REN SQUARE: Now, what?

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This afternoon's meeting between City Council members, Mayor Bob Duffy, and Renaissance Square officials ended in a stalemate. Both sides seem convinced that they're right, and neither side seems willing to bend.

Council didn't take any action today - and it wasn't expected to. This was billed as a City Council work session, at which Council members and the mayor would present their own revised Ren Square plan, and at which they would ask questions of Ren Square officials and staff.

At the beginning of the long, often contentious meeting in City Council Chambers, Duffy presented a revised plan that drops the theater, reduces the size of the transit center, and - while keeping the transit center on Mortimer Street - reduces the number of bus bays and moves the center farther east on Mortimer Street, away from the historic HH Warner Building, now being developed for housing.

Duffy and City Council members dug in their heels at the meeting, insisting that if the Performing Arts Center isn't dropped and the transit center isn't substantially downsized, they won't approve actions the project needs to proceed.

Transit Authority CEO Mark Aesch and County Executive Maggie Brooks insisted that the changes would kill the project. While city officials agree that they want the Monroe Community College portion of Ren Square, Ren Square officials said changing the plan at this point would forfeit substantial federal funds allocated for the MCC campus. They would have to redesign the project and do another environmental study on the revisions, they said, and that can't be done in time to meet federal guidelines.

"What's been laid out is not Renaissance Square," said Brooks. "It's a completely different project."

And Aesch said that no matter what City Council does, the transit center will be built. "We have the legal authority," he said, "and we have the money to do it." MCC, however, would be lost, he said.

When the meeting ended after about 3 hours, no one seemed to have changed anyone's mind. And City Council seemed to have hit the ball back into Ren Square leaders' court.

Two questions now:

1) Despite what they said at this afternoon's meeting, are Ren Square officials willing to compromise at all?

2) Are the mayor and Council members willing to risk losing the federal funds - in essence, killing the project, including MCC - if Ren Square officials won't make the changes that they and Mayor Bob Duffy want?

You get a sense of the depth of the divide from this statement from Mark Aesch: "Compromise at this point in the process equals change."

And this one from City Council member Dana Miller: "I don't think I'm stretching very much to say you don't have Council's support" for the plan Ren Square officials are sticking to.

Comments for "REN SQUARE: Now, what? " (6)

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Harry Davis said on Jul. 16, 2009 at 9:32am

The people have spoken loud & clear that they do not want ren square. Mayor Duffy's call for a design consultant is the best thing to come out of yesterday's raucous city council /Main & Clinton meeting. As Bill Reed said: "Piecemeal approaches create higher costs, sub-optimal results and even unintended negative consequences..."

I do not support real estate development done through a patchwork of government agencies. The Mayor, City Council, the Monroe County Executive and certainly not the wonderful people of the theatre are not qualified to develop a city. They do not have the expertise to do this job. If you need heart surgery, you would not hire a person who has not been trained in heart surgery. Rochester needs a qualified team of creative people to to tell & develop it's story.

Yes, Mayor Duffy's call today to reduce the size of the transit facility is CHANGE, as Maggie Brooks said today. But change is what is needed when what you have is completely unacceptable. We do not need a smaller bus garage. We must have an inter-modal transportation facility at the Amtrak station with High Speed Rail (HSR). Mayor Duffy publically supported HSR at the Amtrak today. I heard Mayor Duffy say today after the meeting that he thinks in 5 years all of the transportation will be where the Amtrak is today. But Mayor Duffy tried to compromise with a plan that has it's deadline only 5 days from July 15 in order to "save" $24 million. It is time to forget all of the artificial deadlines and begin to truly make plans for our future with only one deadline, the welfare of all of us.

The time is ripe, right now, for a real consultant such as Bill Reed to come to Rochester, as Mayor Duffy suggested yesterday, and bring all of Rochester together in several charretes with our own very qualified local experts to create an approach that "Engages the community in a process of rediscovery of the attributes that have formed the City is a very powerful and effective way to address the best potential for the use and design of the Renaissance Square site. It can be done in a way that unites people around common ideas rather than compromise and argue over ideas that do not have the generative power of meaningful purpose." (Bill Reed) harry2009.com/node/102

Harry Davis
Harry2009.com
Candidate for Rochester City Council

Doug Midkiff said on Jul. 16, 2009 at 10:18am

Congratulations to Mayor Duffy and the City Council for offering a constructive and practical alternative to RenSquare, as conceived and planned by Maggie Brooks and Mark Aesch and their colleagues. It has been clear for years, from the tone of the comments and articles, that the residents of the City do not want RenSquare. It is a mystery to me why Maggie Brooks, as an elected leader, cannot see that and abide by the wishes of her constituents. I urge Mayor Duffy to stand firm on his plan and stand back and watch downtown blossom..

andrew stainton said on Jul. 16, 2009 at 10:26am

"Saving" $24 million taxpayer dollars that will be used to turn rochester into a pedestrian "dead zone", thus destroying that part of downtown and utterly ruining the bus system, is not a worthy goal...

andrew stainton said on Jul. 16, 2009 at 10:31am

About MCC:

The $60 million MCC funds are the colleges, and do not require any association with Ren Square and can be moved to ANY site the COLLEGE chooses.

Why not keep its main street presence by locating at the new lands that will be cleared when midtown comes down? Then the campus wont have 1200 buses driving around it each day, as the current Ren Square plan would do?

Rochester99 said on Jul. 16, 2009 at 10:54am

It appears that the MCC downtown campus is the only strongly supported component. While I feel that such a campus will do more harm than good (junior college students have little time and very little money to spend in downtown Rochester), there are alternative downtown sites other than RenSquare that could be pursued WITHOUT federal funds! The only reason MCC needs federal funds at RenSquare is because it is a very expensive site to develop. Already MCC has $35 million from the State and matching $35 million from the State. $70 miilion is more than enough for a downtown campus ...at a diffferent and cheaper location. Better than that...if they purchase a vacant building (there are many) and re-hab it for a campus, the price tag will be much more cheaper.

Again....MCC doesn't need to be in RenSquare! ...its a political and logistical mess and it costs way too much money!!!

MAT said on Jul. 16, 2009 at 10:21pm

It's mind-boggling to see such glee in the midst of utter failure. If indeed Ren Square is dead, I hope City Newspaper follows up with Mr. Stainton and Mr. Davis in 10 years when we're still stuck with an entire block of dilapidated buildings on Main Street and lines of idling buses clogging Main Street that ruin any chance at revitalization. But hey, we got a new train station to serve the high speed rail that never came! Mr. Davis, what will be your platform now, "Elect me and I'll keep dogs from barking at night?" The idiocracy wins again.

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