I don’t know if this will be published elsewhere or not, but thought I’d post it here either way.
I’ve been waiting on callbacks from other people and missed the deadline today and tomorrow it might not be relevant anymore.
But it’s here fo your reading enjoyment.
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County seats offer advice for Waxahachie
Jonathan Blundell
Staff writer
With the Waxahachie City Council considering its position on the future of downtown and Ellis County facilities Monday night, what advice do other county seats have to give?
According to a memo from Waxahachie Downtown Manager Pamela Cowan to Assistant City Manager Paul Stevens, contacts were recently made in five different county seats.
Each contact seems to express a similar sentiment, “Do everything you can to keep them downtown.”
Main Street Program and Convention and Visitors Bureau directors in Georgetown, Denton, Gilmer, Sequin and McKinney were all contacted.
Georgetown has recently relocated county offices to make room for restoration of the county courthouse.
“According to Shelly Hargrove, Convention and Visitor’s Bureau director, this has created no small confusion as to ‘Where do we go for this or that now?’” wrote Cowan. “People are looking for the records office, or where to get their car tags, etc. In just the few months since these changes took place, the downtown merchants can already see a drop in business.”
But according to Georgetown City Manager Paul E. Brandenburg, there are different opinions on the downtown district.
“Everyone sees the change in a different light,” Brandenburg said. “We’ve had businesses close, but the buildings are almost immediately filled again with other businesses.”
In Denton, Julie Glover with the Main Street Program told Cowan that the relocation of county courts and offices outside of the downtown core has negatively impacted the restaurants downtown and many closed within a year of the move.
Gilmer Main Street and Civic Center Manager Bridget Fowler told Cowan that instead of restoring the old courthouse, a town in Arizona reused the facility by housing an art gallery, shops and a playhouse with stage.
“As she put it, ‘Anything to bring more retail, fun and family experiences to town.’” Cowan wrote.
MaryJo Filip in Sequin told Cowan to that after several county offices relocated over the years, the downtown had survived, but barely.
Ty Lake in McKinney told Cowan that plans were under way to move some county offices a few blocks off the immediate square.
“She is thankful that the city leaders had the foresight to keep all city and county offices near downtown when they went through their renovation period,” Cowan wrote. “They took into consideration the restaurants that serve week day lunch, as well as the average merchant when it came to making these long term decisions. To quote her, ‘Do whatever it takes to keep your city and county offices near the downtown area.’”
In Hunt County, county commissioners are just a few steps in front of Ellis County.
The commissioners recently voted to approve the construction of a new justice center outside the downtown square, nearly a mile from the historic county courthouse.
Hood County Judge Andy Rash said available space and proximity to the county jail helped the county make the decision to move.
“We’re still within the core downtown district but just not in the square,” Rash said. “Merchants on the square have been opposed to this for years. But downtown Granbury is basically a tourist destination, including the first designated historic courthouse in the state. With all the county offices on the square, there’s not enough parking.”
The county originally planned to build less than two blocks from the square, but parking and room for growth remained an issue.
“The theory of people is that their business is from jurors,” Rash said. “But a survey run by Tarleton University that said, ‘Yes, by taking jurors away there will be a minor impact, but that will be more than offset by the opportunity for more people coming to shop.’”
The new justice center will be directly across the street from the county jail, which was moved to its current site in 1978 and was replaced in 1995.
The new center will be 50,500 square feet, with enough room to expand horizontally and vertically on 32 acres. The building will cost between $8-million and $10-million.
But even with the new building, not all county offices and courts will leave the downtown square.
“Our deed records, county court, vital statistics and the core of the county government will remain in the historic county courthouse,” Rash said. “But we’ll move our district court, county court at law and clerks for both courts to the new justice center.”
The city of Belton and Bell County have also taken a leap-of-faith to construct a new justice center nearly three miles from the downtown square.
The city council approved the county’s decision to begin construction on the new center last year after nearly a year of public debate and two failed general obligation bond elections.
“Initially, without any real thought or study, I thought that expanding downtown was what we would be doing,” Bell County Judge Jon Burrows said. “But, upon review by the architects and our own investigation, it became apparent that expansion downtown was not feasible. There was not enough land space to have an adequate size facility. The cost of “putting a square peg in a round hole,” or making it fit downtown, was significantly higher than building outside of downtown on an open tract of land. Further, there would be absolutely no space for expansion in the future and no room for the additional parking that an expansion of the building would bring.”
