Mishcon de Reya partner Susan Freeman takes a look at how business improvement districts can bring businesses together to enhance the public realm
Seeing the difference more regular refuse collection and the uniformity of signage could make was all that was needed to sell the notion of bringing business improvement districts to the UK to myself, place-making guru Pat Brown and a host of other London real estate professionals when we visited New York on a fact-finding tour in 2000.
Now, 15 years on, BIDs are firmly established in the UK as an important collaboration between businesses and local authorities. Working together, they provide additional services and amenities, creating places where people want to live, work and shop. There are now 50 BIDs in London, fast catching up with New York’s 72.
The man behind that boost to collaborative place-making in the UK was Carl Weisbrod, now the Big Apple’s planning commissioner but, in 2000, the man running Manhattan’s Alliance for Downtown New York. As head of the largest US BID he set in train the evolution of an area from being dominated by offices to a vital 24/7 neighbourhood.
Guest of honour at a Mishcon de Reya and New West End Company dinner, Weisbrod reflected on how collaboration between businesses, the city and other stakeholders in New York’s BIDs had created long-term value for property owners.
However, unlike their New York cousins, our BIDs were set up to be funded by business occupiers, rather than by property owners. As such, they rely on voluntary owners’ contributions, which has always been less than ideal. But, at last, new legislation now allows property owner BIDs, albeit only in the capital initially.
Heart of London BID has already held a successful property owner ballot and NWEC is due to hold its ballot later this year. UK BID legislation places the onus to invest with property occupiers, and this becomes a mandatory levy following a successful business ballot.
BIDs have shown their effectiveness in creating strong local leadership to shape and re-imagine urban areas. Weisbrod spoke of the importance of controlling public realm and said the big challenge for New York now was to control public realm while balancing the interests of retailers, property owners, theatre goers and tourists.
This, he says, is the new stage of BIDs, which have evolved from working the “clean and safe” agenda to investment in the public realm.
New York is looking at how it can work with BIDs to redefine spaces that are something between a street and a public space.
In a first for the city, an area around Grand Central Station has been “demapped” as a street and designated as a public place. The adjoining developer will be allowed to build one of the tallest buildings in New York but, in return, the developer will manage the new plaza and will make other infrastructure contributions. Weisbrod hopes this will enable the city to regulate street vendors and begging. If successful, the city will use the model to deal with management issues at Times Square.
Collaboration in New York covers more than just BIDs.
Developers can share air rights, says Weisbrod. A particular quirk of the city, he says, allows developers to transfer development rights to adjoining sites. Listed buildings have enhanced rights and are able to transfer their development rights across the street to produce value for the historic building. Listed theatres can transfer these rights within the city’s theatre district, provided the exterior and theatre use is maintained. While this unlocks much-needed cash for the historic buildings, the planners have the unenviable headache of not knowing where the development rights are going to end.
The BID model we imported to the UK, albeit occupier-funded, was instrumental in breathing new life into a number of London city centre locations. The new challenge going forward will be how cities can most effectively collaborate with developers and local businesses to maintain standards of public realm at a time when the government is slashing public expenditure.
We may once again have to follow New York’s lead.
The birth of London BIDs
Jackie Sadek, policy adviser to communities minister Greg Clark, reminisces on the New York jaunt that led to the birth of British BIDS
On the day of the Tube strike last month, the indefatigable Pat Brown, who seriously must by now be the Patron Saint of Liveable Cities, hosted the most charming dinner at the Royal Academy, all generously sponsored by Alistair Subba Row of Farebrother.
It was to mark the reunion of the first team of BID pioneers that Brown took to New York on a game-changing study tour that she arranged in June 2000. It was as if the Carry On team had invaded the streets of Manhattan, with the likes of Sid Sporle, Tony Bickmore, Antony Rifkin, Sandra Eyre and Susan Freeman, all leading lights in the merry band, having a seriously great time (and some seriously large Martinis). Visiting leading NYC BIDs like the Downtown Alliance, the 34th Street Partnership and the (very different altogether) 125th Street BID for Harlem – all of them still going strong to this day – was invaluable.
We were a motley crew, and we became firm friends. We came back brimming with ideas about how to make London better. We formed a thing called the Circle Initiative and bid for SRB funding to pilot five BIDs across the capital – including Better Bankside (still on the go) Coventry Street (Mark Boyes, then of Burford, with all the fascinating challenges of the Trocadero), Holborn Midtown (Alistair Subba Row), and my own Paddington Circle BID. The pilots were all chosen with different characteristics, on the basis that if we got two or three away then that would be a result, but they were all a great success and, it has to be said, very good value for money from the public purse. They were happy days in the early BIDs movement – we were all on a mission, and we supported one another.
The collaborators
Estates Gazette has teamed up with Mishcon de Reya and JLL to celebrate the best collaborations and collaborators in the industry. Later in the year we will be compiling the top 50 collaborators in real estate, along with features on how working together can boost business, the economy and regeneration and enhance the reputation of the real estate industry. We are on the hunt for suggestions and nominations for our list of collaborators. Which people, firms, cities, regions and technologies do you think have teamed up to create something spectacular? E-mail your ideas to samantha.mcclary@estatesgazette.com or tweet us @estatesgazette using #thecollaborators
