Carolyn Fath
Downtown businesses and civic leaders met Wednesday morning to discuss the state of the city’s urban center.
As a Wednesday morning discussion on the state of downtown Madison was wrapping up, one of the attendees got up and made a conspicuous exit.
“I’ve got to catch a bus, and they only come once an hour,” Karen Kendrick-Hands said as she departed, prompting laughter from the audience of downtown business and civic leaders.
It was a moment of levity in an hour-long discussion about the challenges and opportunities facing the downtown community, and it highlighted one of the hot topics — the need for improvement and evolution in the area’s public transit system.
“We need a really strong commitment from this community to a multi-modal transit system,” said Susan Schmitz, president of Downtown Madison Inc. “And we need it yesterday.”
For the last six years, DMI has released an annual “State of Downtown Madison” report, exploring trends in demographics and development, changes in the city’s workforce needs and the shifting retail mix and quality of life in Madison’s urban, central district. During the panel discussion hosted by DMI and moderated by Isthmus, downtown leaders broke down the report. This year’s analysis showcases signs of continued post-recession economic recovery, with a rental housing construction boom bringing an influx of young professionals and empty-nesters to the downtown area. But it also showed areas in need of improvement, such as racial diversity, inclusion and affordability.
“It’s critically important to have a strong downtown core for everyone,” said Jeff Vercauteren, president of Capitol Neighborhoods and DMI member. He pointed to progress thanks to collaboration with groups like the Latino Chamber of Commerce of Dane County and the Urban League of Greater Madison, but acknowledged that a lack of affordable housing is a major barrier to downtown diversity. Support and encouragement of minority-owned businesses is another need, he said.
Ald. Mike Verveer, who represents much of the downtown area, said the apartment vacancy rate, which climbed from 2.5 percent in 2013 to 3.7 percent this year, is a “welcome sign,” but cautioned that the high price of land downtown does not bode well for affordable developments.
A new 46-unit low-cost housing project from Madison Development Corporation on the 400 block of Mifflin Street is a “rare exception” to this trend, Verveer says. But he points to other projects, like the city’s inaugural “housing first” development for homeless veterans on Rethke Avenue, that are happening elsewhere in the city. City officials plan to earmark $4.5 million annually for affordable housing projects throughout the city and complete “at least four” such projects per year, he said.
Another much-discussed topic this year has been the state of downtown retail, with Mayor Paul Soglin opposed to issuing new liquor licenses over concerns that State Street is being overrun by bars and restaurants. The city is in the midst of a comprehensive study to help shape the future business mix in the area.
“The uses of State Street and the habits [of users] change over time,” said Tiffany Kenney, executive director of the Central Business Improvement District (BID). The rise of the sharing economy (peer-to-peer trading, reselling) has diminished the need for traditional retail, leading consumers to seek “less household things and more experiential things,” she said.
So far, surveys have shown that 75 percent of people who make retail purchases downtown were in the area for a reason other than shopping, Kenney said, adding that the two main barriers deterring people from spending time downtown are the perceived lack of parking and the influx of aggressive panhandlers.
“What we need,” Kenney says, “are innovators.”
