Green Bay Press Gazette, October 12, 2004

Washington Commons still seen as large part of downtown problem

By Elaine Kauh and Karen Rauen
ekauh@greenbaypressgazette.com, krauen@greenbaypressgazette.com

What was there August 1977

Anchors: JC Penney, H.C. Prange

Women’s clothing: Nau’s, Seifert’s, Braun’s, Brooks, Casual Corner, The Limited, Peck & Peck, Sunflower, Nina B, Foxmoor

Men’s and women clothing: Cross Country, Wilson’s, County Seat, Golden Hanger, id, Suns of Britches

Gifts and cards: Coach House Gifts, Evenson

Music, electronics: Galaxy of Sound, Laab’s, Musicland, Radio Shack

Books: Book Market, Mustard Seed, Waldenbooks

Jewelry: Diamonds & Gold, Jewelry Hut, Keepsake, Stone Jewelry, Zale’s

Shoes: Athlete’s Foot, Kinney, Nobil Shoe, Thom McAn

Restaurants/food: Bresler’s, Buddy Squirrel, Carousel, General Nutrition, Herlick’s, Hole ‘N One Donut, Hot Sam, Karmelkorn, Main Street Ice Cream, Nibble’s, Orange Julius, Johnny’s Loaf & Stein, Quality Candy, Smaks, Swiss Colony, Tiffany

Services: First Wisconsin Bank of Green Bay, Kellogg-Citizens National Bank, Kindy Optical, Regis Hair Stylist, United Savings

Miscellaneous: Bubble Factory, Claire Boutique, Clock Shop, Flowerama, So-Fro Fabrics, Kay-Bee Toys, Nickels & Dimes, Osco Drug

February 2000

Anchors: JC Penney, Younkers, Boston Store (to close)

Candy/gifts: Coach House Gifts, Jane’s Hallmark, PJ’s Collectibles, Things Remembered, Touch of the World

Jewelry: Claire’s Accessories, Diamonds & Gold, Kay Jewelers, Rogers & Hollands

Women’s clothing: Brauns, Casual Corner, Petite Sophisticate, Gantos, The Limited, Lerner-New York, Northern Reflections (to close), Vanity, Victoria’s Secret

Clothing: The Buckle, Contempo Casuals, Eddie Bauer, Gadzooks, Maurices, Wilsons

Music/electronics/entertainment: Great Explorations Children’s Museum, Musicland, Radio Shack, Sam Goody, Tilt

Services: Community Room, Downtown Green Bay Inc., Northeastern Wisconsin Arts Council, Go Wireless, Cellcom, Green Bay Marathon

Books: B. Dalton, Waldenbooks

Shoes: Athlete’s Foot, Foot Locker, Payless Shoe Source

Beauty: Cost Cutters, Regis Hairstylists, Trade Secret, Studio Nails

Food/restaurants: The Crockery Pub & Grill, Diamond Dave’s Taco Co., McDonald’s, Orange Julius, Sbarro, Subway, Taco Bell, Auntie Anne’s Pretzels, Mr. Bulky Treats & Gifts, General Nutrition Center

Miscellaneous: Bath & Body Works, Claire’s Boutiques, Kay-Bee Toys, Osco Drug, Gary’s Luggage and Gifts, Sun Optics, Lenscrafters, Racing Heaven, Champs Sports

October 2004

Anchor: JC Penney

Retail: Wild Air! Play Zone, New York & Co., Cellcom, Foot Locker, Things Remembered

Food/restaurants: Grandma Gertie’s, Subway, Scoop ’n Dipity, CheeseCake Heaven, Kam Garden, Kandy Zone

Nonretail: UWGB, Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, Downtown Green Bay Inc., Cellcom Green Bay Marathon, The Business News, Breast Cancer Family Foundation, Henri’s Music Recital Studio, Children’s Museum of Green Bay

Special report

Click here for the Press-Gazette’s special report on downtown Green Bay, including stories, photo galleries, graphics and comments from readers like you.
No matter where you go downtown, you can’t get away from the mall. You’ll hear about it in bar-room banter and office chatter. Complaints about it dominated responses to a Press-Gazette online survey about downtown. City Hall thinks about it a lot, but no more than the people who own it.

Despite efforts the past three years by its local owners to revitalize Washington Commons as a mixed-use venue, the mall remains one of downtown’s biggest challenges.

“Port Plaza Mall is an absolute failure and should be torn down,” said John Rivett, a Green Bay native now living in Milwaukee. “From the start it wasn’t a good design and certainly should not have replaced the existing wonderful buildings that did exist there.”

