Transcript
Brian Johnson on Downtown Green Bay, Housing, and the Public Market
Lean Local · Sun May 10, 2026
Welcome
This is where we try to keep the conversation grounded in what's actually happening in Green Bay and what practical progress really looks like.
I'm your host, Jim Schmidt, and today we're talking to one of my favorite people, Brian Johnson, who
has had a front row seat to this community for really the last, well, 10 years as director of on Broadway and eight years on the city council.
And we're excited to talk about not just his district, but the city, what's been good the last 10 years.
And I'm interested to find out where he sees himself in the next few years and equally as important, where does he see the city?
You know, because
I
Well, I think one of the things we talk a lot about, we advocate for is investment in those community amenities that make this a great place to live.
You know, our philanthropic support here has always been very generous, but it's been highly targeted towards basic needs, which is critically important.
We're really trying to advocate for investment in community amenities now as well, because we feel like when you share that, it helps reduce the burden that sometimes is placed on our community for philanthropic needs.
So we're seeing that all across the country.
And I think it makes a great place to live, makes a great community, makes people want to invest here.
That generates property tax revenue.
It's a great cycle.
And
Sure.
They're complementary.
Right, they're
Well, I think the community development is a slow process.
And unfortunately, we find the public oftentimes doesn't have the patience for that.
And, you know, so I think when you look back at the 10 years, what turned out well, we've made a tremendous amount of progress.
If you look at the amount of development and investment that's coming into our downtown area, it's significant.
I've always say it's the highest proportion of property taxes.
So if folks like their, you know, having their lots on the outside of the city, thank the downtown because it's that property tax base that allows that to happen.
And that's why it's critically important to invest in your downtown.
So I think when you look at 10 years, the progress we've made has been tremendous when you really take a step back and look at it.
What's not gone so well?
Look, I like to move things fast.
And sometimes it doesn't always work that way.
And you're at the whim of a lot of different things, whether it's different government agencies, private investment, the economy, whatever it might be.
And much like you, you would always, I always admire when you
We're passionate about a project.
You're going to do everything to move it forward.
And just nothing got in your way.
And that's probably one of the hardest things, though, is to overcome those obstacles.
And I don't think people understand, you know, I've been at this awhile or two, is how hard it is.
It is.
It's like, you know, people drive by.
And I remember my kids, when they were young, we'd ride through a city and they'd be like, oh, this is awesome.
And I'm like.
This stuff doesn't just happen.
It takes leadership.
There's probably some blood on the floor somewhere.
I mean,
it is
Well, in a lot of focus at a time when your attention's being drawn in a lot of other places, when you were mayor, you didn't get to just focus on one thing.
You still had to run a whole city.
Same thing with me, much smaller scale, right?
There's big projects we're working on, but I still have to make sure the rest of the organization has tended to.
I
Do you have a specific project?
I mean, are you going to mention the coal piles or are you going to talk about it?
But, you know, some stuff just parking, you know, I don't think that's even resolved yet.
And that was an issue 15 years ago was parking on Broadway and or parking a parking facility, I should say.
Well, look, it's that old adage, right?
Those who failed to plan plan to fail and
And I think we have a lot of really good plans.
Sometimes they're followed, sometimes they're not.
And I know you know what I'm talking about.
And I think it's really important that we adhere to those plans because now they need to be updated from time to time, right?
But it's what keeps your focus really sharp.
It's the framework.
Yeah.
And otherwise, it becomes too easy to become distracted by everything else around you and forget about.
what it is that you really need to be working on, whatever that issue is.
And I think that's something that, as an organization, we're doing really well right now.
We're in the midst right now of updating our strategic plan for the Broadway District, which is just hyper-focused on the things that we think are gonna make downtown Green Bay a really special place.
Good, I'm gonna get to that.
I also want people to know that these strategic plans that I worked on, it just wasn't the mayor's plan or Jim Schmidt's plan.
These plans are extensive.
I mean, you've got people in there from education, from neighborhoods, to bankers, developers, you hopefully bring in some people who've done some serious traveling saying, look, this is sustainable and this can work.
And when those are abandoned for, and I'm not sure why they get abandoned for a very selfish reason, that's my opinion, that's not good.
