Downtown Madison fills out

Foot traffic, retail occupancy rates return to pre-pandemic levels but office workers still sparse

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[This is the first piece of a two-part cover story. See the story on downtown events here.]

Joshua Berkson laughs when asked what challenges restaurant owners faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“That’s a loaded question,” he says. “I think it was on every single front.” 

Berkson shut down Merchant in 2020 and transitioned Lucille, both located a block off the Capitol Square, to take-out only. Most employees were furloughed. Berkson remembers working with other local restaurateurs including Rep. Francesca Hong, then co-owner of the now-closed Morris Ramen, on a “Cook it Forward” program to deliver food to residents facing increased food insecurity from the pandemic.

It was a stressful time. Fifty-seven businesses closed in Madison. Twenty-two of the closings were food and/or drink businesses.

Five years later, the picture looks much different. Downtown Madison is thriving, local leaders say — business openings are up and tourism numbers are record-breaking. 

“Downtown is doing well,” says Jason Ilstrup, president of Downtown Madison Inc. “We see it in a lot of ways.”

But the news is not all good. Many workers never returned downtown, and there’s less lunchtime traffic. President Donald Trump’s tariffs are forcing storeowners to raise costs and discouraging new businesses from coming downtown. Homelessness remains a significant issue, with people sleeping outside on State Street and Capitol Square. 

But the area is expected to grow. Matt Tramel, executive director of Madison’s Business Improvement District (BID), which promotes businesses along State Street and the Capitol Square, says he’s seen estimates that up to 30,000 of the 115,000 people expected to move to Madison by 2050 will live downtown. The population surge has led to a new public/private partnership, the Greater Downtown Economic Investment Strategy, to create a plan for downtown economic growth and efforts to make the downtown an attractive place for residents and visitors. 

As more people move to Dane County, local leaders say ensuring its urban core remains safe, vibrant and an economic driver is key.

“Thinking through how we grow is vital right now,” says Zach Brandon, president of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce. “[And] a huge piece of how we grow is making sure that our downtown remains the economic center of gravity.”

Statistics are encouraging: 26 new businesses have opened or are set to open downtown this year, already higher than the 22 businesses that opened in 2024. Five are retail, three are service-based and 17 are dining and/or drinking establishments. Most of the long-vacant storefronts on the 100 block of State Street are now occupied. 

Some of the new businesses are locally owned — the Gilman Street Chinese restaurant Chin Up or Mishqui Peruvian Bistro on King Street — but larger chains like Popeye’s and clothing shop RAYGUN are both coming to the 600 block of State Street.

Visits to downtown also are higher than before the pandemic — 9.5 million in 2024, says Tramel, compared to 8.2 million in 2019 — and retail, restaurant and service business occupancy rates, at 92%, nearly are back to pre-pandemic levels, according to Ilstrup.

For a couple of years during the pandemic, particularly when business owners boarded up their storefronts to protect against vandalism during the social justice protests of 2020, traffic on State Street was sparse. Now, take a nighttime walk down State Street, and the crowds are lively. Lucille and Merchant are back to pulling in swarms of hungry customers. There are new experiences, too — grills sizzle at bar restaurant Izakaya Kuroyama, where patrons can enjoy small plate Japanese dishes, imported beer and sake and, later at night, a round of karaoke. 

Visitors to Madison are helping support these businesses. Tourism to Dane County broke records in 2024 — $1.55 billion in direct spending, according to a June press release from Destination Madison, with another record-setting 9.2 million visitors over the course of the year. Dane County outpaced statewide tourism growth in all metrics, according to Destination Madison.

“We’re seeing a rise in tourism specifically up and down downtown — State Street, Capitol Square,” says Berkson, who chairs Madison’s BID.

Upcoming projects could bolster those numbers. Take the Alliant Energy Center’s $150 million proposed redevelopment, which county officials hope will attract visitors looking to see big-ticket artists. In other music news, concerts are back at Camp Randall for the first time since 1997, with Coldplay coming up on July 19.

It’ll soon be easier to travel to Madison, too. The Dane County Regional Airport is increasing domestic flights and actively seeking to offer international flights.