Rivett was one of nearly 175 survey respondents who talked about Washington Commons, formerly Port Plaza Mall. As recently as 2000, it was home to 66 stores, restaurants and service organizations, including three anchor stores. Today, it houses one remaining anchor — JC Penney, downtown’s last department store — and 19 other concerns. They fill a fraction of the mall’s 450,000 square feet, downtown’s largest commercial property.

Tax assessments reflect the mall’s drop in value. In 2000, the mall and JC Penney were assessed at $19.67 million, based on a 1997 sale. In 2003, the figure was $3.05 million.

Survey respondents admonished the city and the mall’s current owners for letting the former retail center get to its “ghost town”-like state. Some, having seriously considered Washington Commons’ plight, are certain converting it to an outlet mall is the answer.

It’s nothing mall-owner Development Associates hasn’t heard before.

“I probably get five to six letters a week with suggestions,” said Russell De Mille, one of the organization’s original partners. De Mille acknowledged the widely differing opinions of observers who want downtown to be a vibrant destination for a variety of uses — residential, commercial and recreational.

“A lot of things can be done with the building,” De Mille said, “things that would make some people happy.”

The former Younkers, connected by an overpass across Washington Street, is slated to become a boutique hotel if developer Tom Juza moves forward with plans to buy the building in November. Juza plans to raze the longtime retail building to make way for his project.

De Mille refused to comment on the future of the overpass or to say whether Juza had offered to buy it.

“Next question. Next subject.”

De Mille was equally mum about the other end of the mall, where JC Penney remains the Commons’ largest tenant.

He wouldn’t address speculation that JC Penney plans to build a store across from Bay Park Square mall in Ashwaubenon. A company Web site, jcpenney.net, lists sales positions available at “Green Bay, WI — The Vlg At Bay Park.”

“They are currently under lease,” he said.

JC Penney’s downtown lease was renewed effective Feb. 1, 2003, for five years. Specific conditions of that agreement were not disclosed.

Looking at the other changes in store for downtown — redevelopment of the former Boston Store property, connected to the mall, Nicolet National Bank’s building, proposed riverfront condominiums — Development Associates’ partners believe downtown improvements can’t help but impact the Commons.

They aren’t certain what changes are in store for their facility in the next five years, but they’re confident whatever they are, they’ll be positive.

“I think the worst of it is over,” De Mille said.

Development Associates LLC purchased the former Port Plaza with plans to transform it from a traditional shopping mall into a multi-use center, a move that is as necessary as it is logical.

“This is probably the thousandth time I’ve said this: It’s not going to be a mall,” De Mille said.

As far as Shamra VanArk of Pulaski can see, that’s the right direction.

“Most people think that because it was once a shopping mall, it will always be a shopping mall and it’s perceived as failing,” she said. “The public doesn’t understand that the space within can be utilized for many different businesses/organizations.”

The September opening of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s Downtown Learning Center, on the west side of the Commons, is a step in that direction. Numerous UW-Green Bay programs have booked the 2,600-square-foot center, including the Leadership Development Institute, Emergency Management Certificate Program, Human Resources Management Series and Management Development Series.

University officials have said the learning center will likely expand.

“I think they’re going to be a huge part of downtown Green Bay,” De Mille said. “The presence of the university will be much greater than it is today.”

Northeast Wisconsin Technical College also plans to start holding courses this month in Washington Commons.

Most of the six original partners in Development Associates remain with the group. They include local businessmen De Mille, Tom Parins, Andrew Hilliard, Dan Hilliard and Fred Fleck. Tom and Mike Schumacher, owners of Services Plus, a Green Bay packaging and distribution company, have replaced Neal Maccoux as partners.

The group acknowledged its challenges, but maintains the property still has a chance of turning around.

“It’s going to be a little kernel here and a little kernel there, and all of a sudden you hit a tipping point,” said Tom Schumacher. “Those opportunities just open up slowly.”

Picking up on the analogy, Mike Schumacher added, “We really look at signing UWGB as a big kernel.”

More than one Press-Gazette survey respondent suggested that saving the mall was a waste of time. Tearing it down would be better.

Razing some or all of the building isn’t in the partners’ three- to five-year vision for the building.

Not that it hasn’t crossed their minds.

“We’ve considered virtually every possibility you can imagine,” Tom Schumacher said.

De Mille pointed out that demolition wouldn’t completely restore the street grid — an argument often cited for razing the mall.

“You cannot put Pine Street back,” he said, because of the work already under way to renovate the former Boston Store into Baylake City Center, which will house Baylake Bank and other businesses. And North Adams and North Jefferson streets both are blocked by existing parking ramps.

Not that the ramps are loved.

“The first thing the city of Green Bay needs to do is knock down that eyesore (formerly known as) Port Plaza Mall, along with the ugly parking ramp. Downtown should be returned to an area of small retail shops, bars and eateries. As it stands, downtown is one giant office area and will never attract the local people so long as the mall exists,” said Craig Coleman of Allouez.
employees.”

