THE Downtown conference offered a platform to a variety of political and business leaders, from Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Rachel Reeves MP, to Paul Levy, CEO of the Philadelphia Business Improvement District (BID).
He spoke of his impressions of Liverpool and shared key improvements his BID have brought for the US city.
He told delegates: “I have been here three days and am extraordinarily impressed by the vitality of your city centre. It’s not just old and new, but mixing them together.”
The Philadelphia Bid was formed in 1991 and had to contend with a decline that saw a collapse in its manufacturing sector from 52% of the city’s workforce after World War II to 5% in the early 90s.
The BID is private sector- led, but publicly authorised, and has grown from a £4m enterprise to an £18m programme responsible for the entire city centre.
After the war, the old infrastructure was converted to office districts. Two-thirds of BID revenues are from the commercial office sector.
Mr Levy said: “We started just on the basis of cleaning and graffiti removal, and had uniformed goodwill ambassadors, in partnership with the police.”
The city centre has since seen a 45% drop in serious crime and a 75% fall in car crime.
But the BID has also taken a proactive approach and has paid for the renovation of theatres and the building of a new convention centre as part of £34m of capital improvements which have helped achieve a 95% increase in hotel rooms, a 328% increase in fine dining restaurants, and a rise in open air dining spots from none to almost 300.
“We have grown our evening economy to match our day-time economy.” Obsolete offices were converted to flats by offering a 10-year abatement on property tax which has seen 117 such conversions.
“What used to be an office district now has 25,000 people living in it, from young professionals to empty nesters, and 20,000 children have been born to city centre parents.”
And he revealed that while property in the suburbs has lost 21% in value, city centre properties had only seen a 7.5% loss.
