Rail advocates tout regionalism in economic talks (VIDEO)
Published: July 8, 2010
Tags: Bruskewitz, Capital Midwest Fund, D'Souza, Eberle, high-speed rail, Kanavas, Mason Wells, Rail, Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek
Business leaders and politicians gathered Thursday to talk about the economic possibilities -- or lack thereof -- of regional high-speed rail in Wisconsin. (Map courtesy of WisDOT)
Business leaders and politicians engaged in a heated debate Thursday on the economic development potential of high-speed rail.
While supporters of the more than $800 million plan to build high-speed rail service in Wisconsin touted the benefits of regional accessibility, opponents such as state Sen. Ted Kanavas, R-Brookfield, questioned the likelihood of increased development near rail hubs.
The debate was part of a lunchtime meeting of the Wisconsin Innovation Network, a membership arm of Wisconsin’s nonprofit Tech Council.
“There will be a couple of businesses that benefit from this,” Kanavas said. “But ultimately, if this is about development around the stations, we’ve got a problem.”
The proposed high-speed rail line from Madison to Milwaukee is part of a larger regional system that will run from Chicago to Minneapolis.
Kanavas was part of a three-member panel that discussed the practicality and economic development potential of the rail proposal.
Panelist Teresa Esser, a principal at Capital Midwest Fund LP, Milwaukee, said she couldn’t “care less about a couple of restaurants around the station.”
“This is about the region,” she said. “It’s about the number of hours it takes for people to get from place to place. There’s a lot of money in Chicago. It’s about making it easier and faster to get that money here.”
The proposed high-speed rail line between Milwaukee and Madison is part of a larger system intended to link Minneapolis to Chicago.
“This is a regional thing, not a Milwaukee-to-Madison thing,” said Trevor D’Souza, managing director at Mason Wells Inc., Milwaukee, who attended Thursday’s meeting. “If we want to be a great region, we need to have decent transportation. The end game is the Twin Cities.”
Esser said the potential for economic development will be found in the increased opportunities people have with the ease of a well-connected high-speed rail system.
“Everyone should have the opportunity to get to Chicago,” she said. “This will open a lot more markets.”
But economist Larry Kaufmann is unconvinced. Kaufmann, who was not at Thursday’s meeting but weighed in on the plan’s economic development potential beforehand, said a fair amount of research shows that development does not result from rail.
“Development is just redistributed,” he said, “not created.”
Dane County Supervisor Eileen Bruskewitz agreed, calling any development resulting from regional transit “contrived.”
“Mass transit should take people where they want to go,” she said, “not where we tell them to go.”
Bruskewitz said the large amount of money planned for the system is not worth the potential for development.
“Building a train line is not going to build business,” she said. “This is pie-eyed thinking.”
But panel member Paul Eberle, chief executive of Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek SC, Milwaukee, said opponents of the high-speed rail project need to look at the big picture.
“Development around the stations is insignificant,” he said. “But connecting people regionally is important.”
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Why these people convened to waste time and energy discussing an already-approved and under-construction project is anyone’s guess, but Eileen Bruskewitz and Larry Kaufmann are both connected to the shadowy extremist CATO Foundation and its various arms tied into men like Wendell Cox, Tom Rubin and Randal O’Toole, all professional Big Oil/Bigger Roads-funded torpedos.
That’s probably why Bruskewitz and Kaufmann, who should know better and probably secretly do, are trying to defuse the huge impact of transit-oriented development (TOD).
In Minneapolis, nearby the Hi-Lake Shopping Center it developed in Minneapolis, Wellington Management Inc. has preliminary plans to break ground next spring on a mixed-use project that calls for about 55 apartments and 8,500 square feet of retail space. In St. Paul, where the developer is based, Wellington completed the Metro Lofts mixed-used development in 2006. And immediately behind the Metro Lofts is Emerald Gardens, a 212-condominium development the company built in 2005.
What all three projects have in common, says Judd Fenlon, Wellington director of real estate development, is their proximity to existing or planned light-rail train routes.
Fenlon spoke at a recent panel discussion hosted by the Minnesota Shopping Center Association on how transportation projects and federal stimulus spending are creating commercial real estate opportunities in the Twin Cities. He said the anticipated start of major construction this summer for the Central Corridor light rail line — from downtown Minneapolis to downtown St. Paul via University Avenue — is a prime example of where Wellington is looking to undertake more development.
Wellington’s proposed five-story building at the Hi-Lake’s vacant triangle property would have one floor of retail and four stories of rental housing. The project is contingent on gaining various city approvals, and Fenlon said the Hi-Lake center is where Wellington “cut its teeth on these light-rail (related) developments.”
His company bought the 125,000-square-foot center in 2004 for about $6 million and since then has invested about $3 million in the property. Today, the center is about 60 percent occupied, he said.
This is TOD in action. Both St. Paul projects were built in anticipation of the Central Corridor light rail project, said Joanne Henry, a spokeswoman for Wellington Management.
Fenlon said Wellington also plans to build a project just west of the Metro Lofts that would have about 80,000 square feet of office space and 20,000 square feet for retail, including a grocery store. No groundbreaking date has been set, but Fenlon said he anticipates the project — called 2700 University Avenue — will get under way before the $957 million central corridor line is expected to open in 2014.
“We are working hard on financing” for 2700 University Avenue, Fenlon said.
Karen Lyons, a senior planner at the Metropolitan Council who also spoke during the panel discussion, said a wealth of other development is expected along light rail corridors. That includes another 9,000 housing units “waiting in the wings” near Hiawatha Avenue train stations and 11,500 units built or in construction along the Central Corridor with another 7,850 proposed, Lyons said.
Check these “experts” and their statements carefully, including what I said as well.