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Sesquicentennial Interview: Guy Larcom

When: 1974

This interview was conducted in 1974 as part of the I Remember When television series produced by the Ann Arbor Public Library.

Transcript

  • [00:00:11] GUY LARCOM: I came to Ann Arbor when the new city charter was adopted in 1956. The charter created the position of city administrator which they didn't have before. The city inquired around to find out who would be a man for the job and I had a call and asked if I were interested and came on, and was interviewed by a committee of the council along with, of course, a number of other candidates and eventually became the first city administrator, which is really a city manager of the city of Ann Arbor.
  • [00:00:51] MALE 1: How long were you in that post?
  • [00:00:53] GUY LARCOM: I was in that post until April last year, April 1973 when I retired from it, voluntarily.
  • [00:01:03] MALE 1: When did you come to Ann Arbor Tomorrow ?
  • [00:01:06] GUY LARCOM: I actually left the city at that time because some business people had asked me if I would be willing to take on the job of working for this new agency, Ann Arbor Tomorrow. Ann Arbor Tomorrow had just been created by all the downtown business people, and had been in the process of formation about six months, but it hadn't been funded. They asked if I would retire from the city then, which I had been considering, and go with the new organization. So I started with them in April '73.
  • [00:01:47] MALE 1: What precisely is Ann Arbor Tomorrow trying to do? What kind of organization is it?
  • [00:01:52] GUY LARCOM: That's a good question. A lot of people ask it. Actually, it's like a number of other voluntary nonprofit organizations of its type in the country. It's whole purpose is promotion, planning, research, in connection with the preservation of the downtown of the city. We are not a development organization. We don't invest in property. In fact, we can under our internal revenue classification, but our main object is really to work with private groups, mobilize citizen action, work with the city and try to promote plans for the development of downtown. Now this is the general purpose. Although it sounds kind of intangible, we're really the one agency, citizens' agency whose whole life, so to speak, whose sole purpose is the economic welfare, let's call it that of downtown Ann Arbor.
  • [00:03:01] MALE 1: During the last 15 years now, the city's really expanded. We talked once before, if you remember about how the old Ann Arbor town really hasn't changed that much, and can you tell us why?
  • [00:03:17] GUY LARCOM: Ann Arbor has had a healthy downtown, a mid city over many years, and it's pretty obvious. I think one of the main reasons for it is, of course, the university is the city's biggest business and the university isn't located on the outskirts of the city. As is the case with many others, the university is located downtown. It really lies in the State Street area, and you have Main Street, State Street and South University. When you have a business, if we can call it that, with 30,000 plus students and 12,000 more faculty, and it's located downtown, this clearly contributes to the economy of the central business area. In fact, the economy, I think, probably has been so good that there's been less of an impetus in Ann Arbor to change, to redevelop, to go the route that so many cities have. Ann Arbor has never had urban renewal, for example, which of course, is a public city, private effort that results in the redevelopment of property in central areas, as well as other areas of city. Ann Arbor tried in 1957, but the program failed. But I think that there have been enough factors, including, as I say, the university that made the downtown economy a solid one and now in retrospect, this has probably been good because you have a city of good buildings that haven't deteriorated too much in a city downtown with buildings that haven't run downhill, haven't deteriorated too much. That gives us something to work on today.
  • [00:05:24] MALE 1: Have the new shopping centers in the area like the Briarwood Mall, they hurt the economy of the downtown area at all?
  • [00:05:31] GUY LARCOM: I think there's no question. They have a real impact on it. When I was with the city, there would be a cycle of interest in downtown actions, redevelopment actions, downtown programs, whenever a shopping center was set up. When Arborland shopping center was started in the early '60s, there was a flurry of action and Main Street became extremely concerned about the competition. As a result, there was a plan developed, a guide for action, which I have a copy here, and that plan resulted in the development of the main street promenade, construction, more parking, actually resulted in part with the new hotel, the Ann Arbor Inn. There was a flurry of city private actions then. Then once the economy absorbed, so to speak, the new shopping centers then developed a status quo feeling, we don't need to do anything else, business is okay. The impact of Briarwood, which is a regional shopping center and bigger and better than any of the others that preceded it is still being felt. I think the first thing is that probably Ann Arbor Tomorrow wouldn't be here today if it hadn't been for Briarwood. In other words, the fear and concern of what a shopping center of that size with a million square feet of space and with eventually a Hudson's and Penney's and the Sears plus number of other stores, the fear of what that would do cause enough concern to get at least in part, is one of the reasons why Ann Arbor Tomorrow got started.
