I’m going to take the next several days off from blogging, but I’d like to leave this open thread behind … hopefully sparking a debate.
The question: What should be the top priority in revitalizing downtown South Milwaukee?
Post your thoughts below, and please feel encouraged to reply to comments of others.
Thanks for your continued support of me and the blog, and talk to you next week!
(And while you’re surfing the web, why not join the South Milwaukee Downtown Market Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_116259115070852. In fact, I’d like to think the market is part of the solution downtown, but it’s only the start …)
South Milwaukee Blog 
Top priority? I do not see a “silver bullet” solution of one or two things that would make our Downtown successful.
In watching other smaller towns (such as Stevens Point) revitalize their downtown area, the successful ones have a mix of small businesses that compliment each other at different hours of the day.
In more popular spots along the Avenue, parking and pedestrian safety becomes a challenge, especially during the winter.
Taverns with no windows are not appealing to younger professionals. They want patio dining, natural light, unique entertainment and family-friendly.
Move Bayshore Mall to Milwaukee Ave!
Melanie – even if we did move Bayshore to Milwaukee ave – it would not be sustainable. South Milwaukee (and most south siders) are notoriously frugal (aka cheap). They want quantity over quality.
For example, two weeks ago, the SM Pick’n Save ran out of their dried-out-trucked-in-pesticide-laden Asparagus because the local SM farmer’s market fresh-picked-pesticide-free-juicy-eat-them-like-french-fries Asparagus was selling for a dollar more.
I’ve also seen it at the Rocket Football games, the fans complaining about the price of concession stand food (it’s a fundraiser people!!!)
A good friend of mine (and former SM native) has a Downtown Sushi stand- he won’t even consider moving his store to SM. He knows we won’t pay for the quality product he serves.
Until the residents of SM can can break the “big box store /chain restaurant” mindset, only then will our downtown be sustainable. Going forward it will continue to be a challenge, especially with today’s economy, the business tax climate, and employment laws.
I am in complete agreement with Rocket Mom. Downtown is not currently sustainable as a retail and dining destination. South Milwaukee residents will not frequent trendy, stylish businesses if they are 10 cents more expensive for a beer than the one next door. And no, that is not an exaggeration.
If you look at Downtown as a whole, one thing becomes glaringly obvious. It looks like crap.
Run down, peeling paint, cracked windows, etc. Look around South Milwaukee, there are an awful lot of properties that look like they could be on the northwest side of Milwaukee. A simple walk through Downtown will reveal a multitude of issues that by themselves seem to be “no big deal”, but when added together make it obvious that a large percentage of residents do not care about their surroundings, or even their possessions.
Have any houses on your block that look like Fred Sanford lives there?
Cleaning up these areas are a very good first step, making people realize that if they have a beautiful building to rent, a beautiful business might want to occupy it.
Just because a building is vacant is no excuse for it to look like crap. Someone owns that building, be it a bank, a corporation, or an individual, which means that someone is responsible for maintaining it.
A simple walk through the codes listed in chapter 21 of South Milwaukee Municipal Code will give one some insight into what our city (meaning we, the people of South Milwaukee) believe are appropriate conditions for a building to be in. One only has to stop and look at downtown to see the multitude of violations that have obviously have gone unchecked for decades.
One of the worst offenders is the city itself. the empty lot on Milwaukee Av. with the broken asphalt and crumbling retaining wall has been like that for years.
I guess the phrase “you can only sell a lame horse to the glue factory” applies here.
Any real estate agents want to weigh in on this one?
How about any property owners in the downtown area?
I would recommend a children’s museum – an off-shoot of Betty Brinn, or remodeling/expansion of the library for the downtown area. At least with the museum it would bring children and adults to downtown, and inturn, restaurants, toy stores, cafes, ice cream shops, Alterra coffee, Penzey’s Spices, Trader Joes, etc. I agree that the population in SM are very frugal, however, there are local people who are willing to give back to their community, even for a slightly higher price. There are people in SM that like better quality, finer food, something with a little class. Let’s start to talk up this side of the population and give back to them!
And shut Frozen rope down!!!
