superman building – RI Future

June 23, 2016

Progressive Democrats call for action on Superman Building

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Every night in downtown Providence, we see the darkened windows of our state’s tallest building. It’s a sad sign of failed development policies. Recently, the developers announced that they are going to hold the building empty for yet another year, waiting for a massive payout from the taxpayers. What a better way to bully Rhode Island into giving them subsidies than to insist on keeping the largest and most recognizable building in Rhode Island completely empty?

In 2008, the building was bought by David Sweetser and High Rock Development LLC for $33 million dollars. In a bid to lower their taxes, the developers are now arguing that the building has “no value.” In 2013, Sweetser asked for $75 million in state assistance and tax breaks, and each year, he comes back to ask again.

Rhode Islanders should not be held responsible for bad business decisions. And we should subsidize affordable housing, not luxury apartments that further segregate the rich from the poor. With the massive expansion of the agency that did 38 Studios, more and more Rhode Island corporations are coming to expect big checks from the state for any developments they do. And more and more developers are holding development hostage to bargain for public bailouts. It’s time to take action.

That’s why, continuing our strong stance against corporate welfare, we call on our political leaders to reject any subsidies for the Superman Building. We need to send a clear message that holding the building empty to extort money won’t work. Until the developer gets the message, the building will remain vacant.

We ask Sweetser to either develop the building or sell it to someone who can. The people of Rhode Island will not be bullied into giving absurd amounts of money to bail out a corporation’s mistakes. We can’t let this Massachusetts developer take advantage of us by using enormous tax subsidies to build unaffordable luxury apartments. Spending $75 million on corporate welfare for luxury apartments is unethical. Less than 5 years ago, the state of Rhode Island gave $75 million dollars to 38 Studios. We ask that we not make that mistake again.

January 18, 2016January 18, 2016

PolitiFactRI Asks Developers to Fact Check Developers

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PolitiFactRI has a history of sloppy reporting and conservative bias that has generated national attention. But a piece on whether developers deserve huge cash handouts broke new ground.

It centers around David Sweetser, the principal owner of the Superman Building. Controversially, Sweetser has refused to renovate the building or bring in tenants until the city and state agree to pay him tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money—considerably more than the purchase price.

When Ed Fitzpatrick at the Providence Journal reported on the Superman Building, Sweetser gave him a classic defense. As Fitzpatrick wrote: “Sweetser, who lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts, said the reality is that Boston is just 60 minutes away and it’s offering subsidies to developers who can charge higher rent than you can get in Providence, while construction costs are more or less equal.” PolitiFactRI rated Sweetser’s defense true. This is an important claim to unpack because it’s one of the most common arguments big Rhode Island developers use in their quest for taxpayer cash. It’s also extremely misleading.

To begin with, what makes Boston real estate so expensive is not the cost of construction. It’s the cost of land. The whole point of this developer talking point is to imply that overall costs are no higher in Boston–something that is definitely not true.

PolitiFactRI does not address this point. Instead, they zero in on whether construction costs are higher. So how does PolitiFactRI seek to answer this question? Do they consult some unbiased labor cost index? No, they just ask the Gilbane Corporation—one of the biggest developers in Rhode Island.

Interestingly, Gilbane does not say construction costs are identical. They say there is, in fact, a “slight overall difference.” But they also say, “When it comes to larger more complex projects costs are roughly the same.” If Gilbane shared any hard numbers, PolitiFactRI neglected to print them.

Now, Massachusetts is a considerably wealthier state, with stronger unions and a slightly higher minimum wage. It would be odd if labor costs were not slightly higher in Boston. But just how big that difference is is an interesting question. Unfortunately, PolitiFactRI does not give us a number.

Finally, there is the question of subsidies in Boston. PolitiFactRI asks Nicholas Martin, the spokesman for the Boston Redevelopment Agency. He says, “I would not hesitate to say that the majority of construction that’s going on in the city of Boston is not subsidized,” although he does clarify that some big projects do get subsidies.

Boston certainly does offer some absurd subsidies, but the situation today is nothing like Providence, where pretty much every big project gets a special tax break. Boston does lots of developments without subsidies, and they even make Fenway stadium pay taxes.