Tourism has been a boon for Forrest Voedisch, who is new to State Street. She owns the handcrafted jewelry store Metric Forrest Studio, which celebrated its first anniversary on June 20; visitors to Madison, she estimates, make up a third of her customer base. At first, she worried about opening a business on Madison’s busiest corridor — she’d be dealing with high amounts of foot traffic, unpredictable events such as protests and a downtown scene that gets rowdy at night. 

“I did a ton of research [beforehand],” says Voedisch. “I knew a lot of the history of businesses that have come and gone and changed their inventory.”

A year in, she says she’s been astounded at the warmth of Madison’s community. 

“I honestly thought being down on State Street would be a little more challenging,” says Voedisch. “In Europe, they have all these beautiful town squares where people can just sit and talk and get to know each other and bring the community together. And State Street is that place [alongside] the Capitol.”

Adds Voedisch: “It feels really nice to be part of the upward trend that we’re on.”

There have been some departures of once downtown institutions. The 70-year-old Paul’s Books closed and sold off its inventory of used books. There will be no more late-night drinks and pool at the Silver Dollar, to be replaced in the near future by a mixed-use development from Hovde Properties.

“It was one of the oldest bars in Madison,” says Frankie Reuter, a recent UW-Madison graduate who’s still mourning the loss of the Silver Dollar, which closed in 2024. “It [was] very much a community-based place. I met so many people that had been going there for years, or had come back and were like, ‘We met here.’”

And challenges from the pandemic remain. It’s now more common for downtown businesses to be on the “front line” of dealing with people having mental health challenges on the street, says Berkson. The pandemic led to global increases in stress, insomnia, anxiety and depression, and heightened rates have lingered, though at less severe levels than during 2020 and 2021.

“We just became more and more of an urban center,” says Berkson.

Meanwhile the impact on foot traffic from remote work remains a significant concern. Tramel says “there are not as many people working here” on Mondays and Fridays, though Tuesday-Thursday office worker traffic remains steady. It can be hard for businesses to plan around the shift, he says.

“They’re experiencing workforce challenges and trying to understand how you should staff for less lunch crowd than you used to have,” says Tramel.

A February 2023 Wisconsin Policy Forum report found that 23% of workers in Dane County work remotely. Brandon cautions that while many businesses in the Chamber “have some blend of remote work built into their workforce,” they should be aware that more remote work means fewer dollars flowing into the downtown businesses that make Madison such an attractive place for potential employees.

Says Brandon: “If amenities are one of the things that you need to recruit people and retain people here, then making sure that those amenities are fully utilized and supported is going to be paramount.”

Making sure Madison appeals not just to employers but to residents and tourists as well, is the job of Emily DeVore, director of placemaking and economic development for DMI and tourism group Destination Madison. Hired in November 2024, she is also serving as the point person on a “Greater Downtown Economic Investment Strategy” to be used to plan for the next “10-15” years of downtown growth. 

“[Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway] and I both agreed we didn’t want another plan to get dusty on the shelf,” says Ilstrup. “We actually wanted an implementable plan, and then people actually on staff to implement it. Hence the hiring of Emily.”

Placemaking is a planning, development and design process to give environments an “identity that people understand and want to be in,” says DeVore. These efforts can spur tourism, increase foot traffic, address public safety risks and find new uses for underutilized spaces. Projects can be as large as the $23.6 million Madison Public Market or as small as the $29,000 spent on adding painted medallions to Madison’s bike paths.

DeVore sees placemaking as intrinsically linked with the region’s growth. 

“If we need to grow and accommodate 100,000 people by 2050, and we want our economy to expand, what physical assets need to be in place to allow that growth to happen?” says DeVore. 

The city is planning substantial investments in placemaking projects downtown. City planners on June 23 unveiled designs to renovate the area near the Wisconsin Veteran’s Museum, which has long sparked concerns about crime and public safety; DMI and the BID are expected to help plan programming in the space once it is complete. Another option being floated is to create a more “inviting passageway” for bicyclists on the 400 block of West Gilman, says DeVore. The hope is that adding a well-lit, art-adorned passageway for bicyclists will lead to more people using the street, and fewer safety issues.

“The more people who are using it, the more there is accountability over what’s happening there,” says DeVore.

As more people move to Dane County, placemaking is one way to help downtown retain its identity — while also attracting residents and visitors to Madison’s urban core.

“Getting bodies back downtown, whether that’s in the workplace or whether that’s for other purposes, is a significant challenge,” says Brandon, “but also the opportunity for the future.”