Let me be among the first to welcome Allen Davis as the new Oshkosh Community Development Director. Now get to work.
Get to work building the same record of development success that has marked the growth of your soon-to-be-former employer: the Town of Grand Chute. Feel free to bring along many of the businesses that have grown up around the Fox River Mall over the last ten years--starting with my personal favorite: Golf Galaxy.
You can follow that up with Fuddruckers, Half-Price Books, the Wire Whisk, Dick's Sporting Goods and Texas Roadhouse. My wife would also like you to relocate Ulta and to finally convince Kohl's to stop teasing Oshkosh and actually build a store here along Highway 41. I'm supposed to ask for an IKEA as well (but don't take that one seriously). A Costco would be nice as well--NOT SAM'S CLUB!!!
Allen, please bring development ideas other than the overblown "Mixed use residential/commerical" for every project in the city. Something other than "senior living condos" would be nice as well. Don't be afraid to think outside the box and propose selling riverfront property to single-family home builders--a development idea that seems to work well in Allouez, De Pere and Green Bay. Those kinds of projects tend to be built quickly, don't require TIF districts and homeowners who can afford to live on the river usually pay their property taxes on time too.
Feel free to remove the decorative elements of the Main Street reconstruction project and make the street actually driveable after the rebuild is done. And JUST SAY "NO" TO ROUNDABOUTS AT BUSY INTERSECTIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mr. Davis, you are being hired to bring a "fresh start" to a department that had become so detached from the people it was supposed to serve that it seriously handicapped the growth of the city--the exact opposite of it's intended purpose. Please deliver on that promise of "change" better than a certain-someone-else-we-all-know who campaigned on that same platform.
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While you're at it, Sir, could you bring a Trader Joe's to the area too? I hate having to wait until we are going to Madison or Milwaukee to shop at my favorite specialty food store!
ReplyDeleteThe new community development director will be hamstrung in Oshkosh. We are generally considered a lower income community that thrives on Wal Marts, Shopkos and Targets. Stores like Old Navy, Kohls and Trader Joes won't come to Oshkosh because our median income is too low.
ReplyDeleteThe Outlet Mall will forever define the retail business opportunities in Oshkosh.
We could just give the rich a bigger tax break and all that money will just float into Oshkosh.
ReplyDelete>We are generally considered a lower income community that thrives on Wal Marts, Shopkos and Targets. Stores like Old Navy, Kohls and Trader Joes won't come to Oshkosh because our median income is too low.<
ReplyDeleteAnd by all means, we should make sure it stays that way by ensuring that no child gets much of an education, so they will be condemned to a lifetime of minimum wage jobs and living in fat-cat slum-lord housing. Also, if any working people manage to better themselves through collecticve bargaining with their employers, we should do all we can to destroy that, to make sure EVERYONE in town is as low-brow and destitute and bitter as we are.
More money for downtown damn it, it's just about to come around! I figure with another $70,000,000 spent down there people will come in droves!
ReplyDeleteCosto, Trader Joe's would be fantastic.
ReplyDeleteSeveral times friends from out of town have commented that there's no place to get a bite to eat at the outlet mall.
And then there's that whoooooole riverfront waiting for development.