Austin Children's Museum and agglomeration economies

I want to follow up on this post by M1EK on the Austin Children's Museum planned move from downtown to Mueller.

I'm personally disappointed with the move.  My wife has taken my son to ACM several times, usually with other moms, and grabbed lunch or gelato afterward or ridden the 'Dillo, which he loves.  I live south, so we probably won't go to Mueller very often.

But I think the ACM's move nicely illustrates the principle of agglomeration economies, which are one of the main advantages big cities offer over small ones.

Mueller is developing a robust agglomeration of child-oriented services.  ACM will be near the Dell Children's Hospital, pediatricians' offices, the planned Rathgeber Village, and a nice community pool and playgrounds.  ACM will benefit tremendously from being part of this cluster.  And this isn't even counting the benefit of being closer to more customers, particularly the gold mine of children in Pflugerville and Round Rock.  More visitors will allow it to offer more attractions, drawing even more visitors, and so on.  ACM will enjoy these spillover benefits for "free," sort of -- these benefits will simply be bundled with the rent it pays.

Downtown's Second Street is a different kind of agglomeration.  Its trendy shops and bars cater mainly to adults.  While ACM no doubt benefits from some spillover traffic, I imagine that on net ACM produces more spillover benefits than it receives.  It draws people downtown who might not otherwise come downtown, enlarges the market if just slightly for the other restaurants and shops downtown (including the library), and generally makes the downtown experience more enjoyable.  ACM can't capture these benefits unless it receives heavily subsidized rent.  It was supposed to move to Block 21 and receive a rent break from Stratus, but the subsidy apparently wasn't deep enough.  It may well need "negative" rent -- i.e., direct cash payments, to make downtown as attractive for it as Mueller.

Again, let me emphasize that I think downtown is a net loser from ACM's move.  I'm simply skeptical that its loss will be as big as the gain ACM will enjoy simply by changing address.

Comments

[M1EK]

The big problem is that Mueller will never have the transit access that downtown does. (The entire city can get downtown on one bus; most people will never be able to get to Mueller with fewer than two rides). And Mueller, at build-out, will not be dense enough to justify rerouting any of the major north/south transit routes through it (as people always think will happen when they ignore transit when moving stuff around - like the library and courthouse).

I'd expect 10 years from now to see more frequent service on the existing couple of routes that serve Mueller, and maybe the streetcar, if we're lucky. That means service FROM downtown is good - but service to Mueller is still pretty hit-or-miss for the rest of Austin.

A problem today? No. Most people drive. Is this a problem 10-20 years down the road? You can guess where I stand on that one.

[langhugh]

If fuel-based transportation is the issue, Mike, then I think you just made Chris's point. Agglomeration economics (way-too-fancy a term) are that much more important in a strained transportation environment. Bundling related services will be a megatrend. If you can do that downtown, fine. Real Estate probably doesn't allow it, unless you stack the related services on-top-of-each other...playscape on-top-of hospital on-top-of museum.

[M1EK]

langhugh, no, you missed the point entirely. You're agglomerating some kid-based stuff in an area that will only ever have good transit access to downtown; nowhere else. (and Mueller is so geographically large compared to the CBD that even some of the supposed walking trips on-site are likely optimistic).

And I'm not buying the theory that being close to the hospital is a great thing for the childrens' museum. How many potential trips do they gain from kids who are sick enough to be in the hospital? Nearly zero, I'd guess.

10-20 years from now, Mueller will still be 2 bus rides (or 1 bus + 1 streetcar, optimistically) for the vast majority of Austin. Downtown will still be 1 bus ride (or 1 train ride, optimistically) for the vast majority of Austin. In a high-fuel-price environment, that means that the ACM will be basically serving Mueller residents (plus, ironically, people who live downtown).