Downtown eccentric

Over time, less expensive land and closer access to major transportation arteries has often lead to sprawling growth away from the city center to the outer fringes of the community. In many cities, downtowns – the heart of the community – eventually became sick.

As a primary attack on sprawl – as well as an effort to recapture and preserve the personality which once set cities apart from their neighbors – a variety of cities in northeast Wisconsin are at least a decade or more into well organized efforts to reinvigorate downtown. These efforts have generally been volunteer-driven, usually by local business owners teaming together with a common purpose.

There’s often a tight-knit sense of community among business owners in a downtown district, said Jean Braun, who owns promotional product distributor The Premium Link in downtown Fond du Lac. It’s an ambience, Braun said, that isn’t usually replicated by business owners in a retail strip mall, for example.

“The business owners are all looking out for one another. You truly care if your neighbor is doing well, and if not, you see what you can do to help,” said Braun, who serves as the vice president of the board of directors for the Downtown Fond du Lac partnership. “Here in the downtown, you’re part of something larger than just yourself.”

Braun’s sentiments are echoed by enthusiastic business owners who’ve located downtown in communities across the region. Here’s an overview of the progress to revive central city districts throughout the Fox Valley.

 

WHEN MANY NORTHEAST WISCONSIN residents think of heading out for an evening on the town or quaint boutique shopping, downtown Appleton has held a fortunate distinction as a destination of choice. That reputation was punctuated with an exclamation point in 2002 after the reconstruction of College Avenue and a few years later with the completion of the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center.

At the same time, a record number of upscale new restaurants and taverns opened to complement the extended arts venue.

“When the PAC came downtown and opened its doors, the entertainment district went up to a whole other level,” said Jennifer Stephany, the executive director of Appleton Downtown Inc.

Even though downtown Appleton achieved a heightened level of success, stakeholders in the downtown aren’t resting on their laurels. New challenges have emerged with the ensuing reconstruction of the College Avenue Bridge and the development of the RiverHeath commercial and residential community.

“We see our growth corridor as being the riverfront. Projects like RiverHeath are going to take us to the next level,” Stephany said, adding that the development will provide much more residential density in the downtown, fueling the pedestrian environment enjoyed by many who walk to work, shop and play.

Though there’s still a disconnection many local residents make between downtown and the riverfront, ADI has been attempting to bridge the gap by moving people throughout the district more easily.

A few years ago, ADI and Valley Transit provided a no-cost trolley which operated within the downtown, saving passengers the walk down College Avenue or up the hill from Fratellos and the Paper Discovery Center into the shopping district. The trolley provided more than 11,000 rides last year, Stephany said. The fun and convenient transit is back this summer on Thursday and Friday evenings, as well as most of the day Saturday.

Cleanliness and safety initiatives have been crucial to keeping the downtown atmosphere comfortable to revelers during the night time hours. And downtown Appleton shines when it comes to clean and safe.

The College Avenue reconstruction from more than five years ago widened the sidewalks and accented the lighting on the street to benefit pedestrians. Making any downtown district “walkable” is crucial for efficiently moving people from work, home, shopping and dining. Many of downtown Appleton’s estimated 7,000 workers take a stroll up the street for lunch or to pick up a last minute anniversary gift, creating a vibrant marketplace for such vendors.

Downtown Appleton is among one of the first city centers statewide to become heart conscious, as well. Earlier this year, ADI helped fund 21 automated external defibrillators, or AED devices, which were placed at strategic locations throughout the downtown. The project is based upon a similar smattering of AED devices at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, said Stephany, who noted that she’s already pulled the devices from their cradles on two occasions.

A potential boon for downtown could be the establishment of  new convention center in the central district. The Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the Fox Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau teamed up in February to fund a feasibility study on a prospective convention center for the communities. Results of that study are expected in late May or early June.

 

FOND DU LAC HAS BENIFITTED from a steady, gradual rebirth in its central city in the past decade since launching its Downtown Fond du Lac Partnership, or DFP for short.

In the two decades between 1980 an 2000, downtown wasn’t always well regarded as the spot to locate a business. Or to wine, dine and be entertained.

Through the efforts of the DFP, downtown business owners, and the state Main Street Program designation awarded to the district in 2004, downtown Fond du Lac has become cleaner, safer and more vibrant.

Perhaps the greatest tangible impact the downtown district has seen in those four years has been a variety of enhancements to storefronts up and down Main Street. DFP’s façade improvement program has given away $86,000 in grants to 82 different properties since 2002, leveraging nearly $500,000 in cosmetic improvements to the face of downtown buildings, said Amy Hansen, who stepped into the role of director of the DFP last August.

“It’s really had a domino effect in the downtown. Once one business owner improves their building, a nearby business owner wants to do it as well,” Hansen said.

More contemporary building facades have helped spruce up the image of Fond du Lac’s entertainment district as well. With arts venues, niche retail shops and finer restaurants and taverns interspersed throughout downtown, there’s been a greater need to ensure the charm and atmosphere of downtown continues into the evening hours as well.

During the summer of 2007, the DFP contracted with the Fond du Lac Police Department to have a bike patrol presence downtown to offer a sense of protection and oversight. This year, the law enforcement agency has taken on the expense of maintaining a bike patrol presence downtown itself.

Fighting back against what city leaders and downtown business owners often considered a battle against less-responsible tavern owners, the city established an alcohol advisory committee in 2008 to provide greater oversight of the liquor licenses issued by the city, as well as developed a demerit system for tavern owners behaving irresponsibly. Hansen and other downtown stakeholders are involved as members of that committee.

Chasing the long-held perception of a parking shortage that many downtown regions face, Fond du Lac has placed a concerted effort toward promoting and sharing parking opportunities throughout the downtown.

