What is our community vision for downtown and the surrounding Core Area?

That’s an important question because downtown is everyone’s neighborhood. It’s a community gathering place of restaurants, retailers, housing and entertainment.

The best cities across America understand that your downtown brands your community, for better or for worse.

Cities with revitalized downtowns have a better chance of recruiting new business and attracting new jobs -- thereby expanding the property tax base and generating more sales tax.

No doubt, Wichita’s downtown has made progress over the past two decades. In a piecemeal way, our community has used public dollars, private funds and partnerships to create Old Town, Old Town Square and other top-notch attractions.

These attractions have brought businesses, families, young people and tourists to the heart of our city. They also have enhanced our quality of life, increased our sense of community and lifted our collective pride. These successes should inspire us.

If we pause or retreat now from a community vision for downtown, we risk falling behind our peer cities in the region.

A Visioneering Wichita team that recently traveled to Oklahoma City and Fort Worth got an up-close look at our competition. They saw Oklahoma City and Fort Worth revitalized their downtowns through tax initiatives and private-public partnerships. They saw how a community is enhanced when residents, governments and businesses come together to fulfill a community vision.

I had a similar eye-opening experience recently when I visited Kansas City’s newly constructed Power and Light District. It’s impressive and inspiring. It has a huge outdoor area, with many restaurants, shops and museums. It’s a big draw for people going to and from events at Kansas City’s downtown arena, the Sprint Center.

But as I observed the amenities and character of the Power and Light district, I realized something a little unsettling: This is Wichita’s competition. This is why we’re losing young people, young professionals and families. Oklahoma City and Fort Worth experienced these same fears and responded with a community vision.

So as we pause to further discuss funding for the Center City TIF district, I’m asking that we focus more on our community vision than on our differences about any potential funding sources.

What do we want for downtown Wichita in the short- and long-term? What do we want for our young people, our families and our business partners? What do we want our visitors to experience when they come to Wichita?

This community vision must be supported by City and County government, by business partners, by the Wichita School District and the diverse residents of our community.

The Center City Redevelopment TIF is an attempt to help shape that vision. It is designed to help fund streets, parking, landscaping and other basic improvements related to the downtown arena.

The expansion of the district makes sense. It strengthens the arena’s connection to Old Town and the Wichita WaterWalk.

The County has raised questions about the expansion of the TIF.

• What’s an appropriate size for the TIF?
• Which public improvements need to be financed with the TIF?
• Which projects should be funded with the City or County’s general or capital improvements budgets or the arena sales tax?

These are urgent questions that need answers immediately and we need to work together as a community to find those answers. We need to step up and create a community for the future – one that attracts and retains young people, one that creates a sense of place, one that speaks to a quality of life, second to none.

The Visioneering Wichita group learned firsthand in Oklahoma City and Fort Worth that both government and the private sector have to invest and work together if a community is to grow and prosper. City government remains a willing partner but it needs its partners more than ever. It needs:

• Private partners
• The County
• The Chamber
• The school district
• GWEDC
• The Wichita Downtown Development Corps
• The Conventions and Visitors’ Bureau
• And engaged residents to keep moving our City forward.

Here’s what I’m asking for:

1. A renewed focus and solid support for the next phase of downtown revitalization. Our community does not need people sitting on the fence undecided or standing on the sidelines with indifference, waiting for a convenient and safe time to get engaged with this community vision.
2. A sense of urgency between the City and the County to resolve the funding issues for the Center City Redevelopment area. We need to meet today and tomorrow until the financing issue is promptly resolved.
3. Public and private partners to help create specific projects and set aggressive timelines to complete them.
4. Measurable outcomes so that we can show our community that we fulfilled our community vision.
5. Government and business partners and community leaders to work toward that shared vision, in which public-private partnerships are revered, not feared.
6. Media to help educate, inform and engage residents about our community vision.
   The naysayers have gotten too much media attention while those who are engaged and do the hard work are too often ignored and criticized.

Wichita, we can’t be timid. We can no longer proceed in a piecemeal fashion to further revitalize downtown. We must spend public dollars to leverage private investment. Today’s best cities and communities are thriving because they took bold steps forward.

Now, it’s our time, Wichita. It’s our time to come together and build and even greater downtown.

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