Publications
Summer 2001 Newsletter
St. Louis Developer Rebuilds Communities Through Revitalizing
Neighborhood Schools
Schools
have long been theorized as holding the key to meaingful revitalization
of our country's most marginalized neighborhoods. Unfortunatley,
the private sector has been more skeptical and hasn't always listened
to the academics and neighborhood representatives clamouring for
revitalized school facilities. However Richard Baron, a private
developer based in St. Louis has made that committment and created
wonderful revitalization projects based in linking housing and
schools and increased quality of life. NSBN is pleased to offer
this interview.
Last year you received the St. Louis award. In your acceptance
speech you called on area businesses and philanthropists to take
responsibility for reshaping the city school system. As you may
know, L.A. officials pledged to end decades of forced busing by
2006 through a massive school construction program that calls
for 85 new campuses in the district's most crowded neighborhoods.
What are the lessons Los Angeles can draw from your revitalization
techniques?
You have to connect families and schools, to completely reorient
their thinking away from the school district and down to the local
level and start to build meaningful relationships between the
individual school and the community. That's the true challenge.
Los Angeles has an enormously dense population. Because of that
it would seem you should have a far easier time linking schools
and revitalization because you're already dealing with an indigenous
population surrounding a number of the possible school sites.
In St. Louis, we've had to repopulate these areas while at the
same time trying to upgrade the schools. In Los Angeles, McCormack
Baron Salazar, Inc. is positioning itself to do the same. We're
not only trying to reconnect families with the neighborhood school,
but also recreate a built environment as well.
However, at the root of all of this is that urban schools are
really no different from suburban schools in that they both need
good teachers. The only difference is getting teachers to urban
schools. And the trick to that is better incentives and a good
environment. There's nothing terribly profound about that.
Let's flesh that idea out with a case example--the Adam's
Elementary School and Community Center. You began with a community
driven master planning process and parlayed that into grants from
Washington University and First Star Bank. Tell us about that
collaboration. Is it a model for others?
We've formed a collaborative comprised of a number of corporations
and philanthropies who are really supportive of returning public
schools to their place as a central element in both neighborhoods
and revitalization strategies. The Adams school is an example
of that strategy.
A partnership was forged to upgrade a 45-block area that was
devastated 10 years ago when the Board of Education shut down
the Adams school in favor of its busing plan. That single action
tore the heart out of the neighborhood, particularly when the
stabilized part of the neighborhood--which was really connected
to the school--started to leave because, without a school, there
was no reason to stay in the neighborhood.
So naturally, through our community planning process, we discovered
that the community's highest priority was seeing that school reopened.
To that end we were able to raise $6 million--in addition to the
Board of Education's $9 million commitment--to restore the Adams
School, add a community center, gymnasium and a number of meeting
spaces for community programming. We additionally secured the
St. Louis Cardinal's to underwrite the improvement of an adjoining
park, so that we'll have a refurbished park, ball field and children's
play area. So it's been a great model. It's really a prototype.
Richard, you're described as a developer with a keen understanding
that it has to be a community driven planning process. L.A. Unified
has been struggling with doing its projects. The need is great,
but LAUSD doesn't seem to have the time to be collaborative. Why
is it essential to have community input driving this process?
Community participation is ultimately the way that one connects
with the community. If you don't access and rehab these schools
one neighborhood at a time, you will never get support. In most
situations--particularly in low- and moderate-income communities--you
simply cannot impose this kind of thing from a top-down model.
It won't work.
Schools are a resource for the community. They are the one place
where families can connect outside the home. And education is
probably the highest priority of any family. Having the ability
to connect with those families in that kind of a setting is a
very important factor in stabilizing family situations and creating
better expectations for the parents and the neighborhood.
Let me talk about housing because that's the nexus between
your two interests now. The School District in L.A. is talking
about perhaps displacing approximately 1,200 houses and apartments
and relocating the residents as a way of finding land to build
new schools. What's your advice and counsel on how to make this
a constructive and successful land-use venture by the school district
re: housing?
I would advocate for some alternative way that schools could be
created, either in abandoned shopping areas or other places that
wouldn't be traditional school settings but might work very nicely
as a conversion. That alone might be a way to avoid some of that
dislocation. All it takes is a little more ingenuity and perhaps
an intermediary to work between the neighborhoods and the school
system in these creative systems.
School districts are notorious for using rigid formulas that
they claim are required by state law and regulation. Often times
it's all just smoke and mirrors because the technical staff in
the Board of Education doesn't like to deviate from their standard
rules. We all know the mantra, "We've got to have 8 acres,
we've got to have so many parking spaces, it's got to be this,
that and the other."
There may well be a way to recycle industrial property or other
under-utilized spaces in these neighborhoods to create schools
and avoid dislocating families, but creativity causes such discomfort
among the engineers, they simply don't want to have to hassle.
Let's bring this to a close, give us the structure and
financial structure of these projects you're working on in St.
Louis.
We've created a number of 501(c3) entities that act as intermediaries
between the neighborhood and the schools. They target neighborhood
banks, small business owners, and longtime residents of the community--really
anyone that is an important stakeholder.
But in truth, any governance structure that links community involvement
and the ability to apply and disseminate philanthropic or state
dollars will suffice. That kind of stabilizing factor is just
critical in these neighborhoods.
Last question, Richard we last ran an interview with your
firm when you were leaving Los Angeles and California as a housing
developer. Talk a little bit about what would bring you back.
We are back. McCormack Baron Salazar, Inc. is based in Los Angeles.
We returned after the Tax Credit Allocation Committee eliminated
the lottery and went back to a merit system of distributing credits.
Tony Salazar is heading up that office and is working on the Aliso
Village HOPE VI housing development right now in Downtown L.A.
The Utah Elementary School is located in the heart of this 35-acre
site. Hopefully we can engage that school, your school district
and the surrounding neighborhood in this kind of programming and
help to create some of the success that we've seen here in St.
Louis.
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