“We don’t have a parking problem, but I think we have a parking awareness problem,” said Hansen.

Throughout the month of June, the DFP and city officials have made the seven-deck Macy Street parking ramp available at no cost to employees working in the downtown area. Hansen said the initiative hopes park more of the downtown district’s 2,300 employees in the ramps on a regular basis, as opposed to taking away metered parking spaces on the streets from customers od downtown businesses.

 

WHEN CANDY PEARSON MOVED to Oshkosh from the Twin Cities, she knew there was a certain feeling – a certain ambiance – that she wanted surrounding the bookstore she eventually planned to open.

Choosing a location wasn’t too much of a consideration between the busy west side retail corridor along U.S. Highway 41 compared with the relative quaint charm of downtown.

“I looked at the west side, and it seemed like the suburbs (of her familiar Minneapolis),” Pearson said. “It wasn’t the kind of atmosphere I wanted to have.”

During a sunshine-filled mid-May afternoon, regular customers at her now 3-year-old Apple Blossom Books on North Main Street come in one by one, waiting for their turn at the check out counter to chat with Pearson about the events of the morning, grabbing lunch next week, or an upcoming author visit to the store.

Pearson believes she’d have higher traffic and potentially higher sales volume with a store our near the highway, but she knows she wouldn’t have time for casual, friendly customer interaction. Running a book store would simply be about the transactions – that’s not entirely what Pearson wanted.

Like many of her neighboring business owners, Pearson has taken an active role on the city’s business improvement district board of directors and its marketing consortium. Through special events like the monthly Gallery Walk and last summer’s Harry Potter Day, thousands of visitors descend upon downtown and take note of a shop or café they never knew existed before. When, for many, downtown Oshkosh might be avoided altogether, such events make the central city a destination.

Perhaps the downtown’s biggest injection of vitamin C may have come during a 10-day period in mid-April when the film crew for “Public Enemies” starring Johnny Depp took over and consumer the central city. The Hollywood blockbuster production not only gave a remarkable facemask to the downtown, but brought an estimated $4 million economic impact to the city.

More than that, however, the spectacle brought throngs of people to the area that had never seen downtown Oshkosh before, and renewed the spark for many of the business owners who have been there for years.

“Sometimes you don’t realize what you have until you see it someone else’s perspective,” said Pearson, commenting on the film crew’s prominent use of the area.

The new lens offered to the community during the filming of “Public Enemies” is prompting a revamped downtown façade improvement program proposed just last month. Through a partnership between city government and the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation, a potentially $250,000 fund could be available to downtown business owners to help with building façade improvements.

“It’s been kind of a hard sell until recently when people could see what a historic downtown would look like,” said Eileen Connolly-Keesler, executive director of the foundation.

The program itself is still in the process of development, Connolly-Keesler said. It’s been seeded with $100,000 from the foundation, with plans to raise an additional $150,000 from the community.

Such cosmetic improvements would also help pad the city’s success in growing its downtown district, which is currently home to an estimated 10,000 employees during daytime hours. Downtown Oshkosh has developed a solid track record of growth and development during the past decade, increasing the valuation of downtown property from $23 million in 2001 to just more than $48 million in 2007.

 

THE SMALLEST OF THE FOUR communities in the region to have a formally established downtown organization, Neenah’s efforts are perhaps the most well-established. Future Neenah was launched back in 1983 and has 25 years of perfecting the concept of public-private partnerships to enhance the community as a whole.

Today, Neenah’s downtown has a retail vacancy rate of 5.3 percent and an office vacancy rate of 7.9 percent, both among the lowest of any central city in the region. The valuation of its downtown property has increased from $39 million in 2002 to nearly $61 million in 2007.

From the renovation of Shattuck Park between the Commercial Street and Oak Street bridges a few years ago, to the $35 million development of the seven-story Alta Resources tower along the Fox River in 2005, the city – along with various area businesses, nonprofit agencies and regulatory bodies – have a solid track record of coming together to take communal ownership of projects and unselfishly move Neenah forward, said Karen Harkness, the executive director of Future Neenah.

“You have to let go of the territorialism and get rid of perceived positions of power,” Harkness said.

Most recently, the Neenah common council allocated $5 million for the demolition and environmental remediation of the former Glatfelter paper mill site on the western edge of downtown. Plexus Corp. announced in late April that it plans to build a four-story, $18 million corporate headquarters on a 1-acre portion of the site, adding nearly 350 more employees to the busy downtown. It will mark the third major corporate headquarters to move into downtown Neenah within the past few years.

Even more, it will provide additional space for retail and commercial development, Harkness said, as well as the first public access and parkland on the shores of Little Lake Butte des Morts that downtown Neenah has experienced in 132 years. A site development plan for the property is expected to be ready by late this summer, Harkness said.

While Future Neenah has a larger mission for improving the cultural climate of the entire city of Neenah, downtown represents an estimated 90 percent of the focus of the organization, which is primarily funded through an annual community campaign. Only a small amount of Future Neenah’s $450,000 annual operating budget comes from the downtown’s 2-year-old business improvement district, a much different structure than in Appleton, Oshkosh and Fond du Lac.

During the course of the year, Future Neenah attracts droves of residents and visitors alike to downtown through the 10 different events it stages annually. The annual Streetball Challenge, scheduled for this coming June 14-15, has been ongoing for 17 years and attracts 10,000 people to the downtown.

Newer events like its Out to Lunch concert series on Thursday afternoons during the summer bring a different audience from their cubicles in downtown office buildings to Shattuck Park. As these events grow, they’re becoming the character and personality of downtown Neenah.

“It’s our cultural development aspect,” Harkness said. “It adds to our quality of life, which in turn contributes toward our economic development.”