  • [00:07:40] GUY LARCOM: No one really knows today exactly, what the shopping center is doing to downtown business. There have been studies. There was a study made in 1972 by very good consultants projecting what it would do, and projecting primarily an impact on the general goods sales, retail sales, and Main Street. But as of today, in 1974, you don't have any sales records. My feeling is that at this stage if you take this portion of Southeastern Michigan, greater Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, maybe a trade area stretching to Jackson and toward Toledo and Detroit. With Hudson's now open, my feeling is that probably the whole area is over retailed, and there really isn't a market for it to the degree the extent that all of the businesses, the older businesses, will keep up the trade that they had. I think there's real concern about this in the downtown area of the city. I think retailers do feel this impact. Yet I think there's I guess a longer range confidence in that you still don't see many vacant stores developing as you might in other cities. Usually when a store becomes vacant, somebody else fills it. But it's also clear that there have to be some special efforts made to, let's say keep downtown as a healthy economic business area.
  • [00:09:34] MALE 1: One of the things that you're trying to do is renovate.
  • [00:09:36] GUY LARCOM: There are a number of things that you have to do. Before we talk about the particular renovation plans, I think I should emphasize that in the downtown work we're carrying on, you're not really trying to create another shopping center or to compete store for store with the kind of services a shopping center renders. We're not all under one cover. We don't have the same access parking. We don't have a climate controlled building. What you really try to do is make your downtown central area, whatever you want to call it, as attractive as possible to people. Now, you've already got university there. You've got faculty, students, you have business people, you have cultural activities, you got a government center, you've got the banking. You got people who work, play, get entertained downtown, and essentially, you're focusing on this. What do you do when areas are getting old? We have been pushing for more housing downtown, for redevelopment of some properties, but we ran into the possibility of historical renovation as being good business. Some of my people, on some of our committees, got me to visit old Pioneer Square in Seattle and Gas Town Square in Vancouver, and they'd been to a number of them. It turns out that in these areas by joint public private, that is city and private effort, by renovating and restoring buildings that have some real character, architectural, historical significance. Not only do you get an attractive building, a series of buildings, you get an area that's attractive to business and opening of small shops, specialty stores. All of these things seem to occur when that kind of an approach is taken. Then it seems to be sound economically because you're not tearing down buildings and then going into costly reconstruction. When the city owned three buildings, which incidentally I helped the city buy back when I was with the city some years ago, on Liberty Street. They'd been originally purchased, it's a so-called Haarer Walker block, which you've heard about. They'd originally been purchased for parking they would have been torn down to expand a parking area that already exists behind some Main Street stores. The city determined that these three buildings, the Haarer Walker block, had great architectural, historical, Ann Arbor significance, and that they should be preserved and not sold and that is not torn down. The city has proposed selling them subject to their being retained and renovated to bring out their best historic characteristics. This gave us the idea to take a look at the adjacent blocks, and we find that in the adjacent blocks, you have a number of buildings. I think some 28 that had been surveyed by the Ann Arbor Historical Commission, and those 28 are of all high value, that is high significance, in terms of their architectural qualities, their exterior qualities. We thought why not make a Liberty Square, Washington Square, take the Liberty, Washington, and Ashley, First Street area, and try to get the buildings renovated preserving their best characteristics? We've started a three pronged campaign. One is to organize the property owners and renters and organize and sell them on this approach to their buildings, the advantages of investing in this improvement. The second approach would be to get local financing for this, through the banks or revolving fund, which we're working on. The third would be to get the city to do its share, which is what they call what you might call improving the streetscape. That is the sidewalks with plantings, grill work, special patterns with seats, street furniture with trees. Maybe the sidewalks widen so that they're have greater pedestrian capacity, improvement of the alleys with cobblestones, and so on, still to be used at times for service, but also as pedestrian walkways. If you could put all this together, and we have pictures that show how this could be done, then ultimately, you're going to have a three or four block area right downtown that could really be a splendid example of what historic business preservation is all about, and what good business it would be. Now, there are some encouraging things. One, some young men have bought the old Earle Hotel, which used to be a trenchant hotel and was on the market a few years ago, and the Earle Hotel on the corner of Washington and Ashley, is being redone for specialty stores and shops, ultimately for a restaurant, for some offices, and for nine to ten apartments on the upper floors, two story apartments. The Earle project is already underway, and if it goes through, you will have had an old building retained, the best features retained, and yet improved for modern use. You'll find one or two other stores are being adapted, the store fronts have been treated and back to the original brick.
  • [00:16:04] GUY LARCOM: You have a small property owner or renters group over there that are interested, a lot of new young people that are taking over these businesses. What you would hope to see, I guess, is all of these things tied together, the city and private efforts, and resulting in this historic district. I don't really like to call it that because historic districts could mean old houses and neighborhoods, and you're really talking about business properties. If the renovation succeeds, I think a lot of the second and third story areas of these buildings which are now vacant. In other words, the building rides on the income at the ground floor, that those will be become economic again and can be renovated. Now, essentially, this is a district of entertainment. It's an entertainment area. Lots of small taverns, restaurants, and so on, and great nightlife but we'd like to think also there'll be specialty shops and offices will go with it.