It’s a shame about Walmart pulling out, but if that big box store won’t come to an agreement regarding environmental cleanup … which store will? Shopko? Target? Barnes & Noble? Is our CDA marketing this property??
I hope the UWM downtown plan comes to some fruition … here’s the plan, now let’s start getting businesses!
Solving the demise our downtown area appears to be pure folly! The bygone days of a downtown shopping district have passed us by and eluded most small towns. How can we expect South Milwaukee to be any different? Today it is all about shopping malls and big box stores. Our city can’t even support the shopping only mall. The mall once know as the Kohl’s Shopping area has many vacant stores and doesn’t have any Kohl’s representation what so ever. Back in the 40s, 50s and early 60s our downtown area had many filled stores but today many stand vacant. The vacant store fronts seen in South Milwaukee are present in many of the smaller towns in our nation. The only hope for the downtown area is redevelop it into homes, condos and maybe a few store fronts. We can never expect to return to the days when many local businesses populated the downtown area. Our downtown area is dead!
Agreed with many comments above. We need to get rid of many taverns. They are a magnet for places like Racine and Milwaukee to come and cause trouble in our city. Turn some of the shops into trendy living environments. We have too, too many transitional living spaces in our community. (Also to many subsidized housing) Bring in more opportunities for young professionals and young families to live here and we will see the city turn.
Also we need, need to rezone some of the old business property to residental homes. Once we begin to bring in families, there will be more spending and also more kids in our schools bringing up the funding levels = less cuts in the budget year after year.
About the farmers market comment, I wish I could get there in time. I get home from work at 6:30 most nights and it is too difficult to get there to look around. I wish it went just a 1/2 hour later. Darn.
The goal for South Milwaukee including the downtown area is to bring in small to medium business that produce a product or service. There is no good reason to bring in more apartments, homes or fancy condo’s. It does nothing long term for the city. Create a tax break for small business that can grow and create jobs instead of a tax break for building apartments!
South Milwaukee is already 40 percent rental units. If you look at rental units in general, most in the city are maintained quite inadequately. There are exceptions , however most are simply left to rot because the rates they rent at are not enough to generate substantial income for the owners.
Rental rates are a very good indicator of socio-economic status.
The lower the rents, the worse an area looks. You can scour the world over and you will not find a low income housing project that is on a Yahoo “Top Ten Places To Live” list.
One simply has to look at an area and ask themselves, “What kind of business would like to be here?”
Unfortunately for us, the answer is “nothing we want”.
The owner of the Frozen Rope picked that spot because the cost was extremely cheap.
He had no thought or concern of how he would impact the neighborhood and frankly didn’t care.
I used to own a 10,000 square foot nightclub. The first thing I did after acquiring the license, was go and introduce myself to the few neighbors I had. I asked, if they had any concerns or questions, to please give me a call, and left my number, both bar and home.
There are good bars and bad bars. They are a business like any other, and generate substantial revenue.The responsible thing for a city government to do is reward the good bar owners by removing the irresponsible bar owners license
it is things like this that lead to the elevation of an area. Something as simple as the enforcement of building codes, cracking down on loud stereos and motorcycles, and dealing harshly with flagrant violators of civic code, is a good start to turning around an area like our city.
Changes like these need to be done at a department policy level. The police do not write tickets for loud exhaust and stereos, they say it is “Not an effective use of police resources”.
The inspection department does not seek out property violations that run down the values in an area, they rely on someone making a complaint, multiple times, over a long period before they respond.
One of the greatest assets of a small business is the ability of a small infrastructure to near instantly shift focus to match changing market demands.
That is also the greatest asset to a small city..
South Milwaukee has yet to respond.
I have lived here for five years. Just when exactly did downtown take a nosedive?
Was it the sixties, seventies, eighties? I wonder how many violations there are total in the downtown area, property wise. One hundred, one thousand, five thousand?
I recommend that every one take a drive downtown, look for cracked and broken storefront windows, peeling paint, garbage piles in the yard, siding and fascia falling off and reply back with what you see. I know I would be interested in everyone’s perceptions.