----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 11:00
AM
Subject: [Winona] RE: Planning
[Winona Online Democracy]
Kathy and Janice
make valid points about downtown development. It is not easy - if it
were, every little town would thrive. Savannah GA has several
things going - it can host year-round tourists because of the climate, it
is on a major interstate (I-95), it's on the ocean, and it's loaded with
nationally significant history and historical buildings. Winona can't
brag about the climate year-round, is probably below average as far as
tourist trade, is on modest Hwy 61, is on the Mississippi (great, but not
the ocean), and has a smaller (but still wonderful) treasure of
historical places. It means Winona has to work harder to be
anything like Savannah. We have to capitalize on our strengths, but not
pretend we have everything it takes to be a Savannah. We can be a gem of
SE Minnesota however.
Closer to home,
Lake City is a few miles closer to Rochester (the Big Dog in SE MN) than
Winona, and Lake City has the large expanse of Lake Pepin and
no RR next to the river. If I had a big boat where would I go from
Rochester? We need to do something special and different
to attract people over Lake City.
Janice's points
about the retail vs. service businesses
now in downtown is right on - services take that space because most of us do
our convenience shopping at Target, Wal Mart, K Mart and the like, out at
the edge of town. There is a reason these companies are so successful -
most of us like to shop that way. The offices and services take over the
space downtown because it is available, not because it's the best use of
downtown space.
Parking needs to
be addressed but is actually about the same per square foot of floor area for
retail vs. offices (3 to 5 spaces per 1,000 square feet). Retail
spaces and doctors office spaces turn over many times during the day, whereas
most other office parking spaces are occupied the whole day, but it's about
the same size parking lot for a given floor area. The key to downtown
parking is cost and convenience. You can park at Target or Wal Mart for
free right in front of the building within sight of the entrance.
Reviewing the parking situation downtown is part of the planning effort
underway.
"Amenities"
downtown for residents means convenient businesses and services, but also
green space and beautiful, well-maintained public spaces - streets, sidewalks,
plazas, access to the river, etc.
To take one
example, a restaurant downtown needs to serve a certain number of meals to
stay afloat. It could serve daytime office workers, shoppers, tourists,
or year-round residents. The office workers may be there, but the other
three are questionable unless some real effort is made. The
retail shoppers will be made up of the other three groups: workers,
tourists, residents. Residents downtown will shop downtown because it is
convenient, residents elsewhere in Winona will not, unless there is something
special there to attract them.
You can roughly
estimate* the amount of retail space supported by residents by assuming 30% of
household income is spent on retail goods. Assume average household
income of $50,000, and that typical retail stores will sell about $250 per
square foot of floor area per year. Doing the math you get about 60,000
square feet of retail space needed for every 1,000 households (about
2,000 - 2,500 people). You can fit about 20,000 to 25,000 square feet of
retail space on a city block (one level with parking)**, so 1,000
new housing units downtown would support 2 to 2-1/2 blocks of retail
space if they had the right businesses and services. For all of
Winona County - 19,000 households - the entire retail demand would be
about 1.1 million square feet, or 35-45 city blocks. All of
"Downtown" as defined in the city's Comp Plan effort is 55 blocks. If
the only retail space in town were downtown we couldn't fill all of "downtown"
with retail services.
But of course
there is Westgate, KMart, Target, Wal Mart, Fleet Farm, and all the smaller
businesses around them, so most of this demand is already met elsewhere, which
is why a key to downtown development is new business supported by new
residents and new tourists. For every 1,000 new housing units built
downtown that's 2-3 blocks of demand for retail business space, and that's
1,000 housing units that won't fill the sensitive valleys of Wilson
Township - if we can make downtown as attractive to new residents as an acre
of bluff land.
Phil Carlson,
Mpls
* These are rough
numbers that should be verified by local research
** More space
could be fit per block if it is supported by pedestrian traffic - people
living very close by - so that less parking space is
needed
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