Fishwrapper - The shark that ate downtown

Look, if Bernie Marcus wants to spend $200 million to build a waterlogged monument to himself, that’s just dandy. Hell, he could erect a 20-story statue of Daffy Duck, as far as I’m concerned. In fact, Daffy might lure a lot more tourists than Marcus’ fish-tank mascot, Deepo, a shameless knockoff of Disney’s anthropomorphized Little Mermaid menagerie.

But lost in the tidal wave of media and political/civic/business-honcho gush over the May 29 groundbreaking for Marcus’ Georgia Aquarium, is a nagging little question: Is this really how we build a great city?

Just a short couple of miles from the aquarium’s site near Centennial Olympic Park, you can find another vision for Atlanta. On the moonscape rubble of an old concrete recycling plant in Ormewood Park, a $100-million experiment in what’s dubbed New Urbanism is under way. It’s the dream of Charles Brewer, who founded and left Mindspring (now EarthLink) and who, like Marcus, needed to exercise all of those under-worked dollars in his bank account.

Let’s have some fun and explore the two concepts: the Atlanta Marcus wants, and the city Brewer dreams about.

At the heart of what Marcus preaches is turning Atlanta into a tourist destination. “People will want to come here from other states,” he effusively told the adoring crowd at the groundbreaking. “New York has Broadway. San Francisco has the waterfront.”

And somehow, Bernie’s Fish Tank is going to be competition for the Big Apple and Frisco. Right.

To draw the crowds Marcus is talking about, you’d need a much bigger critical mass of attractions than an aquarium and its companion, a building full of Coca-Cola puffery. Little Deepo can’t compete with the roaring Mouse just a few hours south of here. Not to mention that aquariums are seldom high-repeat-visit destinations. And the more educational the fishbowls become, the more droves of people avoid them.

About the best you can say of Marcus’ logic is that he might not have thought this concept through. Or maybe it’s irrelevant. My read is that he wants a latter-day pyramid glorifying Bernie Marcus.

So, if you take Marcus’ real driving motivation — mega-self-aggrandizement disguised as a civic contribution — and heavily season it with Atlanta’s trademark gullibility, voila!, we have an aquarium.

For decades, cities have wrestled with how to revitalize downtowns. No doubt things are currently happening in Atlanta’s downtown — without, it should be noted, the aid of a theme park. I won’t go so far as suggesting that to reanimate many other parts of Atlanta’s core would be equivalent to getting a week-old corpse at the morgue to do the Macarena. But it’s close.

At least if you do it Marcus’ way, which I’ll call the “Big Bang.” It goes like this: Hucksters periodically hit the roads for cities with decayed downtowns. In their salesmen’s suitcases is the Big Bang du jour . One year, their bag of tricks will be hugely expensive heavy-rail systems — MARTA. The next year it may be a “festival marketplace,” such as Boston’s Faneuil Hall, which worked - but most of its clones didn’t (see Underground Atlanta). Performing arts centers? The same.

Some cities — Denver comes to mind — heavily invested in entire historic districts, turning old warehouses and storefronts into entertainment meccas, often anchored by big sports or cultural facilities. Call them Bigger Bang cities. They, too, worked for a while, but most also left the burgs with just another layer of urban failure.

Then, there are aquariums. I was rather surprised at Marcus’ choice of monuments. After all, Home Depot was a novel concept. But aquariums? The nation is already awash in them. Many have failed - Long Beach, Calif., Denver and Tampa were colossal disasters. And, in general, as veteran Maui Ocean Center manager John Tighe commented in February: “Unfortunately, there is a tendency to build aquariums much larger and grandiose than the business model will support.”

Key to that fatal optimism is overestimating attendance and underestimating operating costs. In Tampa, “consultants” (the operative syllable is “con”) said the Florida Aquarium would draw about 2 million people a year (exactly what Marcus says the Georgia version will attract). About 1 million of those people never showed up the first year in Tampa, and numbers plummeted from there. The debt-strapped “privately funded” facility cost Tampa a $104 million taxpayer bailout.

Admittedly, Marcus’ aquarium has a big advantage: His $200 million contribution will ensure that there’s no mortgage payment. So the aquarium will probably succeed — or die a very, very slow death. He’s been thin on details about exhibits, ticket prices and the like — so it’s hard to augur the aquarium’s chances.

There is a similarity with Tampa, however. Both were envisioned as reinvigorating downtown areas. It didn’t happen in Tampa. That city’s Channelside district is still the pits.

