Phil
Thanks for providing the numbers for
guiding and planning. I hope that as the ideas move forward they will be
used to present the challenge to private developers as to what will be necessary
for the project plan to be successful. I also hope the city will compute
the infrastructure investment they will need to make to support the developers
and hopefully be assessed back to the project area so the real economic cost
verses benefit can be presented for a public endorsement. Will the current
owners of the buildings be willing for fund the restoration costs of their
structures and pay for any special assessment cost for the infrastructure?
What kind of rents per retail square foot would be necessary for the payback on
their investment?
Mr. Woodford
I agree that the users of the river should
be a significant part of any plan and yes I have been to Stillwater and Red Wing and in fact
we build some of the marina canopies similar to what is located at Stillwater Marine.
However, I would remind people that Stillwater and Red Wing are power boat towns and for recreational purposes recreational
bedroom communities for Twin City dwellers. There may be a few of the rich and famous who can
crank up the twin engine cruisers to run to Winona but I think that most may just
enjoy sitting, sleeping, sipping and shining chrome at the marina.
Paul Double
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.
* 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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