Editorial: Downtown needs energy

Downtown Toledo needs a shot of adrenaline to keep the momentum behind major development projects like Four Corners from sputtering out.

Real estate experts say it’s too soon to hit the panic button because of increasing vacancy rates for office, retail, and residential space in the central business district. We’re more concerned that warning signs will be ignored. ( “Vacancy rates up in downtown Toledo,” Monday. )

Read more Blade editorials

A third of downtown office space is empty according to the Reichle Klein MarketView report on Toledo. Much more troubling is that 43 percent of the class A office space available is vacant. With ProMedica’s sale of Paramount Health, that class A vacancy rate is likely to climb. The national vacancy rate, considered to be at crisis level highs is less than half Toledo’s rate.

The news on retail space downtown is even worse; 48 percent is vacant. The 6.4 percent vacancy rate for downtown apartments looks excellent by comparison, but downtown is the only metro Toledo region where apartment vacancies have climbed.

Downtown living is a much easier sell when your job is nearby and there are plenty of nearby retail options. But Toledo is slipping badly on the factors that facilitate residential development, to the point successful development of the nearly $200 million Four Corners Project cannot be taken for granted.

The rental price per-square foot in downtown Toledo is the lowest cost in the entire Toledo region. A good deal may keep the bottom from falling out on the downtown apartment vacancy rate but under-market rental prices will not attract developers Toledo must have for success.

The $200-million, 300-acre Glass City Riverwalk will surely enhance value to downtown Toledo as a place to live, work or sell, just like FifthThird Field, Huntington Center, and the Glass City Center have.

ConnecToledo, the Downtown Toledo Development Corp. charged with marketing the many opportunities there, does not exhibit the urgency or energy required during a make or break moment.

The downtown master plan shown on the ConnecToledo internet site is from 2017. The promised revision due in 2023 is nowhere to be seen and suggests a low-energy, lackadaisical leadership effort on downtown development that encompasses all of One Government Center.

Toledo needs to quickly roll out its downtown development plan and put some passion behind making it happen or the apartment vacancy rates will continue to follow the office and retail emptiness that plagues the central city.

Toledo needs to improve greatly to be a location worthy of private sector investment.