San Antonio’s Rivercenter Mall is the most visited spot in Texas.
It provides a lesson in economics for the Fox River Valley in faraway Wisconsin: The creative use of a river plus commercial development can produce an enormous draw.
Rivercenter is located on San Antonio’s pride and joy — the River Walk, a stretch of shops, restaurants and hotels along the banks of the San Antonio River. The potent combination of shopping and dining with a Venice-style use of boats and water draws 19 million visitors to the mall each year. That’s even more than the Alamo.
Back in Wisconsin, officials envision an economic benefit from using the Fox River more commercially. Reopening the river’s locks system could be a further catalyst for riverfront development already beginning.
“It’s going to bring people from all around the country because the lock system is unique,” said John Supple, president of the Supple Restaurant Group, a company that owns two waterfront Fratellos, has restaurants in Oshkosh and Appleton and another on the way shortly on the banks of the Fox in Ashwaubenon.
A study done 10 years ago said reopening the locks could bring an estimated $74 million in economic development along the Fox River. Today, local business owners and municipal officials don’t put a specific dollar value on it, but they see potential.
“This whole evolution or conversion of our riverfront from its industrial base to commercial and resident use will occur regardless of whether the locks are open or not,” said Pete Hensler, Appleton’s economic development director. “But the locks will enhance that and add more value to the projects. It will have a significant impact on economic development.”
Access to boats on the river will become an integral part of housing and other developments, Hensler said.
“There’ll be a higher level of interest in those (projects) as the locks open,” he said. Residents and consumers “won’t just be able to go from point A to point B. They’ll be able to go from point A to point F.”
Anything that opens access to downtown Green Bay is a plus, said Rob Strong, city planning director.
“I’d like to think we’re an anchor location for boaters who want to take that daylong trip through the lock system,” Strong said. “It’s a little more enjoyable than driving up the highway. We’re looking to attract boaters to spend their time and money in the community.”
Tapping potential
While reopening the locks may be years away, developers and officials already know that the riverfront is a largely untapped opportunity.
A few already have discovered the appeal.
“Fratellos has to be on the water, or we’re not building it,” Supple said. Of his family’s nine-restaurant portfolio, three are on bodies of water, including two Fratellos. His waterfront restaurants “are the biggest and the busiest,” he said.
The appeal, Supple said, is the ever-changing view of water and wildlife.
“We saw four eagles here this morning at the Appleton Fratellos. Where else do you see that?”
However, not everyone views commercial applications as ideal in all situations.
“Where on the river?” said Linda Muldoon, a resident on Appleton’s river bluff as well as a preservation advocate and downtown business owner. “Each part of the river demands something different. We don’t need to follow other cities’ examples. We need to have our own vision of it.”
Development plans
Recent Appleton riverfront development has been centered in reclaimed buildings.
Fratellos, the former J restaurant, is housed in the redeveloped Vulcan hydroelectric power plant, and its neighbor, the former Atlas Mill, is home to the new Paper Discovery Center, a coffeehouse and a scrapbooking store.
Future developments, however, could be either housed in restored or brand new buildings.
The Appleton Plan Commission recently approved a permit for a restaurant as part of a new $2.5 million development called Trolley Square that would bring eateries and retail stores to a former industrial site in the river’s flats off Olde Oneida Street near downtown.
Green Bay, meanwhile, also is considering a number of waterfront projects. The Astor Place Condominiums, for example, is planned at the site of Admiral Flatley Park.
“We will have a festival grounds on the waterfront that will open next spring,” Strong said. “We have a significant boardwalk system we’re proposing between our bridges downtown.”
The Green Bay City Council has approved the concept of a $12 million redevelopment, which would be paid for with state and federal grants along with a tax-increment finance district.
Ashwaubenon also has a waterfront development under way — the Ashwaubenon Boardwalk — including a marina as well as office/condo/restaurant space. It’s in the midst of a first phase. “Hopefully it will be completed by next summer,” said Norbert DeCleene, village president.
Amid all the development talk, Muldoon worries about planners becoming shortsighted.
“The river belongs to all of us, and I feel it’s being squeezed into which developer is coming forward with enough money,” she said. “That’s not a broad enough criteria to focus our river plan on.”
Lost in the conversation of potential economic impact is the locks project itself, a multi-million-dollar reconstruction job, Hensler said.
“If we were building a multi-million dollar building, we’d be proud of that,” he said. “This is a construction project that provides jobs for folks. The impact of that is significant.”