New sites, such as the corner of East Walnut and North Washington streets, large empty sites, such as Washington Commons, and many smaller empty spaces are available.

“The signature site is Washington and Walnut. That could accommodate between 14 and 20 stories, depending on demand. That would be for the highest-grade commercial space,” he said. “There is another tier of availability throughout downtown.”

Vetter Denk Architects has proposed a mix-used office building for the Washington/ Walnut corner, as well as other development along the riverfront.

Downtown Green Bay Inc. recently looked at the average income of downtown employees. Their take-home pay exceeds the state’s median annual household income.

“We see there’s a good solid base of consumers in the downtown represented by the downtown base of employees,” he said.

Legal, financial, government and entertainment — those four segments are today’s base for downtown development, Mirkes said. He’s confident that development under way downtown will create additional jobs and that downtown-appropriate retail — specialty and service shops — will follow.

More than half of downtown’s parcels are used for commercial purposes — offices, retail, entertainment or financial services — and contribute to the business improvement district.

Rummele’s Jewelers Inc., 234 S. Adams St., has been downtown for more than 50 years and has stuck to the district despite losing its North Washington Street store to Port Plaza Mall development in the 1980s.

“We stay here because it’s centrally located,” said Tracy Alpert, Rummele’s owner. “We’re loyal to downtown Green Bay. When we needed loans, banks downtown gave us loans. We’ve developed a lot of friendships here. We just feel that it’s easy to get to. We haven’t lost business.”

Schreiber Foods, one of downtown’s largest employers, has been on Pine Street since 1978.

“It was to help centralize everybody in one location,” said Nancy Armbrust, vice president of education and community relations.

U.S. Bank occupies the same building as Schreiber.

“At the time we moved here, this was the spot, this was the prime location,” said branch manager Renee Verboncouer. “We don’t have the walk-through traffic we used to have. Otherwise, I don’t have any complaints about being downtown.”

The local Godfrey & Kahn law office is in the Regency Office Center on Main Street.

“We had been in Allouez before that. We thought, being lawyers, it was more important being near the courthouse,” said Winston Ostrow, managing partner.

Having been downtown for only 17 months, it’s still too soon to know if location has made an impact on the Green Bay Dance Studio, said Kevin Shepardson.

“The jury is still out,” he said. “We’re still hopeful. Every time someone counts us out, it seems the downtown comes through for us a little bit. It’s a nice area.”

Shepardson’s ballroom dance studio is a destination business, he said.

“We brought value downtown by bringing this dance studio,” Shepardson said. “The downtown benefits more than we do so far. We hope that we benefit as well.”

The loss of retail business downtown has created problems for some remaining businesses. James Feng, owner of China Palace on North Washington Street, said his business has lost customers.

The assessed values of commercial properties within Downtown Green Bay’s business improvement district have begun to fall. In 1999, the total value of properties assessed for the district was $128.79 million. In 2003, that number dropped to $116.29 million.

Most downtown workers interviewed for this series say they do not have problems with parking, though their customers sometimes complain. Lunch can be a problem. Don’t even think about running errands.

The closing of the Osco Drug store in Washington Commons is the most lamented loss.

“I think people would like access to a place they could pick up incidentals, those little things you could just stop and pick up over your lunch hour,” Armbrust said.

Jim Wilson, owner of Caffé Espresso, 119 S. Washington Street, has been downtown for 21 years.

“I don’t think it’s quite as pedestrian-friendly as I think it should be,” Wilson said.

Wilson gives parking tokens to customers to relieve their anxiety over one of the biggest complaints about downtown, complaints that most downtown businesses say are exaggerated.

“People don’t like to walk,” said Jim Rivett of Arketype Inc., 126 Pine St. “It’s a suburban mentality. It’s a hard one to try and solve.”
There are doubters — those who say downtown housing will never sell. “There is not enough down there to invite people to live there,” said Pat Richardson of Green Bay. “We don’t need more living space downtown. I think the men who are doing the planning are wishful thinkers.

“They need more than eating places and a couple of entertainment places to get people to move downtown.”

That sort of thinking doesn’t deter John Vetter, one of the “men who are doing the planning” for a more than $60 million riverfront revitalization that includes condominiums, mixed-use office buildings and public access to the river.

Vetter Denk Architects of Milwaukee hopes to build a 26-unit condominium complex behind the 200 block of North Washington Street, where the Fox River Parking Ramp once stood.

Vetter believes that once people live downtown, more businesses will follow.

“The problem with Green Bay is it never understood you need the people for the viability,” he said. Although city officials have long talked about identity and vitality, the focus has been on bringing in retail. “You need to bring in people first.”

He’s seen it happen.