Under liberal Governor Michael Dukakis, the Massachusetts economy went through a huge boom called the , and the state now has quite a strong economy. That’s why the state has a strong housing market. Like Rhode Island today, Massachusetts used to struggle with conservative Democrats who opposed good policy. Ronald Reagan called Governor Edward King, Dukakis’s rival, his “favorite Democrat,” and King formally became a Republican after Dukakis beat him in the 1982 primary. Today, the Massachusetts legislature is filled with solid real Democrats like Senate President Stan Rosenberg. And the state is thriving, especially when compared to Rhode Island.

If Rhode Island wants to learn a lesson from Massachusetts, we should try breaking the machine and electing real Democrats.

August 6, 2014

111 Westminster not worthy of the name “Superman”

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According to urban myth the tallest building in Providence is commonly believed to be the model for the Daily Planet Building in the comics, television series and films of Superman. It’s not, but a good story is often better than the truth, so as the building changed ownership and the name of the building changed, most Rhode Islanders have taken to referring to it as “Superman Building.” The actual building used in the 1950s Adventures of Superman television program was the Los Angeles City Hall. The Daily Planet Building’s depiction in comics over the years has been far from consistent.

I maintain that the nickname for the building is not only spurious in origin, it’s insulting to the character of Superman. Grant Morrison, a Superman writer who has documented the Man of Steel in the book, Supergods, explains the character in this interview:

At the beginning, Superman was very much a socialist superhero. He fought for the unemployed, the oppressed, he beat up wife-beaters. It’s about a man driven by a burning sense of injustice — there are no monsters or robots, he fights against corrupt council officials! He was conceived as a Depression-era superhero, who dealt with the problems of ordinary people.

Morrison describes a Superman very different from the political and symbolic role the former Bank of America Building plays in present day Rhode Island politics. In the shadow of that architectural monolith lies Kennedy Plaza, now threatened for extermination precisely because the busing hub serves ordinary people, the unemployed and the oppressed. Instead of fighting against corrupt city officials, the former Industrial Trust Tower seems to actively collude with the political power structure. Indeed, the building has more in common with Superman’s arch-nemesis Lex Luthor, the brillaint super-villainous corporate executive who cares only for his own fortune and power and nothing for the rest of humanity.

In deference to Superman’s good name, I can only refer to that piece of real estate by its address, 111 Westminster, and I ask everyone who believes in truth and justice to join me.

May 9, 2013May 9, 2013

If Superman goes housing, make it mixed income

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With the fate of the Superman building unknown, downtown Providence could look very different in a few years. I’m relatively new to Rhode Island, but don’t want the state’s most well-known building to be housing only for the uppercrust.

Such redevelopment could not only gentrify downtown and push low income residents further out of Downcity which limits their ability to get to work and partake in the dynamic life of the city, but it also limits the ability of the city to attract the “creative class” that has been time and again pointed to as a way to rejuvenate a city’s economy (most recently by Governor Chaffee in his NYT justification for signing the same-sex marriage bill).

The thing is, there is a way to both revitalize downtown and ensure that it does not lock out either the poor that need access to the services (like the busses) and the jobs that the city has to offer or the creative class that may one day have the money to purchase high-income residences but maybe not the first time they buy or rent a home.

What Providence needs is a good model for integrated housing success. That can be found in Montgomery County, MD.

As early as 1974, Montgomery County developed a mixed income housing plan that required all new developments to include low and middle income housing if they wanted to build high-income housing. A pretty thorough description of Montgomery County’s plan can be found here, but the model breaks down to three components:

All new housing developments have to include a) a section of low income housing b) a section of middle income market rate housing.
A sizable chunk of the new housing is available for the county to purchase through it’s housing administration.
The housing administration then uses the low income housing for two things: 1) for section 8 voucher recipients and 2) to help low income residents purchase their first properties.

What Montgomery County developments mainly look like now is a dream for land use planners. It is more racially and economically integrated than most of the U.S. and it is relatively sustainable.

