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I got no response from his office when I asked for a copy, but Mark Carstensen's Shops at Wyndham Village proposal PowerPoint presentation (as presented at the October 31st public hearing) can be found on Alderman Steve Olson's web site (under his "Issue Papers" link).
"Wynd," "Shoppes"... it's a spelling nightmare ...
I'll take a closer look at individual renderings in days ahead.
By the way - - whatever happened to Fountains of Franklin? It's deathly silent over there.
Downtown Princeton, Wisconsin has been revitalized one specialty shop at a time
Posted: Dec. 26, 2006
Princeton - This is a love story, a business story, a rural story.
They met cute on a fashion shoot in Chicago. He was handsome. She was pretty. But they knew the modeling racket wasn't a long-term gig. They wanted to start a family, a business. They looked at the prices in Chicago and decided they could do better somewhere else.
So one day in 1991, they sold out, packed up and headed to an old farmhouse on the edge of this Wisconsin town in the lush landscape of Green Lake County. And they began to paint furniture, stylish stuff that gained a following in America's urban homes.
The business grew and one thing led to another, and they decided to take an even bigger plunge and create a showroom for their exquisite wares. So in 1996 they purchased two sturdy buildings and another that needed to be torn down in what was then a fairly dilapidated downtown of storefronts, old bars and an old Pabst Blue Ribbon sign.
And that is how Tracy and John Porter, the guiding lights behind the Tracy Porter brand of home décor, fashion and jewelry, took the first step that would lead to the rebirth of Princeton's downtown.
"Anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur should consider any small town," Tracy Porter says.
There is a lot of talk and planning about creating a vibrant future for Wisconsin's farms and rural communities. But in Princeton, the future is already here. It takes shape every day.
In an era when big-box stores often drain the life from rural downtowns, Princeton's main shopping street is alive and well.
Not every rural community can become another Princeton, with a main shopping thoroughfare along Water St. that is dotted with stores devoted to antiques, gifts, clothes, spices, candles, art objects and gardening supplies, plus a couple of fine restaurants.
For one thing, Princeton is blessed by being near the tourist spot of Green Lake and the college town of Ripon, becoming a draw for vacationers eager to spend money on rainy afternoons.
For another, even before the Porters and other shopkeepers arrived, Princeton was already home to a thriving Saturday flea market.
But small-town success stories don't happen just because of location. Something special has to take place, a unique convergence of interests, personalities, ideas.
It happened in Princeton.
And it can happen everywhere, say the Porters, who last year moved their operation again, selling the Princeton store to her sister and setting up the business in nearby Ripon.
"Charm is huge," Tracy Porter says. "Towns should think about young families, about schools, about people wanting to go out and shop. There are things that help a little town, and shopping helps any small town."
The Porters say they're constantly asked by friends just what can be done from a rural location.
"Anything," John Porter says.
"You have to climb outside your box," Tracy Porter says. "Anything you can do from somewhere else you can do in a small town."
Take the Porters. Their brand is their business, licensing designs and trademarks to manufacturers as well as running a mail-order operation. Today they run their firm from the 7,200-square foot, 19th-century Oddfellows Lodge near Ripon's police station. Step inside the building, and it's like stepping inside a trendy urban loft, all hardwood floors, open spaces, bright light pouring in through windows.
The entire cost of purchasing and rehabbing the building was less than $300,000, John Porter says. In a city like Chicago, New York or San Francisco, the project would have cost millions.
"People ask me, 'How do you run a national company from a small town?' " Tracy Porter says. "I tell them, 'How do you run a national company from San Francisco? How do you afford the costs?' "
"My commute is seven minutes," John Porter says.
Try that in New York.
And here's the other thing about running a rural business: You can live upstairs. That's what a lot of the entrepreneurs do in Princeton.
At the Water Street Gallery, Joan Dinco, 31, greets customers downstairs while her 7-year-old daughter, Audrey, is in the upstairs apartment, studying.
"I was looking for an escape from the city, a smaller town," says Dinco, who quit her job as a skin care teacher, bought the business and moved in spring from Whitefish Bay to Princeton.
Others blazed the path.
Across the street, Kristin and Dennis Galatowitsch run Twister, an emporium filled with everything from plates and glasses to trendy dresses and tops. They literally built the business from the ground up in the mid-1990s, living for months in the cold, very damp basement while restoring the building.
Others might have seen a 19th-century money pit when they started work on the property, but not Dennis, an industrial engineer, nor Kristin, an attorney. They hauled 25 tons of concrete from the building, sandblasted walls, stripped floors, bolstered ceilings.
Upstairs, they poured concrete countertops, rewired, put a weight room off the living room - a full set of weight machines and cow mats from Fleet Farm make quite a fashion statement.
They didn't even own the joint for two years, leasing the building for $200 a month before purchasing it outright for $110,000.
"There were 14 vacant buildings in town when we bought this," Dennis Galatowitsch says.
The shop fronts are mostly filled. Business is good.
"You have all these great building fronts, all within two blocks, all structurally sound," Kristin Galatowitsch says. "And then you've got this bucolic setting, so you can have a beautiful downtown."
Kristin Galatowitsch is the president of the city council. Others from across the state ask her how to rebuild rural downtowns. There are no easy solutions, she tells them.
"It comes down to independent people ending up somewhere collectively," she says. "It's a certain amount of people with energy, lending legitimacy to what is going on. You get a few good people, and it will build itself."
Link: JS Online:.
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