Vetter Denk’s Beerline developments have raised the bar for condominium development in Milwaukee, he said.

“This was our starting point and stepping stone,” Vetter said, standing at the firm’s downtown Milwaukee studio and looking over models of the first Beerline project.

John Vetter and Kelly Denk founded their firm in 1985. Their Broadway studio occupies the third and fourth floors of a 150-year-old building.

Hardwood floors stretch virtually uninterrupted the length of the building — an open, loft-style concept. Models and hanging displays create a three-dimensional résumé of the firm’s award-winning work.

“The market was just crying out,” he said.

The Beerline projects — which began with housing, then included a more community-minded development for the Milwaukee Rowing Club — have won recognition from the American Institute of Architects Wisconsin Chapter.

As the housing developed, retail followed.

“It informed the other developers’ thinking dramatically. The lifestyle image we created five years ago is the status quo now. We want to raise the quality of life.”

Green Bay officials also are striving to raise the bar for downtown housing. Planners know downtown needs more people making it their home.

A simple Internet search with the phrase “downtown living” finds cities nationwide trying to draw residents to the city center. Downtown living has tended to start small in cities, but catches on, said Dave Feehan, president of the International Downtown Association.

“All Green Bay has to do is enjoy an urban housing boom, and you will have an activated downtown like you wouldn’t believe,” Vetter said.

In 2000, 540 people called downtown home, according to the U.S. Census. Of those, only a handful owned their homes.

Tim and Sandy Glynn added to the number of urban dwellers last year when the couple moved to Green Bay’s Washington Square Apartments.

“We wanted to get downtown,” Tim Glynn said. “We wanted to be close to things.”

They managed that.

Glynn walks to his job at the Regency Suites hotel, the bank, dentist and library. He and his wife walk to restaurants and occasionally local bars.

The couple lives easily with one car, which Sandy Glynn uses to get to her job in Bellevue.

Having lived in a handful of other urban areas, Glynn said he can see that Green Bay’s downtown has a “ways to go.”

“The city planning years ago just didn’t seem like they had a lot of foresight,” Glynn said. “If they just would have investigated other cities … I know other cities made the same mistakes that they did.”

He, like many, hopes to see the riverfront enhanced.

“If you look at other cities that had a river running through it, that’s what really helped them,” he said.

Green Bay is aiming more for an urban feel than a magic number of residents.

“You’re going to sense it. You’re going to feel it when you’re on the street and there are people there,” said Rob Strong, Green Bay’s planning director. “There are things going on in the evening where people are walking to them; they’re not all driving downtown. There’s just an urban lifestyle that’s now alive.

“I do want to start to see the street life, people who live and work here and walk on the sidewalks.”

Strong and Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt talk about attracting a “creative class” of people to the city core.

“Downtowns are a perfect environment for those types of people if you provide the settings that they like, places where they can meet and spend time with other creative people,” Strong said.

But for more people to live downtown, city planners recognize it needs to offer a grocery store, a pharmacy, a dry cleaner.

The city’s Downtown Design Plan pegs the southeast corner of Monroe Avenue and Main Street, where the Body Shop now stands, as a “neighborhood commercial node,” where a small grocery store or pharmacy might locate.

“We’ve known all along that you need to have that element if you’re going to support the residential,” Strong said. “The businesses aren’t going to come here until they’ve got ‘the rooftops,’ as we say, or in this case, the unit counts. And it’s tough to get the people down here, knowing that the services are so far away. It’s going to have to go somewhat hand in hand.”

The city has tried to bring drug and grocery stores downtown, but the retailers haven’t bitten, Strong said.

“You’ve got to find the businesses that understand the urban environment and start to realize that there is value in these walk-in customers,” he said.

The city faces inherent challenges in attracting people to live downtown, said Ray Hutchison, head of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s Urban and Regional Studies department.

Some people perceive downtown as unsafe. “While those are not accurate perceptions, it’s a reality that some people view downtown as that,” he said.

And people have to want the lifestyle.

“Are people in Green Bay going to buy this idea of living downtown?” Hutchison said.

Vetter Denk’s work in Green Bay is in part educational, Vetter said. The condominium project will be the city’s first truly urban housing option, he said.

It’s difficult for Green Bay residents to judge whether the condominiums will succeed.

“How would you know if it doesn’t exist?” Vetter said. “Go to Denver, Milwaukee, Minneapolis — this is how it’s all happening. Literally, this will set the tone. The buying public can only react to what’s available.” tion, the two properties will be valued at $5.07 million and $1.28 million respectively.

More is in the works. If Milwaukee-based Vetter Denk Architects’ plan for the riverfront gets off the ground, it could add $60 million to $95 million of value to a three-block area between the Walnut Street and Ray Nitschke Memorial bridges.

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