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BY KEITH COLLISTER
Friday, October 21, 2011
PAN Jamaican chief executive Stephen Facey believes that we urgently need to identify the economic drivers that would spark the redevelopment of our capital city, otherwise we risk taking a "field of dreams" approach, namely that "if we build it they will come".
In his view, we don't yet have a physical plan that is allied to an economic plan to drive the redevelopment of downtown Kingston. The question we need to answer, according to Facey, in any plan to revive downtown is, "What are the things that we are going to do to create new demand for commercial real estate?", as without new economic drivers for our stagnant economy we run a grave risk of merely cannibalising existing demand for commercial real estate, say in New Kingston, without creating any new demand for office or retail space.
In essence, he notes, demand for commercial real estate will potentially weaken in New Kingston as existing large tenants relocate unless new economic drivers are developed. Without subsidy, downtown itself will remain less than viable for real estate redevelopment as rent will remain low without new sources of economic activity.
Facey argues that the first question to answer is "Why Kingston?", meaning why should a foreign or indeed local investor invest in the development of our capital city Kingston. His answer is that the large existing infrastructure investment, coupled with the fact that "people like to live in cities" provides the starting point. "Kingston harbour is a huge underutilised asset" and "The Port has enormous potential to be a driver of multiple business opportunities", both directly and indirectly, he responds in answer to his own question.
Facey notes that New Kingston is both a "business" and an "entertainment and hospitality" centre "where the life is", but unlike many other capital cities, this current centre of Kingston is neither an educational centre (which is located some way away at UWI and UTech) nor is it next to the waterfront, unlike downtown, leaving the key potential drivers of economic activity "disconnected". In Facey's view, New Kingston, the Port and downtown should be the connected legs of a three- legged stool that would drive the utilisation of the underutilised land in between.
As far as the redevelopment of downtown Kingston is concerned, Facey believes, perhaps controversially, a cruise shipping port needs to be located Downtown rather than at Port Royal. He admits that this would be "a leap of faith", as Port Royal would be much better suited to the business model of a Carnival cruise lines. If one located the cruise shipping port there, however, he argues only a fraction of the passengers would ever reach Kingston, as opposed to potentially up to half if a cruise shipping port was located at downtown Kingston. As well as providing better linkages for tourism in Kingston proper, there would also be no development conflict with the history and delicate environment of Port Royal. As he puts it, you can't have "a port locked off from the people" as it represents an economic opportunity, more colloquially "a boat load of money" that we need to extract if we are to drive the redevelopment of downtown.
He does not believe Kingston's image of crime is an insuperable barrier to cruise tourism, citing Miami's renaissance despite its crime problem in the early 1980's. he observes, wryly, that "they even made a TV show about it".
He believes that we also need to build on the "Freezone" represented by the downtown market, where "people tell me the rents are higher than anywhere else in the city". In his view, this presents an opportunity to create a symbiotic relationship between the history of Kingston and Port Royal, the waterfront, courts and other key infrastructure downtown, and the population, in the form of driving retail demand and thus employment.
Facey argues that transportation "getting to downtown" is still a problem, and that we need a bus and other transportation systems of a standard that the middle classes would also be happy to use, as occurs in the major Metropolises of New York and London. A student living in Portmore should be able to attend University on the other side of the city without needing to drive a car to avoid having to take multiple buses to get there. In short, we need an urban transport revolution in Kingston similar to what has occurred in Bogota in Columbia, under former Mayor Enrique Penalosa, or famed architect Jamie Lerner in Brazil.
It is therefore fortunate that the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce has invited an international expert on downtown redevelopment David Feehan to speak at its seminar "Pluggin into Downtown" next week Wednesday, under the sub theme "Transportation and its critical effect on urban development" and Thursday afternoon (the second day is on the equally "electric" topic of the economics of energy) , both days appropriately located at the Jamaica Conference Centre. Feehan, a world-recognised expert in downtown revitalisation, has been involved for more than forty years in successful downtown and business district revitalization.
In a short interview for the Observer, Feehan argues that our understanding of how transportation integrates with urban development has changed dramatically in the past decade. Not only has the technology improved, but the whole way of looking at transportation and access has changed.
Feehan observes that whilst "some of the changes we are seeing are certainly high-tech; others are decidedly low-tech. Bicycles are likely to be a major part of urban transportation systems in the future".
He believes that we need to radically change our thinking about transportation towards "complete streets" that begin with a pedestrian orientation and include not only autos, but bicycles, buses, trolleys, street cars, and pedicabs.
Finally, Feehan observes that transportation-oriented development is not a dream or a theory. Instead, it is one of the most powerful forces driving urban development today.
A cynic would argue that Facey's "field of dreams" argument could be extended to the manifestos of the political parties, whenever they come out. But the coming election should instead be seen as an opportunity to seriously research and debate issues such as downtown redevelopment, and get cast iron commitments for the implementation that has been so lacking over the last few decades in Jamaica. Any political programme of "jobs, jobs, jobs" that does not have a plan to revive the downtown of Jamaica's capital city will not be worth the paper that it is written on.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/busin...#ixzz1bQbSgHeB
Friday, October 21, 2011
PAN Jamaican chief executive Stephen Facey believes that we urgently need to identify the economic drivers that would spark the redevelopment of our capital city, otherwise we risk taking a "field of dreams" approach, namely that "if we build it they will come".
