And in Local News — KUBA: Are You Listening?

By Eric Francis Coppolino
Published in The Lincoln Eagle January 2011 issue

Note to Readers: This is a local article involving an ongoing political issue with the city of Kingston, New York, where I live and do business. I’m posting it here in case you’re vaguely interested, and to tell Google the story exists. It is a bit of cell biology about how the world works or perhaps doesn’t work; and the kind of thing one might encounter when getting involved in taking control of the destiny of their locale. For background on this story, here is a past article, and here is a recent letter in the Daily Freeman, the official certified local newspaper. And here is a local video segment I just found.

Kingston Uptown Business Association (KUBA) claims to represent 300 uptown businesses, and has been one of the leading voices in favor of the proposed renovation of the Pike Plan, the canopy currently hanging over the fronts of 46 properties on Wall and North Front Streets since the late 1970s. KUBA representatives frequently make public statements in support of the proposed approximately $1.7 million renovation.

In a board of directors meeting Wednesday, Feb. 9, however, KUBA’s president, Kevin Quilty, admitted that though the organization voiced its support of the renovation plan to Albany early in the process, it never contacted property owners impacted by the canopy, and never studied the issue. The state, through a city official, needed an indication of stakeholder support, and KUBA spoke on behalf of the stakeholders without ever consulting them.

The city, as well, bonded the architectural plan for $100,000 without ever consulting the businesses under canopy. The businesses under the canopy will be paying this back for 15 years.

For contrast, when the Columbia, MO business district was faced with the issue of whether to remove its canopies, its business association did a study to determine what the impact would be. The stakeholders were directly involved. Columbia’s business organization learned, based on contacting many Midwestern and East Coast towns, that removing its canopy could result in up to a 50% increase in business.

During the 1970s, many American towns put canopies over their sidewalks. Locally these included Middletown, along with Red Bank, NJ, Wilkes-Barre, PA, Columbia, and many towns across the Midwest. All of these canopies have been torn down. After living in their shadow for years, merchants figured out they were blocking the visibility of the businesses. The canopy makes the businesses look the same, blurring them visually and blocking direct light from reaching their windows.

“We tore ours down five or six years ago and haven’t looked back,” I was told last month by Carrie Gartner, the head of the business district in Columbia, MO. When Columbia surveyed the towns in the Midwest that previously had canopies, they made some discoveries. Business increased by up to 50% because people could see the stores that were there. Buildings were restored to their original condition, with help from a federal grant. Cafes expanded onto the sidewalks. Other beautification projects were begun. The space was opened up, just like taking out an unnecessary wall in your house or adding a picture window.

Dominick and His Group

Dominick Vanacore, owner of Dominick’s Café and Dreamweavers Style and Health Center, is active in KUBA and has been a member of its board of directors for several years. Vanacore has long advocated that KUBA consider all options for the Pike Plan, including renovation and removal. But he says that businesses located under the canopy have never been formally consulted by KUBA — and that the organization still has no interest in listening, despite claiming to represent these same businesses.

In a Jan. 20 email to the KUBA board, Vanacore called for a special board meeting so that KUBA could hear from Kingston USA, the group of stakeholders located under the canopy that he co-founded. Vanacore wrote, “We would like to bring a group from our organization to meet the KUBA board for an open discussion.”

Guy Kempe is director of community development for the Rural Ulster Preservation Co. (RUPCO), a private nonprofit agency that works in the housing sector. Among RUPCO’s functions is to write and administrate grants. The agency currently has a $200,000 state Main Street Grant invested in the proposed $1.6 million project. Kempe is also a KUBA board member.

“I see no reason to schedule a ‘special’ KUBA meeting for Dominick and his group to rehash their objections to the Pike Plan,” Kempe replied in a Jan. 20 email to the KUBA board.

“The Pike Plan is an issue they should have addressed with their real estate broker before they purchased a property uptown. At the present time, plans to refurbish the Pike Plan canopy [are] poised to get into construction. My thought is that they continue to express their reservations and concerns about the project to the Pike commission and the mayor.”

Vanacore said that this is typical of how any real discussion has been shut down. “It’s always too late, and there’s always someone else we’re supposed to talk to,” he told The Lincoln Eagle. “KUBA claims to represent uptown business, and we think it’s time for them to notice that nearly everyone under the Pike Plan wants the thing taken down.”