So I'm hoping that your plan has
not only your leadership, but tell me about the strategic plan for Broadway, because really my next question is going to be if you had only picked three priorities for the Broadway district over the next decade, what would they be?
And that kind of ties into your strategic
plan.
Perfect, yeah.
I mean, look, it's, I think a lot of times it's making sure that whatever plan you adopt, whether it's the city, on Broadway, any organization.
Business?
Right, that you've got control over those decisions.
And you know, when you're setting objectives that maybe have priorities that
require somebody else to make a decision in order for you to move that forward, that's really challenging.
And that's why I've always been an advocate when you're doing community development work or when the city's doing economic development work, site control is everything.
If you don't have site control when it comes to development, I mean, you're dead in the water.
So that's why I've always been a big fan of strategically acquiring properties when it makes sense and making sure that you're driving the right development, the right tax base.
And that is really at the cornerstone of what's in our strategic plan.
We have four big priorities.
One of them, though, is just making sure that we're advancing the right real estate development, the right uses, the right density, taking advantage of vacant lots that exist all over our district for a variety of reasons, gaining site control and getting development on those things.
Okay,
Yeah, site control is what I would call maybe one of the priorities within the objective.
The objective is really about the real estate development.
Because if you think about any great downtown, it's about density, walkability, and desirability, and having things around you.
When you have a bunch of vacant lots that serve no purpose, no value, that's not attractive.
And so we're trying to get these amenities really into downtown.
because it's more than the building, right?
It's the stores that move in there.
It's the experiences that are created within those spaces.
Okay, I had to stay
So we very fortunate we were one of six programs in the country that were accepted into a pilot program through the National Main Street Center funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Really prestigious program and we've been frequently told that
Our program is operating within the top 1% of all programs in the country.
And that through this pilot program, we are setting the standard for how they want this to operate moving into the future.
And part of it is because we took a long-term view on what we're trying to do.
And so the KPI that we've put to it is we want $250 million of new development in the next 10 years.
That's big.
It is.
I like that.
And it's because it's about
driving the small development on these vacant lots to continue to push that density.
But it's also recognizing that you have to take advantage of demand when it's there.
And demand for us is housing.
Downtowns need housing.
They need residents.
They need people living there.
And when they're anchored with retail space on the first floor, that's what makes a good downtown development.
$250 million of
So we're looking at the number we've identified as construction, right?
Because if you put money into a think of liked park or the shipyard, right, that's investment coming into the district.
So of that 250 is maybe 150 of it accessible, probably in that neighborhood.
Okay, all right.
That's an exciting number.
It is.
And we didn't just pull that number out of the sky.
Part of it's developed through massing studies around where the opportunity is in the district and what's the right scale development that can happen on those parcels and really taking a look at our pipeline.
What does our investable pipeline look like right now?
And we've got projects that we've identified that are one-year projects, three-year, five-year, 10-year.
And so this is a number that's real tangible, it's sticky.
Is that a safe statement?
I think when you look at difficulty, I think you'd try a lot.
And I think some things have working, but what did you learn that doesn't work?
Right?
I mean, and I know that you're gonna say the politics doesn't always work.
Look, we're not afraid to fail.
And I mean, if you look at anybody that's ever learned anything in life, they most likely failed at it first.
And so we do that with our programming.
The stakes are higher, I guess, when there's money involved.
So you have to be a little bit more brisk of averse.
You can't be reckless.
But when it comes to things like programming, we're going to try an event.
See if it works.
If it doesn't, we'll move on.
We're going to try different programs and services that help support our businesses.
Sometimes they're received well, sometimes not.
But we're very quick to pivot off and try something new.
we know that the marketplace around us is constantly changing.
And if you're not evolving, you're not gonna be able to meet that demand into the future.
in the
Like the suburbs because I they drop numbers and I should go home and verify like They're much smaller than we are 20,000 people 18,000 people And then they drop these development numbers and I'm like wait a minute We sure as hell ain't five times that sometimes we're not even double it.
There's one place.
We're not even equal
Yeah, and I'll take a higher level Green Bay view on that if we're going to be competitive We have to be concerned about our mill rate
But it's also recognizing that we have a lot of brown fields in the city, which are contaminated sites.
And so they're more challenging to build on.
When you go out to the suburbs, they're green fields.
So you get a lower tax base, sites that can be shovel ready that people can build on right away.
