When sitting down to create a template for what my impact project would be, I was confused to say the least. Trying to formulate an eight week project that could have real impact on DDP as an organization is no simple task. After several iterations with my impact project partner at DDP, we landed at a goal in order to provide direction to the work I would perform: try to land at a reasonable 10 year projection for the DDP business improvement zone assessment revenue. This number is based on a millage on downtown property values, creates the budget for DDP, and keeps the organization turning.
In addition to this overarching goal, there were three components: community business perception interviews, comparable size/composition city business improvement zone best practices assessment, and a tool to create projections for DDP’s BIZ assessment revenue. For the purposes of this blog, I will be focusing on the projections toolkit.
Starting out with the projections, I tried to think about the main factor that impacts the BIZ assessment revenue: property value as assessed by DDP, so property values in downtown. As there is a constant fluctuating market for property values, this proved a difficult task in itself. Using a variety of macroeconomic factors, Detroit specific economic factors, and various research based correlations between discretionary spending, taxes, and property value a basis for projections started to take shape. Qualitatively the projections were based in solid research, while assumptions were aggressive in their nature, overall I was pleased with the result, next was the much more difficult part: assessing the qualitative impact of DDP and assigning it a quantitative multiplier.
The qualitative impact sections of the workbook is where my work started to get pretty abstract, a lot of shooting from the hip and eyeballing impact became the norm. All in all, the projections assessed the 3 focuses of DDP (cleanliness, welcoming in the form of parks, and safety) and assigned an impact of these numbers to 1. Consumer discretionary spending impacts and 2. Property value impacts. While there are some conclusions drawn based on the correlation of these focuses of DDP on property value, a significant amount of data would be needed to formulate assumptions and retrofit these assumptions to real YoY BIZ assessment revenue for past years. Although work remains to be done, this assessment certainly proves as a useful tool in thinking about what impacts DDPs revenue, and how they should be formulating their efforts moving forward.