The thing is, the plan also resulted in some other not-necessarily foreseen consequences: good schools and a sustainable government structure.

Instead of having all the poor and poorly prepared students housed in schools segregated from the high performing schools which results in a bifurcated system where the poor kids get locked into low performing schools and the rich kids either opt out of the system or stay in locally based high performing public schools not available to kids from across town, Montgomery County has diverse AND high performing schools.

In fact, Montgomery County is ranked as one of the best school systems in the country. And what’s more, they have done better than almost all other school systems at decreasing the race and economic gap in test scores. The reason is obvious—struggling students are not all housed together in struggling schools. Instead struggling students are placed in the same schools (with the same funds) as high performing students. No school is overwhelmed by struggling students, they each have a mix to work with.

But they also have enough money to do so since the tax base includes people from all walks of life—not just the poor and not just the rich.

But if people can’t be persueded by what’s best for all incomes, we might want to consider what’s best for the future economic growth of the city. The “creative class” does not necessarily start life rich. They are artists, technicians, programmers, and engineers. They are also almost uniformly young–too young to have much financial capital at their fingertips for down payments on high-priced homes. Their careers are usually marked by relative poverty (or at least relative lower middle classism) as they embark on starting new businesses or enter their first jobs in tech firms. So if they can’t find housing close to what the city has to offer, they will go to a different city where they can get around without a car and still be able to access the cultural life they thrive on.

Montgomery County has a thriving technology industry and they are second to Boston in the number of biotech companies that are housed within their borders. Most of these were once start-ups where the owners and workers made very little in the first few years, and those companies that have found their footing and turned into money making ventures have stayed because their workers like where they live.

May 7, 2013May 7, 2013

Downcity gentrification vs. big picture masterplan

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The Superman building is certainly one of – if not the – most iconic architectural structures in the Ocean State. We don’t want to lose that. But what’s happening with the inside the building is a pretty iconic example of the current economy. We do want to lose that.

111 Westminster began its existence as the George Bailey-esque Industrial Trust Tower in 1927 and, over the years, became the Fleet Tower, then briefly BankBoston, until eventually being swallowed up by Bank of America – the real life incarnation of Mr. Potter’s fictional evil empire.

It’s not hyperbole to note that the Christmas classic about community concern versus rampant capitalism “It’s a Wonderful Life” predicted that local bank profiteering would devolve into Bank of America-esque entities that would eventually turn on our economy. And that’s exactly what is happening. No Rhode Islander should be doing their banking with this company as they do this to our economy and our Capital City’s centerpiece (Pawtucket Credit Union and Bank Newport are local alternatives).

Going forward, I think it’s important the Superman building remain an iconic symbol of Rhode Island – and our economy. I’m not sold on the idea of more high-end housing, but I’m not viscerally opposed to the idea either. In general, I think it’s a wise use of resources for the government to assist the private sector, and see few similarities to giving Curt Schilling $75 millions to make a video game.

It’s the over-gentrification of Downcity that concerns me. The Nation recently published a special issue called “The Gilded Age: Bloomberg’s New York” that I suspect contains many cautionary tales for Providence, and other cities.

Similarly, I have concerns about turning Kennedy Plaza into a a parking lot for food trucks and other entrapments for upscale urban yuppies.

“The belching diesel fumes and comings and goings of bus passengers too often give this part of our capital city the feel of a third world country,” .

I strongly disagree. In fact, I think Kennedy Plaza is the one place in the state where one can find a cross-section of Rhode Islanders – suburban executives are just as likely to commute to the Capitalist Grill as urban ditch diggers are to take the bus to work. It isn’t bad when these diverse users of downtown Providence have to look each other in the face now and again.

I really like the idea of doing a big master planning effort that extends from the State House to the waterfront. It doesn’t seem to make much sense to make isolated decisions about the common future for the Superman building, Kennedy Plaza, the Dynamo House, the Jewelry District, Shooters and Conley’s Wharf. In fact, i think it’s a good urban planners dream come true. Rhode Island a once in a millennium opportunity to redevelop this entire swath of our capital city into a shining centerpiece for the Ocean State.