He said that last year, when the final proposed plans were presented to the community at a KUBA meeting, he had an alternative visual presentation prepared to show how the buildings looked before the Pike Plan. After the renovation architect made his presentation, Kevin Quilty, president of KUBA, told the people who were present that the Pike Plan portion of the meeting was over — before Vanacore’s mother Rita could make her presentation. Nearly everyone left; only a handful got to see their talk and slide show.

I asked Quilty about this recently. He said he told the audience to leave because the Vanacores got on the agenda too late.

Dancing in the Streets?

“I would make one other point,” Kempe wrote to his fellow board members in the Jan. 20 email. “There is a renaissance going on in uptown. I am very enthusiastic about it! This renaissance is characterized by significant new investment for uptown businesses — and almost all of them happen to be located under the canopy. Tonner Dolls located the corporate office there. Stella’s expanded and built a new restaurant storefront. Texas Hots has been gutted for a complete renovation. Storm Wines is coming. The Haberdashery relocated to the Pike Plan. There is evidence mounting that storefronts and retail spaces under the Pike Plan [are] highly desirable.”

I called Kempe last Wednesday, Jan. 26 to ask him a few questions about his email.

“Dominick loves to talk about the Pike Plan,” Kempe said in the interview. “I think we’ve all heard this before. It just sounds like a not terribly productive use of our time. So I suggested that he bring those concerns to the Pike commission and the mayor, and leave us out of it. I think that kind of summarizes my position about it.”

The Pike Plan Commission is an advisory panel that was established to oversee the maintenance of the canopy. It has no official power; it can only make recommendations.

“The rationale that the Pike Plan is killing business really isn’t borne out by the evidence,” Kempe said. “In fact if we saw the same kind of economic vitality in Midtown, we’d be dancing in the streets. The evidence is that there are lots of empty storefronts throughout the city of Kingston that they could choose to locate in, but they are selecting to locate their businesses under the Pike Plan.”

I asked if he had evidence that the new businesses were choosing specifically to locate under the canopy, or if they happened to purchase properties there for other reasons.

“It is my observation,” he said. “Obviously all of those businesses have options and choices to make about where they choose to locate and they seem to be choosing to locate there as opposed to other places.”

But he added, “Have I done a survey to confirm that it’s the Pike Plan itself? No, I haven’t done a survey.”

Vanacore countered this theory. “The Pike Plan has been here since I was 13 years old, and nobody gave a thought to the possibility that it might not be here. Then I purchased a building under it. I didn’t realize it didn’t belong here till I talked to architects and urban planners who explained why. Then I realized I had personally experienced every one of those reasons,” he said.

“It blocks the visibility of the storefronts. For drive-by traffic, and walk by traffic, it takes away the individual distinction from each business. We want to be able to market ourselves properly,” Vanacore added. “And it’s not an historic part of one of the oldest neighborhoods in the United States.”

We confirmed this with many of the new storeowners, who say they had no idea how it influenced their business until they were under it. Hadassah Zuberi Beu-Dor, for example recently purchased a building and opened a business called Gargoyles. She said she thought the canopy was cute at first, but said she now she feels like she’s sitting in a cave all day because it blocks sunlight from reaching her windows.

“Opponents of the Pike Plan project, as you know, have argued that it creates a bad retail environment. I’m saying that if that were true, we would have a lot of empty storefronts there. And you have some. There’s evidence that doesn’t seem to coincide with these recent facts,” Kempe said.

Had he spoken to owners of businesses under the Pike Plan, he would have discovered that all of the ones he mentioned have signed the petition to have the canopy removed.

I asked Kempe if he knew how many of the businesses or property owners he mentioned had signed the petition.

“I don’t trust that the petition accurately reflects the sentiments of those business owners,” he said.

But he said he had “no idea” how many of them had signed — which is all of them. In fact, Robert Tonner, owner of Tonner Dolls, purchased the former Chase Bank building on the corner of Wall St. and John Street, part of which is covered by the Pike Plan. He is president of Kingston USA, which is working to get the canopy taken down.

Kempe said, “Have you asked him why he would buy something attached to a public infrastructure that he didn’t want to be part of or pay for?”

Tonner, reached for comment late last week, said, “I bought that building in spite of the Pike Plan. I looked at multiple buildings and I looked there because I liked the general area, and the buildings were so depressed, I was bargain hunting. I got the building that was least impacted by the Pike Plan. It’s only on the front, not on the sides.”