The infrastructure is sometimes built out in those areas a little bit more aggressively than it might be on some of our areas.
So we have to get more aggressive with things like our industrial parks.
So aside from downtown, industrial parks are where you get the big tax base.
And so I think we're doing that over in the Grandview subdivision, which is really important as proximity to the eye as well.
But if you're not thinking about an industrial or a manufacturing sector and what that mill rate does to them in terms of influencing their choice of where they're going to build or locate, you're missing the mark.
But the other piece of it where I think we're losing out is housing.
There's a lot of housing being built in the suburbs around us.
And we have to find a way to escalate that.
Now, I think the city's done some really good things.
We've been aggressive with certain tools, but to me, it's about the relationship piece of it.
How do you bring the developers and the lenders and the property owners and everybody together so that you can get these ideas out there and shovels in the ground?
Yeah.
Does that bother you the suburbs
I don't think it bothers me as much as I know it bothers you.
All right, well, we'll get to that.
So we're with Brian Johnson.
Again, I'm going to be one of the top well-known people in our community.
Past President City Council, Director Ron Broderick.
We'll be right back in more detail.
All right, welcome back to Mean Local again.
what's in our title, we lean into what's going on locally here in Green Bay.
And we're talking with Brian Johnson about the Broadway District.
We're going to get to the Green Bay public market in just a second.
But before we went to break, we're kind of talking about, you know, Green Bay, right?
I mean, we're by far the largest municipality in the county.
I always said that, you know, things will stem, we're the heart of the community and, you know, everything pulses from the heart.
We're talking about the suburbs.
And Brian, you had said that they're not doing a better job, but they're really focused on housing.
Whereas I
don't think they were 15 years ago.
I mean.
Yeah.
I mean, housing is in such high demand still.
And I know a lot of people like to question it, but we do the studies.
And at the end of the day, these developers aren't going to be sticking money into a product that they can't recover.
So the demand is there.
And it's almost.
Hate to draw it, but a comparison to like almost an arms race But you know that's what it turns into where everybody's who can get the housing in the ground the fastest
I mean I will say that that happens all the time.
It's like,
And I know I think the city... That's not good.
No, and I think the city's done a good job with rectifying some of that.
I think we can do better.
And I'll tell you what, I was at a national conference last week and the governor of Oklahoma spoke.
No?
And he said, hey, we are a 30-day state.
From the day you submit your permit, you will have it in 30 days, and if you don't, it's free.
And what I love about that message is it sets the tone for what you, for what developers can expect from you, but also what your employees, you know, it sets the expectation for them.
community.
Right, right.
Now, and I've even heard some people suggest that it should be 30 days and then it's automatically approved.
That
is comfortable with that.
That's a little risk, you know, but I but I do think that You know the bigger you get the more bureaucratic you become and nobody sets out to be that but it happens because you're large and people have specialties in certain areas and I think of a a sign permit it used to be when you've come downtown you would have to submit three different applications to get a sign permit now and Why can't that be on one application and it took a communication for me?
to make that change.
And so sometimes it's just about simplifying these processes.
It's a death by 1,000 cuts, unfortunately.
But if you don't start hauling in some of those cuts, you're never going to make real progress.
But the other thing is that I think the suburbs have an, look, I know you have 1,000 employees.
I don't want to be critical of any department, but some of it seems a little bureaucratic and we are a larger city and I get that, you know, do you need a thousand employees?
You know, I don't know.
I didn't have that many when I was there, but I think when you're the probably the You're the best city in the country three four years ago always in the top ten and I just I just want to say this and I said this before when you're on
the show, I don't know, last year, but you really got to hire the best talent.
And sometimes you got to wait for the
best
But you guys made some mistakes.
I mean, you brought in that planning developer who was useless and couldn't find a job.
D'Pierre said they didn't want them.
And then you guys hired them.
And that was a huge mistake.
And that hurt the city a lot.
So I just hope that we've all learned from that because there's talent out there.
And I love local talent as much as anybody else.
But you travel.
You travel a lot.
Everybody knows Green Bay, right?
I mean that you run into not
everybody but well, it's funny because I find the people that are down on Green Bay the most are oftentimes the people who have lived here their whole lives And you don't realize you know what you've got and Yet when you talk to visitors or people who we locate here.
