Study: Jobs are shifting from downtown to suburbs

A new study on job sprawl by a Washington, D.C., think tank suggests downtown Colorado Springs is becoming less vital as a central business district.

The report by the Brookings Institution raises questions both about downtown's long-term vibrancy and the city's ability to provide infrastructure when an increasing number of people are living and working outside its taxing area.

Colorado Springs is not alone in the trend, according to the study. Its authors found 95 of 98 metro areas - small and large - saw a decrease from 1998 to 2006 in the number of jobs within three miles of downtown. Job flight occurred in 17 out of 18 industries analyzed.

The key point of the study for Colorado Springs?

"We are losing critical mass to Briargate, Falcon, Monument and Fountain," said Fred Crowley, senior economist with the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs' Southern Colorado Economic Forum.

"When the population moves to outside areas, jobs move," he said.

Crowley said downtown has been losing jobs far longer than just the eight-year period studied by Brookings. He said a study of commute times from 1990 to 2000 in El Paso County showed a significant drop in the time people spent commuting to work - suggesting they were working closer to their homes in the suburbs or in unincorporated El Paso County.

"The rate at which we have moved outside the immediate central business district is followed closely by commuting time," he said. "All of these trends suggest downtown is increasingly less relevant."

The report does not suggest downtown Colorado Springs is decaying. Over the past decade, a number of high-end lofts have been built there to encourage urban living, and there is a vibrant restaurant and bar scene along Tejon Street.

Most recently, the city partnered with private interests to rehabilitate a building at the corner of Tejon and Colorado Avenue to keep the U.S. Olympic Committee in the city.

But the report does shine a spotlight on a trend that, if not stemmed, could pose a long-term threat to downtown.

As a businessman, Mark Strauch is keenly aware of where customers are. And that forced him five years ago to move Floor Craft LLC from 21st Street and Colorado Avenue - within the three-mile radius defined by the report as the downtown core - to Academy Boulevard and Vickers Drive.

It wasn't an easy decision.

Strauch's grandfather started the company 67 years ago, and the floor-covering business was at the 21st Street location for more than 45 years. But the business outgrew its building, and there was no room for expansion. The lack of parking was "killing us," he said. And it became apparent the city's growth was happening in the suburbs north and northeast of downtown.

Although he anticipated losing some business initially, Strauch said his business boomed immediately until the recent downturn in the economy.

"We had a huge concern leaving. We were almost a landmark, and we had a lot of loyal westsiders as customers," he said.

Now that he's moved where parking is generous and where customers roam?

"I wouldn't change it for the world," he said.

Crowley said job and population sprawl requires more infrastructure spending by the city.

Yet once that sprawl crosses into the county, the city loses the tax bases needed to sustain the infrastructure it has built.

Mike Kazmierski, president and CEO of the Colorado Springs Regional Economic Development Corp., said absent government or community intervention, the private sector will seek the lowest cost to do business, and that often means moving out of the core business district. He said that suggests the government or the community must consider offering incentives to keep or attract businesses in the downtown area.

Crowley said there have been many efforts to revitalize Colorado Springs' downtown, yet it remains largely populated only during working hours. He said urban renewal here is simply too expensive for any one company to attempt, yet tax-limitations measures mean the city doesn't have the money to help.

Crowley said if the city has any hope of attracting a substantial number of residents and businesses downtown, it needs to create a major enterprise zone downtown and exempt the entire area from taxes for a certain period. But he said the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, or TABOR, would require that tax exemption remain in force forever - ultimately dooming any such attempt.

"Unless you have downtown revitalization, you get stuck," he said. "It gets slummy. We haven't seen that happen yet. But we have put ourselves in a difficult position to make sure new investment gets downtown."

DETAILS

• The Brookings Institution report released this week found there were 199,907 jobs within 35 miles of downtown Colorado Springs in 1998. The share of those jobs within 3 miles of downtown was 38.6 percent.

Eight years later, jobs in the city had grown to 224,430 - a fairly paltry increase compared with some other cities with less than 500,000 jobs - and only 34.9 percent of those were within 3 miles of downtown.

The percentage of jobs within 3 to 10 miles of the downtown core remained fairly constant over the eight years, 53.5 percent in 1998 and 53.2 percent in 2006, the study found.

The most striking change was the number of jobs located 10 miles or more beyond the downtown core. Those increased substantially, from 7.9 percent in 1998 to 11.9 percent in 2006.

To see a full copy of the report, visit: http://www.brookings.edu/metro/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2009/0406_job_sprawl_kneebone/0406_job_sprawl_final.pdf