After a petition was filed to force the bond elections, the county put together two task forces to oversee the site selection and planning for the new building.
Despite the recommendations of the task force to build the new facility outside of downtown Belton, voters voted to deny the sale of GO bonds to fund the new facility.
Faced with continued overcrowding, a new district court and a district courts building that would soon be out of code, the commissioners voted to begin construction on 75.96 acres south of town with certificates of obligation bonds, which do not require voter approval.
According to the commissioners, the CO bonds were issued without an increase in property tax rates for the county.
“Some towns have dead downtowns and I think that is the worst thing that can happen to a downtown,” Belton City Manager Sam Listi said. “Belton has a vital downtown. It is busy and alive. It is not, however, particularly relevant to the residents of Belton. Initially, there was concern that a removal of county facilities might create a void that could potentially grow if other related businesses and enterprises follow. Although, after some consideration, it began to present itself more as an opportunity for change in the downtown and with that opportunity comes the possibility of making the downtown more relevant to the folks who live in Belton and hopefully to potential tourists.”
With the construction of the new center, the county will move the district courts, the district clerk and the district attorney.
Remaining downtown will be everyone currently in the recently restored historic courthouse including, the county judge, commissioners, auditor, treasurer, personnel, payroll, justice of the peace and the constable. Also the county jail, sheriff’s office, child protective services court, the child support court, information systems, county engineer, and museum will remain downtown.
But with overcrowding in the county jail, the commissioners have already begun discussing moving or expanding the jail to the site south of town. The new justice center was designed with future jail expansion in mind.
Listi said he is aware that the transition period could be difficult for Belton.
“The transition could be difficult,” Listi said. “We can prepare and offer incentives downtown but we can’t say with any certainty that vacancies created by relocating attorneys and bail bondsmen will be filled with anything more desirable or anything at all.”
But Listi said there are also a number of opportunities now for the downtown district.
“There is an opportunity for vacancies downtown that could be filled by businesses more relevant to the residents of Belton and to tourism,” Listi said. “There is also opportunity for continued development of areas west of I-35 to support the new county facilities and a redirection of court traffic away from Central Avenue and towards roads better suited for more traffic.”
To help prepare the downtown district for the transition, the city of Belton adopted several new policies to encourage private investments.
“The city recently adopted a tax abatement policy for the downtown area offering 100 percent tax abatement for increased valuation for five years. It is a very generous policy and the hope is that, when those vacancies occur, it will be utilized,” Listi said. “The city is also committed to continued restoration and preservation downtown and has worked to establish a façade improvement grant fund, a tax increment reinvestment zone allocation, and has an active Visionaries in Preservation Committee.”
Since construction on the new center began, five new businesses have opened in the downtown district. But not everyone is pleased with the new developments.
“I have seen many under-capitalized businesses move in, which means that rents have tumbled in the area,” Belton Councilwoman Carrol Wallace said. “This is a predictable and really sad scenario that usually ends up with lots of empty, deteriorating buildings as these businesses fail, one, by one. Belton has moved quickly to deal with this problem. I just wish I could convince folks that we need to get a fairly large historic overlay in place. Anyone who invests in our downtown is going to be taking a large risk and I think they deserve the protection of an overlay to ensure that businesses around them have the same architectural style. Belton’s historic overlay ordinance is well written and not too restrictive. All we need to do is to put it in place.”
Wallace said the key to keeping downtown Belton vibrant is to reinvent the area.
“Business property must pay its own way. When it cannot, property values decline and maintenance suffers,” Wallace said. “We could easily lose the historic core of Belton if we cannot reinvent downtown fairly quickly. And that is perhaps the most challenging thing about this situation. If we cannot attract several good investors, downtown Belton will never be destination, and if we cannot create a destination, no new businesses will move in; a very grim catch-22 that I’ve seen played out several times in my travels.”
Wallace said after the initial announcement she was in disbelief, but has since worked to help protect the downtown area once the district courts are moved away.
“My initial reaction to the county moving was one of disbelief and exasperation,” Wallace said. “The downtown area had already become less and less relevant to most of the citizens of Belton, but it was still alive with activity related to county business. I knew when the county moved, a lot of business would move with it. Now I have accepted that the county is moving and that Belton now needs to respond promptly to avoid a downward spiral of blight.”