Will fish-spawned urban rebirth happen here? I walked around the aquarium neighborhood after the groundbreaking. It’s a mixed bag. Centennial Olympic Park is pretty — and pretty empty. Urban pioneers are building housing — but I wonder how the residents will react if, say, the fish tank unleashes thousands of car-borne tourists into the neighborhoods.

Other blocks are classic urban blight. The more outstanding landmarks are a Life University outreach clinic that looked as down-at-the-heels as the school’s reputation; and the Lucky Spa, where I’m sure many customers have had happy endings to their massages.

Marcus’ idea is that 5,000-6,000 people a day are going to hop into cars and jaunt to the aquarium and the World of Coke (where, I’m sure, there will be a Tooth Decay Display and an Obese Children Exhibit). After getting down with the fish and high with Coke, they’ll do ... Well, it’s not clear. Marcus said something about sports events, but after a baseball game, there aren’t many people up for trudging around an aquarium.

When the crowds leave, all that will be left is a vacuum — no humans (other than the homeless), just concrete and glass. Soon the novelty will wear off and civic entropy will begin re-wastelanding downtown.

In short, Marcus might have to rename Deepo something that’s more appropriate — say, Deepo-Sixo.

Charles Brewer, dressed in wrinkled chinos and a faded yellow shirt, waved to some massive construction wreckage and invited, “Hey, have a seat on my piece of concrete.” He then pointed across Glenwood Avenue and said, “There’s the train.”

“The train” is a collection of old railroad tracks that encircle Atlanta’s intown neighborhoods. City Council President Cathy Woolard and a troop of civic activists are pushing the concept called the “beltline,” a streetcar system running through Atlanta’s densely populated neighborhoods and connecting with MARTA.

Atlanta’s transit system was conceived as a hub and spokes. The beltline would encircle the inner city, connecting the spokes as a wheel might.

Brewer, after exiting EarthLink, opted to become a developer — but he had something else in mind than adding to greater Atlanta’s sprawl.

“It’s as if we gave up,” he says. “We love old walkable cities. But we were duped into believing we can’t do that anymore.”

So, his Green Street Properties purchased 20 acres and began creating an old-style neighborhood. There will be a town center, stores and offices, homes, condos and apartments.

You won’t need a car for the neighborhood — and if the beltline becomes reality, you may not need an auto very often at all. (Despite some erroneous reporting elsewhere, the beltline was not one of the train projects axed by Gov. Sonny Perdue. Its planning funds remain in the current regional transportation plan.)

Even more important, there are about 4,000 acres of unused or underused industrial land — much like what Brewer is building on — connected to the beltline. Housing for 100,000 people — maybe more — could be built along the system. Atlanta would begin to work like one of the truly great cities where the car is an accessory not a religion.

An underpinning of Brewer’s philosophy is that, if you bring people back into the city, decay and blight will be pushed out naturally by the facilities and amenities folks want. It’s the reverse of the “build it and they will come” Big Bang.

But here’s the catch: The 22-mile streetcar system will cost, oh, $500 million. Maybe a billion. Most of it will be in federal and state dollars. But there will have to be a local commitment, derived in large part through taxes on the properties that will benefit from the beltline.

However you slice the civic pie, dollars are limited. Over at Marcus’ fish tank, every one was beaming at his generosity. The spin was no public funds.

Not quite. Marcus wants hefty city and state financial commitments (read: your money) for “infrastructure.” He wants the city to clean up the area. And what billionaires want, they usually get. Already, the legislature generously larded special tax breaks onto construction materials used at the aquarium. (Think your home addition rates the same sweet favors? Ha, ha, ha.) And Marcus’ phalanx of downtown boosters are demanding $30 million in precious public cash for street and sidewalk improvements — so that all of tourists can quickly drive downtown and then, just as quickly, get the hell out.

Thus Atlanta, lacking a defined blueprint for its future, is allowing one billionaire to dictate the city’s priorities. No mass citizen effort to come up with a vision for Atlanta, no debate or dialogue, no spirited adventure as citizens sketch a city for tomorrow. Instead, one guy who wants to be remembered in a big way will stamp our city with his monument.

Overlooked are all of the civic failures here and across the nation. Why the failures? Cities opted for Big Bangs, such as aquariums, and ignored idealists like Charles Brewer and Cathy Woolard who want to build neighborhoods. Each option envisions bringing people into the heart of the city. The difference is that Brewer’s and Woolard’s vision would keep them in the city.

john.sugg@creativeloafing.com.

Senior Editor John Sugg says, “Hell, if the aquarium fails, Bernie can always turn it in a damn spectacular seafood restaurant. Want Deepo fried or grilled?” Sugg can be reached at 404-614-1241.