, or do you think it is a case of living with a square peg being jammed into a round hole?

Strategic errors were made by dismantling the regional structure in our city in the name of efficiencies and parlaying it into a loosely cobbled amalgamation of towns with an appearance of a larger city. What we already had in place a decade ago was the structure and potential of 'Polycentricity' - a planning and spatial policy notion, which has been gaining currency over this decade in Europe and other parts of the world.We dismantled it politically in the name of progress, and we have suffered for it since then.

We still retain the experience and expertise in our communities to build on this notion of Polycentricity to leverage our local economy into an evolving regional one that can distribute economic abundance broadly in the region and absorb many local systemic shocks.

The question is, do we have the public and private imagination for making that leap?

Our public discourse would have us believe otherwise -- but already established networks such as the 'Golden Horseshoe Biosciences Network' (GHBN) are proof of the many opportunities waiting to be seized - if we can recalibrate our views of our city via Edward Said's "imagined geographies", and remain focused on the positive. A look at GBHN's member directory and map can be a refreshing experience for all of us grasping for answers as well as those who seem to have them all.

Some background on Polycentricity: http://www.espon.eu/mmp/online/website/content/network/92/469/1029/file_808/polycentricity.pdfMonocentric%20Versus%20Polycentric%20Models%20in%20Urban%20Economics:%20http://ideas.repec.org/p/kyo/wpaper/611.htmlMonocentric Versus Polycentric Models in Urban Economics: http://ideas.repec.org/p/kyo/wpaper/611.html

Monocentric Versus Polycentric Models in Urban Economics: http://ideas.repec.org/p/kyo/wpaper/611.html
Polycentricity and metropolitan governance. A Swiss case study http://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa04p440.html
http://www.espon.eu/mmp/online/website/content/tools/912/index_EN.html
http://www.inspiringcities.org/index.php?id=1&page_type=Article&id_article=18046


At Google Books - Preview: The spatial economy: cities, regions and international trade By Masahisa Fujita, Paul R. Krugman, Anthony J. Venables

Economics of agglomeration: cities, industrial location, and regional growth By Masahisa Fujita, Jacques-François Thisse

** Above response is republished from my thoughts on this topic on the RTH blog on 9/2/09 at: http://www.raisethehammer.org/blog.asp?id=1496#comment-33168


9. If you had 3 million dollars to spend toward the betterment of our city, how would you spend it?

$300,000: Towards setting up an office of the 'Chief Architect' of the City of Hamilton --- for spearheading innovations in building and project design; and initiating a comprehensive system-wide "design" based approach to all planning and policy development efforts.

$300,000: Towards acquisition rights and start-up expenses to establish a new public/private Hamilton Region 'Export Zone' (the H-EZ), on the former Studebaker plant and lands; and initiating strategic development work including collaborations with foreign-trade offices of Brazil, Russia, India and China; and establishing innovative trade relationships in the US, EU, Mid East, Far East and Africa --- for re-establishing the 'Made-in-Hamilton'  spirit and create new jobs locally for growing markets abroad.

$400,000: Towards securing the development rights for the Connaught Hotel lands and adjacent parcel, and packaging a new project for establishing the 'Hamilton Technology Design Centre' with local and international student & staff residences, in a public/private joint venture with key business and universities in Brazil, Russia, India and China --- for creating a viable and sustainable higher education institution in the downtown core and supporting the technology design needs for the new H-EZ.

$500,000: Towards acquisition and start-up funds for developing a unique eco-village styled live/work campus, for a Regional Holistic Health & Rejuvenation Centre on the Upper James transit corridor in a public/private collaboration with local agencies and internationally renowned mental health organizations and holistic healing specialists. --- This new eco-health cluster will facilitate the relocation of all mental health and addictions clinics and supporting social service organization from the core; along with short/long term residences and skills/work-force re-entry training workshops for all clients.

$20,000: Towards hosting an -annual regional conference- to explore and develop innovative solutions and processes to mitigate the outcomes of dumping mental health and social services in urban communities and establishing new benchmarks from successes and failures of current and past practices.

$30,000: Towards hosting an -annual national conference- on exploring and Developing Best Practices in Regional Growth Strategies and Economic Development.

$1,450,000: Towards setting up a fund to develop Green Industries in Hamilton - with a $15,000,000 annual fund-raising target to promote and directly support the creation of new green industries in downtown Hamilton.

10. If you just arrived in Hamilton and had a chance to pick any neighbourhood in Hamilton to live in (including of course Stoney Creek, Ancaster, Flamborough, Dundas and Glanbrook.), knowing what you know now about Hamilton, where would you choose to live and why?

The Downtown Core  as it continues to offer the most opportunities both personal and public - for shaping the Next Hamilton.


Special thanks to Mahesh for his contribution to "The Hamiltonian" ,  and for his interest in our city.