There's in love with the city The quality of life that we have here the access to amenities, right?
It is still a very affordable community right that we have to recognize That's not affordable for everyone and we have work to do there
And so I think we're really fortunate to live in a place like this.
And we have to care for it.
We have to take care of it to make sure that it remains that type of place.
But I'm not afraid of looking outside, especially I spent all the time on the US Conference of Mayors.
I know the mayor's not going to move, but I had a guy in Cleveland come up to me one time and just said, man, my bags are packed.
And Cleveland has done a good job.
I mean, they got no mistake on the lake and all that.
But he showed me some of the stuff he did.
And I was like, holy mackerel.
Look, I've always, it's a little bit like the draft philosophy.
I want the best talent on the board.
Right.
I mean, we'll find a place.
Now, the difference, though, is the draft.
You get drafted.
Whereas here, we have to find a way to attract those people here.
And it's no secret.
It's always been challenging.
to get people to commit, to move here.
But once we get them here, we can't get rid of them.
But the other part of it is the compensation.
And now we're fortunate, the cost of living is lower than some of these other cities.
So we have to be able to communicate that effectively, that while your salary might be lower, you don't need as much here.
do,
It's not.
And that's why being...
It sounds trivial, but when you're ranked the number one best place to live in America milk that for the next decade Yeah, and we have to tell a story
when we had that and then you brought in this clown I just was like that's a damn mad I called you about that too, and you know, I didn't know I didn't know I knew and you didn't know but anyway you moved on from that and I think that's good You know, I just think that but leadership can't be underrated
It sets the tone, it
sets the standard, it sets the vision.
Looking Green Bay's out, you know, we're this mid-sized city.
I've always said we're a tweener, right?
We're not big enough sometimes to have these amenities, but we're too big to function like a smaller community.
And oftentimes we've had department heads that are still doing the work.
And I recall the conversation I had with our new public works director, and I told her, I said, look, if you're an engineer, that's great.
I'd rather that you're not...
Working as an engineer.
I want you to be a department head in Marshall's resources as effectively as possible and And she's been doing a phenomenal job with that, but I think all of our department heads I would love to see that the reality is sometimes we don't have enough resources or depth, you know to be able to do that
I mean is the people I mean 80% of your budget is people so I want to get back to
We're going to do another quick break here.
We'll get to the news and the weather.
But then when we come back, I kind of want to talk about the current leadership.
And we're talking to Brian Johnson, the Past Presidency Council, the Director of Unprod, we're going to be right back.
This is Lean Local, Jim Schmidt.
All right, welcome back.
This is Lean Local.
Today, we're trying to make big, civic projects understandable in the plans and back here with Brian Johnson.
of course, who is the director of On Broadway and served on the city council for the last eight years, four years as president.
Two years.
Two years as president.
Okay, all right, so here we are.
Let me ask you, what's your assessment of the newly elected city council?
Well, we got a lot of passionate people on the council.
I like that.
It's, I would say it took a little bit of a swing.
You know, I think we were very moderate before and you had sort of
I would call them, I don't even wanna talk about it in terms of partisanship of voting blocks.
But there were just enough in the middle that every issue was really up for debate.
And now I think that pendulum is gonna swing.
And so what I hope doesn't happen is that it squashes conversation and discussion and conflict, good conflict, that helps make policy better.
But that remains to be seen.
You know, I've been around a little bit longer than you, but it sure seemed partisan to me from just the outsider.
And people sent me their literature, even though I'm not in their district.
Probably because of the radio show and plus, you know, I know a little bit of what's going on.
And I was just surprised that, like, I would never run as a block.
Like, even if I had friends.
Yeah.
I'm afraid you're going to vote as a block.
And if that's
the case, then we're in trouble.
Look, I entirely agree.
And I think I would say the past hasn't been partisan.
But this election absolutely has been.
And, you know, you're seeing a lot of out of town pack dollars over $200,000 that came out of town to buy these city council races.
And, you know, that that's going to have a real effect.
I mean, those folks are answering to somebody.
And I hope it's to the residents that
put them there.
And I'm not questioning anybody.
I'm not questioning anybody's integrity, but it's certainly one of those things where anytime you have that type of outside influence that comes into these elections, it can be really easy to be swayed around certain partisan policy issues.
