The possibility of putting Madison’s public market at the corner of East Washington Avenue and First Street excites me. Sure, that’s only a block over from the mayor’s currently preferred location, but one block can make a big difference.
East Washington has been reinvigorated over the last five years — there are new apartments, a Festival Foods grocery and the refurbished Breese Stevens Field. More developments are on the way, including affordable housing units and a proposed Frank Productions concert hall. A public market at East Wash and First would provide a capstone for this refreshed neighborhood. The market could be the start of a new downtown district that extends from that corner, to the Capitol Square and all the way down to the campus end of State Street.
Careful city planning that incorporates East Washington as part of downtown can help preserve Madison’s retail mix. Mayor Paul Soglin is right — it is important to maintain downtown retail. However, I don’t think moratoriums are the answer. Bridget Maniaci, who formerly represented some of East Washington on the city council, believes State Street is currently lacking in destination retail: the sort of store that people seek out that might get them to browse other retailers in the area.
State Street’s small, niche stores used to be destination retail. Finding an obscure jazz record or browsing through 50 different types of incense wasn’t something you could do in too many places in Wisconsin. Now, you can order these items from your phone.
Destination retail doesn’t have to be big box, but most destination stores are going to be larger than the small State Street storefronts. Under Armour is building a new space just to get 5,000 square feet of first-floor retail on State Street. Last year, interior design chain West Elm opened an 11,000-square-foot store in downtown Milwaukee. State Street has almost no spaces that size, but those first-floor retail opportunities do exist on East Washington.
Customers would come downtown to an East Washington West Elm. Once there, they might grab lunch and explore the locally owned shops on State Street, East Johnson or Willy Street.
If we are going to get people around a 2.4-mile downtown corridor, we need better transportation options. To UW students who never leave the campus bubble, East Washington might as well be as far away as Chicago. Downtown’s density, one-way streets and constant construction make some out-of-towners hesitant to drive there.
A well-advertised downtown circulator that drove a route from the Kohl Center to the public market could solve both problems. Make the time and route clear for those who can’t decipher the multicolored spaghetti strands that make up the isthmus bus route map. It would be an investment, but the city could study the possibility of a park-and-ride lot behind the public market.
“The city could potentially go around to some of the businesses on East Wash and get them to sponsor the bus. If it gets more college students to High Noon or Breese Stevens, it might be worth it for them to sponsor,” says Maniaci.
East Washington Avenue is a busy street, and that is going to be a major hurdle to building it up as a vital part of downtown.
“That street is part of Highway 151 — that means that the state Department of Transportation ultimately calls the shots,” says Scott Resnick, StartingBlock director and a former alder. “If people can’t cross East Washington easily on foot, we lose a lot as a neighborhood.”
The city tried to get more concessions out of the state during street reconstruction a few years ago. But Resnick thinks the city might have a stronger case as density increases.
New retail and transportation will help build a new downtown, but there’s more to that when it comes to building a sense of place. Resnick argues that Madison is in desperate need of more public art and music that help create identity. Maniaci notes how few teen-friendly activities there are downtown, and how many activities revolve around drinking.
Both Resnick and Maniaci note the lack of diversity of downtown events. They have a point. Our signature downtown events are a giant farmers’ market and an outdoor classical music concert series. The only way our cultural programming could get any whiter is if Madison held a sparkling water festival.
Creating a vibrant, vital downtown that offers something for more than just well-off white people should be at the center of future East Washington planning.
Resnick remembers a night when he was walking around town right as Monona Terrace’s Dane Dances, Majestic’s Live on King Street and an Overture show all got out at once.
“Downtown was buzzing with all of these different kinds of people,” says Resnick. “For a night, it felt like Madison’s downtown was the center of the universe. I want a downtown where I feel that on a regular basis.”
Alan Talaga co-writes the Off the Square cartoon with Jon Lyons and blogs at isthmus.com/madland
