Bringing back Mount Morris

In Mount Morris, New York, Greg O’Connell, the now famous developer who spawned the redevelopment of New York City''s Red Hook neighborhood, is working to breathe new life into a declining main street.

O'Connell's approach to turning the area around is simple. He bought up 20 buildings in the several-block-long historic comercial center, for prices ranging from $4,000 to $140,000 each, and set about remodeling them one at a time.

To breathe new life into the street, O'Connell rents out ground-floor commercial spaces for pennies, in some cases as little as $100 per month. He requires businesses to keep storefront lights on at night, to change window displays at least 4 times a year, and to stay open at least one evening per week. By incentivizing business to create a more lively space, O'Connell is able to make money renting the apartments above the storefronts, in turn further energizing the street-scape.

O'Connell's work demonstrates the long-term strategic importance of good urban form and balanced mixed-use development for creating resilient communities. However, it remains to be seen whether the revitalization will take root long term. Reversing the rust belt town's decline and attracting talented young workers, businesses, and families is a tall order in such a rural area.

“The trick isn’t getting this town going,” he said in an interview with New York Times reporter Dwight Garner, “It’s making everything work in the long run.”

O'Connell's attitude is one we could use more of. “I could make three times the amount of profit with residential" O'Connell told Benjamin Popper, of the New York Observer, when questioned about his insistence on a mix of commercial and light industrial in the Red Hook neighborhood "... but for me the key is balance, so you take a little less, and everybody gets a piece of the pie.”

This perspective has some calling O'Connell a "socialist developer," but the retired police officer turned multi-millionair is proof that developers can make community-minded decisions, reduce profit a little in the near term, and still come out on top in the long run.