And I want to make sure that we are continued to be focused on local needs.
just
We never talked about it.
No.
You had a difference of opinion, but that's very different.
But why?
What's changed?
I think just kind of a personal assessment, I think.
parties have taken a much stronger interest in local races, recognizing that that is the place where they can cultivate candidates for other offices.
But I also think Northeast Wisconsin is one of the most hotly contested areas in the entire country.
This is one of the biggest and busiest media markets around election time, Wall Street Journal.
Several years ago, printed A, the path to the White House is through.
Green Bay, Wisconsin.
So it's a real thing, right?
And I think parties are recognizing that.
And as a result, they are investing more in these local races, even at the school board level.
Well, I've only got
And there's some other stuff I kind of want to talk to you about.
But I want to talk about this partisan for a couple more questions, because I
I think it's a slippery slope and I think it's a slippery slope for the voters too.
I don't think they understand what city council does and I don't think they understand what the county does
and I was on the county board and
said
So I think when people look at the county I'm not sure they understand the airport the library, you know some of the county roads and I think when they look at the city
I'm not sure they understand the impact the city has on their lives.
I mean, not just the tax rate, which has gone up too much, but just the garbage and everything.
Everybody comes out and votes for the presidential election.
And I think that's cool.
But it's much higher than governor.
And then we got this local spring election.
And I don't know.
Part of me says, well, because it's partisan, will that help voter turnout?
Is that a good idea or is they keep it nonpartisan and then people like the whole let me rephrase the question Do people know what you do?
No I think I think there are certainly some people that do I think a lot of folks end up in my my voicemail Or on the phone with me by by accident because they had an issue and then they were routed to me When we door knock a lot of times
the last question, or do you vote on this?
They don't know.
But I think to your point before, I think one of the reasons you look at the block, the progressive six that ran together, I think that's exactly what they're trying to do is mobilize or rally that voting base, because it's easy, right?
It's a common denominator, oh, you're progressive, okay.
And when you look at the districts they ran in, in the partisan elections, they predominantly lean left.
So it's the easy way to help mobilize voters that way.
And I think both parties are going to be doing it.
I think locally here, the Democratic Party has been much more aggressive and probably much more effective at doing it.
But I don't think the Republicans are going to be very far behind in the near future.
respect you.
I don't want that answer either.
It's just an observation.
I
But I yeah, I've always ran as a non-partisan and I never cared about your political affiliation if I needed to secure support around something I was gonna talk to whoever I had to to make that happen for my district or for our city and And I think that's why moderates have had an interesting degree
of success, I think in the last few terms, because it was a couple of us who have sort of straddled in the middle, who have been able to appeal to both voting blocks for different reasons, but they needed the moderates to get votes over the finish line.
So we had just an uncanny amount of influence sometimes around the contested policies.
The reality is 95% of what we do goes through uncontested, but that 5%, that's where the rubber meets the road.
So we're going to fast forward.
I'm going to ask you to stick around.
We have a podcast that people can download.
It's just called The Green Bay Way.
I own that name on the title, and I want to get into a couple more things.
But while we have this radio audience with us, fast forward 10 years.
What would success look like?
I want to talk about Broadway.
I want to go back to, and you're going to stick around on Broadway, I'm assuming.
I have some questions on that.
Just feel that.
I don't have anything to base on it.
If you're not, let me know.
But anyway, I just, well, let's get to the question.
What would success
actually look like on Broadway?
So I think a lot of times when Main Street programs like ours invest in programming and events, it's because you're trying to fabricate activity.
You're fabricating it because there's gaps, meaning that the private market isn't doing it on its own because you don't have enough density or enough activation in your property.
So you have the wrong type of activation.
And instead of having, for example, a retailer on a ground floor, maybe you have an office user or a lower impact use.
So I think 10 years from now, it's that we're properly balanced in terms of the types of stores that we have.
I think we have more retail.
Retail is not dead.
90% of all shopping still occurs in a storefront.
And I think we need to remember that.
And it's artisan retail and small scale manufacturing that continues to thrive in downtowns.
It's about building that experience economy.
We want our private sector, our private businesses to create the reason that people come downtown and have enough things for them to do so that they're not just coming to get their haircut and leaving, they can come down and experience multiple things on that trip.
Okay, I would agree with
right on
Brian, there's just too damn many trucks.
