APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Appleton city leaders gather Wednesday for the first ‘State of the Downtown’ meeting.
Appleton Downtown, Inc. invited business owners, potential developers, and residents into the Paper Valley Hotel to share its vision for the area.
A variety of city staff members took turns talking about recent studies on downtown development, mobility, parking, and parks.
Kathy Meyer of Appleton tells WLUK the concept is a good one.
“It’s nice that they stressed the implementation. It’s not just do a study to do a study.”
“What the plan did was let people like me that might invest to envision what can happen, what the future might look like and to get excited about that,” said Will Weider, a private developer living on College Avenue.
One reason for highlighting the downtown is, through their studies, city leaders have found out a lot of people want to be downtown.
In particular, Mayor Tim Hanna says some of those people say they want to live downtown.
“The plan says we could easily absorb about 400 units downtown. Right now the housing saturation is at 98 percent, which means its virtually full. If one comes open, it’s filled almost right away.”
The city hopes to influence investors through two new tax incremental financing districts.
The taxpayer-funded tactic is commonly used in communities to provide financial incentives for development.
“I hear about projects, I see projects started,” said Weider.
“There is a great arts community here downtown and there is just with the university, a tremendous number of cultural opportunities.”
The city plans to keep highlighting those opportunities by making the state of the downtown a once a year event.
