Downtown South Bend planning kicks off with expert's Durham comparisons, public workshops

SOUTH BEND — When Casey Steinbacher comes to speak in South Bend this week, she'll talk about a post-industrial city whose downtown was recently haunted by buildings on the verge of demolition. She'll talk about a top performing arts center and a popular minor league baseball team that drove people downtown. She'll talk about a major local research university that saw the role it could play in sparking the city's redevelopment.

Steinbacher will be talking about Durham, North Carolina, a city of nearly 300,000 people, where she led the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce from 2007 to 2015.

Some of the more uncanny similarities between the stories of Durham and South Bend tickled local leaders as they planned to invite her to share insights on how to rekindle life downtown, Steinbacher told The Tribune in a phone interview Friday.

Steinbacher, a national expert in urban innovation strategies whose motto is "Innovation and Coolness that Matters," will speak Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the St. Joseph County Public Library's Leighton Auditorium to kick off a year of planning for downtown South Bend's next two decades. Her presentation — called "Hey Downtown ... Are You Surviving or Thriving?" — will review Durham's rapid growth in population and business investment over the last 20 years while asking listeners to imagine how South Bend can build on its own qualities.

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Her address will be the first in a series of events hosted by South Bend city officials and the nonprofit Downtown South Bend, all with the purpose of envisioning a vibrant downtown with more residents and businesses. Keep track of the plan and submit ideas at https://together.southbendin.gov/downtownplan.

Follow-up events are scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 22, and Tuesday, March 5, in the Beutter-Kernan Hall of the library's Community Learning Center. Both will feature a presentation and visioning workshop repeated at noon and 6 p.m., and residents can stop in any time between those hours to learn about the downtown plan and share their long-term hopes for a successful urban core.

Lessons Durham carries for South Bend

According to Steinbacher, Durham was home to more than $5 billion in new investment that created about 20,000 jobs during her eight-year tenure at the chamber of commerce. She's worked for 27 years in economic development organizations in several states.

Since she's founded her own company and started to do public speaking, she's heard repeatedly from business owners in cities that haven't enjoyed success like Durham's about what ails them.

“What I hear over and over again from the ones who aren't doing well is, 'I can't get anyone to live here and stay here,'" Steinbacher told The Tribune on Friday.

"We don't have a sense of place that someone wants to be a part of," she says the business owners tell her. Employees are "going to go somewhere where the place they’re in — it’s not just the job — is somewhere they want to be a part of."

Durham is now a thriving technology hub, with the likes of Google and Meta opening offices downtown. But Steinbacher said the decades leading up to the new century, following a period of manufacturing success, were bleak. Millions of square feet sat vacant downtown. Blight and disinvestment reigned.

Today, old manufacturing buildings have been converted to coveted apartments and office space, including one near the Durham Bulls baseball stadium. The nearby Durham Performing Arts Center is among the 10 best theaters in the country by sales and attendance. And neighboring Duke University has realized that a robust Durham is in its own best interest.

Despite the obvious parallels to South Bend — the bygone industrial era, Four Winds Field's looming growth, the expansion of the Morris Performing Arts Center, and the University of Notre Dame's choice to include the words "South Bend" in its 10-year strategic plan for the first time, just before buying the old South Bend Tribune building — there are some marked differences.

Steinbacher said a lot of her city's empty buildings were never actually demolished; she's grateful because she lives in one today. Durham is also part of a so-called Research Triangle of not one but three major universities, and it's only 20 miles away from Raleigh, a larger city and the state capital.

But Steinbacher said Durham's downtown seemed to face a grim future when she began her time at the chamber. The city's growth has astonished even her, one of its biggest advocates.

She hopes to prompt South Bend residents to ask two questions: "What do we want to be? And why do we want to be that?"

IF YOU GO

What: Urban innovation expert Casey Steinbacher will speak about the downtown revival of Durham, North Carolina, and share insights on how South Bend can embrace its own particular qualities.

When: Tuesday, Feb. 20, at 6 p.m.

Where: The Leighton Auditorium in the St. Joseph County Public Library's Community Learning Center. The learning center, at 305 S. Michigan St., is connected to the library in downtown South Bend.

Email South Bend Tribune city reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @jordantsmith09

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Downtown South Bend planning includes Durham expert Casey Steinbacher