There just are.
Brian, I, not today, so two days ago, there was a logging truck with not just logs, like those huge logs, like the Redwood Forest logs, but had a trailer attached to it.
Okay, he's the only guy that got through the light on the turn like why and I think the truck traffic has increased then it's anecdotal, but I work.
Yeah, I don't
know the answer I know but whatever I I was gonna call you one time and say every other vehicle is a truck.
That's not true.
That's just me exaggerating but You know and I and I know the whole it's a state highway.
That's always been the excuse, but like I don't like excuses.
I remember when we
couldn't do the Northland hotel.
We couldn't do because our tax credits weren't good enough.
And Greg Flishman, who I'm a big fan of his still, and Kevin's, he came in and he goes, you know, we can't increase our tax credits for historic buildings because it's a state law.
Well, change the law.
Exactly.
And it took him a long time.
But boy, he bust his butt doing that.
He went to all those committees.
We dragged me down there a couple of times.
So.
I just don't like that.
It's like, you know, people in the county board and like, why don't you have turn limits?
Well, the state won't let us.
Well, that's true.
It's a law, but you could,
if you really, really wanted to, you could change
strings with
But, you know, so I don't.
Well, look, I hope you're encouraged to know at least that it's in our strategic plan.
to put effort into the relocation of that truck route.
I think that's a great
Well, you may recall, we tried to do this when we were there, and the council at the time wouldn't support the study.
Right.
Not even the study.
No, that's through the band council.
Yeah, and, you know, of course, the question could be why didn't I move it forward, and there were different reasons for that, but I think now we're at a good spot where we can
properly contemplate that type of discussion.
I think we've got a council, hopefully they'll be open-minded about it as well.
And I think if they're, like that logging truck, but there's, I don't want to pick on companies, because I understand the employed people, but it's the shortest route.
I don't think it's the safest route.
I don't think it's actually the quickest route.
I will say it's the shortest route, but I would be open to some kind of, if they stay on the highways, they loop around.
that we would reimburse them for extra miles and curves or something.
Yeah, I
gotta be a formula.
You gotta have the data first and foremost, and that was the study, the point of origination destination study.
So where are those trucks coming and going?
We have assumptions, but you need the data to show where that is because I tell you what, a lot of those trucks in my estimation could probably be going down to 172 and into that area.
Absolutely, especially
It's like,
stacks.
Exactly.
And it's a deterrent to the development.
I'm glad you're working
together on that.
Look at the guy that just got elected that's replaced me.
He's a civil engineer.
So yeah, he was on a show.
Yeah.
I'm going to be working hard to turn him into an advocate on this one.
But you'll have the expertise.
I think that we'll be able to look at
All
I appreciate that.
It takes a village and done a lot of good work over the years.
And a lot of people have.
And none of us can do it alone.
No.
But it's
your kids here?
My kids moved, and I don't think
back.
It's
No, I have one in college in Waukesha, and she really likes it down there.
The other one is in keel, which is I mean just an awesome small that is very true.
Yeah.
Yeah, what's all good?
Well, anyway, we gotta get them
you if I can
all right with Brian Johnson president of on Broadway City Council president Thank you for joining us.
Happy to be here.
Thank you All right, we're back for our final segment after just telling Brian how great he was there he's we will keep that
point how great he is, but we're going to dig down a little bit deeper to some of his projects he's working on.
And our first thing when we talked about one of your main focuses right now as director of UnBroadway is a strategic plan.
And a strategic plan is a long-term plan that has buying from the community.
And I'm sure it's specific and measurable, the whole smart goal thing.
It's
Five
We have
We don't mess around.
That's cool.
So you mentioned housing.
You mentioned retail.
And I asked about what are the matrix?
Is it foot traffic?
Is it property value?
How do you really measure it?
And I'm sure there's multiple things.
But let's talk about specifics.
You know, Brian Johnson's here today, and you're going to come back here, I'm sure, every year.
But what are they?
What are we going to see?
Well, look, I think anybody using
the field of community development wants to know that they made a difference, that you can look back and tangibly and physically see some of the improvements you made.
And some of those are sort of those front page headlines, like the pavilion that we're building at Lake Park.
And other times there are small scale interventions like hanging a string of lights above a dark alleyway.