  • [00:17:15] MALE 1: I know that there are a few families in Ann Arbor, well actually quite a few, that seem to have had businesses for quite a long time. I wonder, are those people still maintaining those businesses in the family? Are they selling them or is there a pattern that you can discern?
  • [00:17:29] GUY LARCOM: Well, I think probably there is some change. The Earle Hotel, for example, was in the Staebler family for years, and the rear of it had been a garage that is behind it. It was a garage operated by old Ann Arborites, and that went out of business. The hotel gradually fell on bad days as it became a trenchant quarters for not always the best clientele. That family put it on the market, and there you've had a couple of young vigorous people, actually, they're the owners and operators of the Del Rio bar. And I think their profession, they're really university associated with university. But you've had them take it over. I think this kind of a transferral will occur as families wear out and handling the business and this has happened in other places, but I don't think it's really the older family giving up. It's just that after a point you don't want to stay in there, doing the work, you have to run an enterprise. On State Street, as you know, Paul Wagner for years had Wagner's and sold out, though the name remains, and then more recently, the successor has gone out of business. Downtown, you still have some places that have continued in the tradition. Goodyears has been here a long while. It was when I came to city, Paul Proud senior was the retailer who ran it and owned it. Now under the same name, it's been continued on by somebody else. Muehlig's is still here. But I think basically you will have some changes let's say the long term older owners feel they don't want to keep the business up any longer. Hopefully, it won't be too fast.
  • [00:19:42] MALE 1: Has the character, the clientele generally changed in the last 15 years as the great increase in population has doubled? Any ideas about that? I know you're not a store owner.
  • [00:19:56] GUY LARCOM: Yeah, I think the character of the clientele is probably changing. I suspect there. Ann Arbor has a very mobile population, and I think the age level of the population has probably gone down, and you have more and more younger families and younger people trading at the stores, and maybe more and more business and professional types than you used to have. It's hard to say, but I'm sure this is occurring. There's a feeling that Main Street is essentially the retail trade area that still caters primarily, not just to older citizens, but caters to older citizens. Long term types as well as new people. But the State Street area is interested in capturing some of the younger student level trade. The Main Street area is interested in capturing some of the State Street student level trade, and the State Street would like to pick up some of the Main Street.
  • [00:21:06] MALE 1: The businesses in this business general economy in this area is still expanding despite the recession?
  • [00:21:12] GUY LARCOM: I wouldn't I don't know what the recessions done yet. You can't say. But I think the, I'd say that the problem now is that the economy of the area is sort of at a level, and you're not adding, we've actually, that's not only true. There's been some additional commercial businesses added. On the north end, of course, Arbor a has Kerrytown, which is which is completely in the new traditions next to the city market and has special shops, special stores, and again, they renovated buildings using the old exterior. Kerrytown is a it is a good example of the thing we're talking about doing down in the Liberty, Washington Street area. On Main and Miller, Johnson and Johnson and Roy, the landscape architects took over building, and they have antique shops and specialty shops there as well as their own business, and they did this job. The old depot house, the old Ann Arbor Railroad depot has been renovated, still as a depot. You have, I think, some additional business, but it isn't expanding that much. Basically, over the years, good business in downtown retailing, particularly meant that each year, your gross was a percentage increase over the previous year, you see? So when they said business was good, they meant that it was up 10% or 15 over the previous year. I think now at the point may be reached where although the dollar login may be higher because of inflation that they may have leveled off in terms of total retail sales. Of course, you have to realize that downtown isn't just retail. You have a where we have now 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 banks, with a new one just started, and the banks assets have been climbing rapidly, and the banks are all solidly expanded their downtown investment. We look to a change in retailing. We think there should be more specialty shops, especially in terms of price, specially in terms of goods or quality, and that you need a large variety of these. In this way, you can offer something that you don't really get at a shopping center. You'll see more and more woodwork, craft, antiques, boutiques, and so on, specialty stores. The proposal, if you walk down Main Street, you say, well, gee, you mentioned there aren't any vacant buildings. Woolworths has left downtown, of course. This is part of a national trend, the Woolworths and Kresge's. But a local group, hopefully, will be able to take Woolworths and remodel it into an arcade with a public passageway from Main Street through the alley behind, and within three levels, a whole range of small stores of all kinds. They replanned this. They have a beautiful facade, and if this goes through, they can get the financing and demonstrate there is a market, that will be a keystone change, I think, in the whole appearance of Main Street.