SOUTH BEND — Because the primary draw was the Century Center’s close proximity, the new Courtyard by Marriott’s developer says he would have built the hotel regardless of Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s Smart Streets initiative.
But A.J. Patel said Smart Streets, which has eliminated one-way streets, narrowed them to slow traffic, widened and beautified sidewalks with new trees and decorative brickwork, and created new bike paths, was a key secondary factor behind his company’s $14 million investment.
“Overall, with the two-way streets and the apartment people, it’s a livelier downtown,” said Patel, president and CEO of JSK Hospitality & Development, which hopes to open the hotel April 3. “There’s retail coming in. Other companies are investing in downtown. Everything kind of came together and it’s cleaned up the whole area. You’ve got a different image when you go down there now, compared to five years ago.”
In his annual State of the City speech Tuesday, Buttigieg said Smart Streets “has already been credited with helping to attract over $90 million in private investment — a nearly four-fold return on the public investment.”
Could that really be true? Or would that private investment naturally have materialized as the economy recovered from the Great Recession of 2008?
Michael Burayidi, a professor of urban planning at Ball State University, said there could be credence to Buttigieg’s claim. In researching his book, “Resilient Downtowns: A New Approach to Revitalizing Small and Medium-City Downtowns,” Burayidi traveled the country, interviewing city and town officials.