And you need these things to be happening at different levels within the pipeline.
And I think back, gosh, a few years ago we did what was called the Better Block Project.
And we put Dowsman Street on a road diet.
And we said, what if we took the four lanes down, one lane in each direction?
And we added the parklets, and we added the crosswalks and the bike lanes and all this stuff.
And it's crazy to look back at the time when we did that.
Fast forward now.
And we literally just created a design for Dowsman Street to go down to that.
and add parking lanes.
We've got an alleyway improvement project that we're working on.
Parklets are now a thing.
They're allowed in the city because of that event.
And so that's why you do these interventions so that you can see what the long-term improvements are that can help make a great community.
but you know, is
And again, and it was a different time, but it was decided internally that it wasn't realistic.
It's just the money wasn't there.
Now, you took a little different strategy compared to what we were going to do, but you have a lot of government money in that project.
And we had very little.
And look, maybe you were right and we were wrong, but.
It's just it you know, and I know it's gonna open before the draft and somebody got in front of the press and said a million visitors Which is more than we get at Lambo.
I'm like, okay, they got a throttle that number back, but
Where's
I mean, I don't want to I don't want to go
Yeah, I think our biggest mistake in all of this was being overly ambitious about the draft, right?
And I have a board of directors I report to.
I have a capital campaign that's working on this and everybody recognized the opportunity that the draft presented.
And the hope and the intent was that if we rally around that date that the funders would come in more quickly.
The problem is everybody else was thinking the same thing, right?
And so sadly, that didn't happen.
And not entirely because the funders didn't come in, but because the project cost escalated so much.
And other projects were impacted by the same thing around our community.
And some of them were even stalled midway through their projects.
So I think our biggest mistake again was just setting out that expectation.
And we did it.
And so how do you recover?
So the reality is the amount of time that we spent on this campaign is no different than any other project of similar scope and size.
And it just takes time to pull these things together.
The amount of government money coming to this actually is really not that much.
Comparatively speaking to other projects, it really is being anchored by private support and financing and new market tax credits.
Those are your primary funding sources.
By comparison,
Look at Madison.
Madison Public Market under construction right now.
Same size construction budget, $24 million.
$21 million or $24 million is government funded.
That's great.
I mean, if we had that, we'd be done.
We'd be open.
That's not what government's
is.
If
meant to
to... And I draw that comparison, not to diminish Madison, but to show that our philanthropic community supports this.
And they've really stepped up in a meaningful way.
We just have to...
close the, you know, the last bit of margin here.
So what is the status?
I mean, I'm not the only one that tries buying things.
Yeah, it's a complicated stack.
Think about Cortell Northland, right?
Oh, yeah.
When you got stalled and you just have to figure out how to tweak these things, because if you're short in one bucket, you want to elevate another, but they're connected.
They're all connected.
And so, you know, it's one of the conversations we have around, okay, what if we defer pieces of the project to bring down the construction cost?
Well, now
your assessable value goes down.
If your assessable value goes down, you can't borrow as much.
If you can't borrow as much, you can't get as much a new market tax credit.
So there's these domino effects with every bucket that is really hard sometimes to forecast.
But we're working on it and we're getting really close here.
Okay.
Oh, yeah, we've got, I mean, public market, like the park.
It was kind of crazy to try to run two capital campaigns at the same time, but we did it because the opportunity would have passed us by otherwise.
I sometimes have to remind folks that the request in front of the redevelopment authority was $750,000 from the closing tid to build a bathroom.
That's what Lake Park could have been.
And because we stepped up and said, how about the city puts in a little bit more and will raise private funds to match you, and now we're going to get this beautiful venue.
Yeah,
going to be great.
So to me, if you look at
thing.
Right.
It's going to be half and half, right?
There was a surplus in the TID.
Right.
And I think that's great.
It had to be spent somehow within the TID according to the plan.
And that was what we were able to get prioritized.
The shipyard, of course, finishing that up.
And then we've got a really cool plan.
We're working on the Hubbard Street corridor.
So where that red sculpture is right now.
Yeah.
Think of that like a town square where the streets can blend in with that site.
But it can be.
a Wunurf, so it can be a passable street when there's no programming going on, but when you want to expand it, it becomes a larger town square.
No, no, no.
We're going to join
It's our podcast, and we're going to