In his view, we don't yet have a physical plan that is allied to an economic plan to drive the redevelopment of downtown Kingston. The question we need to answer, according to Facey, in any plan to revive downtown is, "What are the things that we are going to do to create new demand for commercial real estate?", as without new economic drivers for our stagnant economy we run a grave risk of merely cannibalising existing demand for commercial real estate, say in New Kingston, without creating any new demand for office or retail space.
In essence, he notes, demand for commercial real estate will potentially weaken in New Kingston as existing large tenants relocate unless new economic drivers are developed. Without subsidy, downtown itself will remain less than viable for real estate redevelopment as rent will remain low without new sources of economic activity.
Facey argues that the first question to answer is "Why Kingston?", meaning why should a foreign or indeed local investor invest in the development of our capital city Kingston. His answer is that the large existing infrastructure investment, coupled with the fact that "people like to live in cities" provides the starting point. "Kingston harbour is a huge underutilised asset" and "The Port has enormous potential to be a driver of multiple business opportunities", both directly and indirectly, he responds in answer to his own question.
Facey notes that New Kingston is both a "business" and an "entertainment and hospitality" centre "where the life is", but unlike many other capital cities, this current centre of Kingston is neither an educational centre (which is located some way away at UWI and UTech) nor is it next to the waterfront, unlike downtown, leaving the key potential drivers of economic activity "disconnected". In Facey's view, New Kingston, the Port and downtown should be the connected legs of a three- legged stool that would drive the utilisation of the underutilised land in between.
As far as the redevelopment of downtown Kingston is concerned, Facey believes, perhaps controversially, a cruise shipping port needs to be located Downtown rather than at Port Royal. He admits that this would be "a leap of faith", as Port Royal would be much better suited to the business model of a Carnival cruise lines. If one located the cruise shipping port there, however, he argues only a fraction of the passengers would ever reach Kingston, as opposed to potentially up to half if a cruise shipping port was located at downtown Kingston. As well as providing better linkages for tourism in Kingston proper, there would also be no development conflict with the history and delicate environment of Port Royal. As he puts it, you can't have "a port locked off from the people" as it represents an economic opportunity, more colloquially "a boat load of money" that we need to extract if we are to drive the redevelopment of downtown.
He does not believe Kingston's image of crime is an insuperable barrier to cruise tourism, citing Miami's renaissance despite its crime problem in the early 1980's. he observes, wryly, that "they even made a TV show about it".
He believes that we also need to build on the "Freezone" represented by the downtown market, where "people tell me the rents are higher than anywhere else in the city". In his view, this presents an opportunity to create a symbiotic relationship between the history of Kingston and Port Royal, the waterfront, courts and other key infrastructure downtown, and the population, in the form of driving retail demand and thus employment.
Facey argues that transportation "getting to downtown" is still a problem, and that we need a bus and other transportation systems of a standard that the middle classes would also be happy to use, as occurs in the major Metropolises of New York and London. A student living in Portmore should be able to attend University on the other side of the city without needing to drive a car to avoid having to take multiple buses to get there. In short, we need an urban transport revolution in Kingston similar to what has occurred in Bogota in Columbia, under former Mayor Enrique Penalosa, or famed architect Jamie Lerner in Brazil.
It is therefore fortunate that the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce has invited an international expert on downtown redevelopment David Feehan to speak at its seminar "Pluggin into Downtown" next week Wednesday, under the sub theme "Transportation and its critical effect on urban development" and Thursday afternoon (the second day is on the equally "electric" topic of the economics of energy) , both days appropriately located at the Jamaica Conference Centre. Feehan, a world-recognised expert in downtown revitalisation, has been involved for more than forty years in successful downtown and business district revitalization.
In a short interview for the Observer, Feehan argues that our understanding of how transportation integrates with urban development has changed dramatically in the past decade. Not only has the technology improved, but the whole way of looking at transportation and access has changed.
Feehan observes that whilst "some of the changes we are seeing are certainly high-tech; others are decidedly low-tech. Bicycles are likely to be a major part of urban transportation systems in the future".
He believes that we need to radically change our thinking about transportation towards "complete streets" that begin with a pedestrian orientation and include not only autos, but bicycles, buses, trolleys, street cars, and pedicabs.
Finally, Feehan observes that transportation-oriented development is not a dream or a theory. Instead, it is one of the most powerful forces driving urban development today.
A cynic would argue that Facey's "field of dreams" argument could be extended to the manifestos of the political parties, whenever they come out. But the coming election should instead be seen as an opportunity to seriously research and debate issues such as downtown redevelopment, and get cast iron commitments for the implementation that has been so lacking over the last few decades in Jamaica. Any political programme of "jobs, jobs, jobs" that does not have a plan to revive the downtown of Jamaica's capital city will not be worth the paper that it is written on.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/busin...#ixzz1bQbSgHeB
Paul Marin -19 is one thing, 20 is a whole other matter. It gets even worse if they win the UCL. *groan*. 
05/18/2011.MU fans naah cough, but all a unuh a vomit?-Lazie 1/11/2015
It has to be Kgn,We could plug Stem into all of the variables ,entertainment, hospitality,business and education,STEM encompasses all .
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