During the 03/23/2022 Municipal Services Committee, the committee discussed the desired process for a possible redesign of Soldier’s Square per Resolution #5-R-19. This was an information item and they neither reached any decisions nor voted on anything. And, as was mentioned several times in the meeting, Soldier’s Square is not even in the city’s 5-year Capital Improvement Projects plan.
Director of Public Works Paula Vandehey said they were looking for input from the committee to make sure that they were all on the same page with their process. The city’s typical process is to…
- Notify the neighborhood of an upcoming project
- Invite the neighborhood to an informal design hearing at a Municipal Services Committee meeting
- After the informal design hearing, have an action item for the Municipal Services Committee to vote on.
In the case of Soldier Square, there was no pending project and there was nothing in the city’s 5-year Capital Improvement Plan regarding Soldier Square.
The Resolution called for revitalizing Soldier’s Square “without unduly impacting parking and traffic movement,” and staff was seeking clarification what exactly that meant. Director Vandehey and talked with Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) about it. She would interpret not “unduly impacting parking” to mean that zero parking stalls were lost. Alderperson Schultz, on the other hand, might think a loss of 5-7 parking stalls would be okay for this project. She thought that one of the major things that the committee and the Common Council had to decide was what was an acceptable number of parking stalls to be lost in Soldier’s Square in order to move forward with the redesign, but typically the city would not start a design hearing if a project was not in the 5-Year Capital Improvement Plan.
Alderperson Joe Prohaska (District 14) asked if there was a way to find out how many of the parking stalls in the square were being utilized every day, how many they needed, and how many it would be possible to take away.
Director Vandehey responded that it was a highly utilized parking area. The current street was 9 years old and when they held the design hearing for that reconstruction project, they had discussed different designs including turning it into a pedestrian mall area, but neighborhood residents and business owners strongly opposed losing any of the parking stalls and the Common Council ended up approve the design that is currently in place today.
She mentioned that Jennifer Stephany from Appleton Downtown Inc had also participated in the discussion Director Vandehey had held with Alderperson Schultz, and, during that conversation, Ms. Stephany had strongly hoped that very few parking stalls would be lost.
Alderperson Martin was the alderperson for the area. He stressed how valuable the parking stalls were and said that the local downtown business owners he had talked too all believed they were critically important.
Alderperson Schultz, for the benefit of community members and alderpersons listening in and participating in the meeting, read off the final paragraph of the Resolution 5-R-19 which said, “BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED; that the City of Appleton will commit to an effort to revitalize Soldier’s Square and make an effort to recapture the former function of the space as a public highway without prohibiting any future ancillary development and without unduly impacting parking and traffic movement; and that the City accommodate the relocation and restoration of the Spanish-American War Memorial in any foreseeable future redevelopment plans of Soldier’s Square and delay the proposed restorations of the Spanish-American War Memorial and Civil War Memorial until a determination can be made to the relocation of the same, as well as afford the opportunity to have other recent conflict memorials recognized without any direct cost to the City of Appleton.”
He understood there was no project in the 5-year CIP plan for Soldier’s Square and said that the resolution had been introduced as a reaction to the restoration project which had been slated for the Spanish American War Memorial. There had been a lot of balls in the air at that time, and they had been looking at potentially building a library where the YMCA parking ramp was located. A project to help fund some kind of restoration with community dollars had been started.
A lot had changed in the three years since the resolution had been introduced and passed by Council. They now knew that a replacement ramp was going to go where the previous YMCA ramp had been but there would be some more space because the foot path exiting the ramp would no longer exist. The dumpster station that had been in the center of Soldier’s Square could now be moved closer to the new ramp.
Alderperson Schultz thought that would bring the opportunity to do something to revitalize the space. He understood the desire to have those parking stalls, but, “You know we have to remind the community that we have parking ramps. There’s one on the other side of Appleton Center. There are other places to park, and if we’re talking about the potential restoration of a memorial space that’s essentially not been what it was for over a century, by losing four or five stalls—which is kind of where the design or at least the concept of what we could do in that space—I think it’s a conversation worth having.” He understood it would be difficult for businesses to adjust, and he knew the new ramp may not have as much parking as the old ramp did, and he also understood that there was a ton of residential apartment additions to Downtown which would impact available spaced so the 4 or 5 slots that he would like to remove were probably in higher demand now that they were previously. [As he laid out all these issues, I heard echoes of Emmet Brickowki’s inspirational speech to the people in Cloud Cuckoo Land. “Yes, it’s true. I may not be a master builder. I may not have a lot of experience fighting or leading or coming up with plans. Or having ideas in general. In fact, I’m not all that smart. And I’m not what you’d call a creative type—plus, generally, unskilled. Also scared and cowardly. I know what you’re thinking. He is the least qualified person in the world to lead us. And you are right.”]
Alderperson Schultz understood that it was not an easy conversation but he didn’t want to just forget about it. There was a fundraising endeavor that had been in the works for three years with reclaimed bricks, and the fundraisers would like to find a way to use that in the space and the accommodate what the Council approved to relocate the Spanish American War Memorial and have it restored there. The Civil War Memorial was almost restored and would be finished this year. He wanted to move forward in a way that allowed them to have a conversation.
As Alderperson Schultz spoke, he used the term “we” both in reference to the fundraiser as well as to the Common Council which prompted a city staff member who sounded like Attorney Behrens (but I’m not 100% positive on that) to say, “I want [Alderperson Schultz] to distinguish that that fundraising effort is something that’s separate and has not run through Council, committee, or any sort of city endorsement, or any sort of city involvement. So, if you could confirm that; I think that’s very important.”
Alderperson Schultz appreciated that and clarified, “The fundraising effort was entirely driven by three private nonprofits. It has no connection to the city; it was not initiated by the city. So, I apologize for not being specific when I refer to ‘we’ and then Council.”
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) said he knew staff was looking for the committee to give them some sort of direction on the language of the resolution, because the wording was vague and could mean anything from zero to six parking stalls lost. He also understood the issues with not having a timeline for the project. He said he would encourage either council members or staff to work on giving the committee something that had firmer numbers, as much as they wanted the committee to give them some numbers. He thought that Alderperson Schultz, who had been involved in this, could start putting out some numbers for the committee to work with. He also thought that it was within staff’s purview to say that they interpret the resolution to mean such and such a number and then bring that to the committee when the time comes.
Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) thought they needed a project first and that the first step should be to convince someone to put it in their CIP program. Once that happened, then they could talk about design, but otherwise he thought it was futile.
Alderperson Firkus agreed that it was a lot more difficult for the committee to give any sort of firm recommendation in this situation and that they needed to get to a place where it was more real and less abstract in order to effectively provide direction. His idea of an acceptable number of parking spots was probably different from every other single member on the committee.
[For that matter, who even cares what their opinion on the acceptable number of parking stalls lost is given that the project is not in the 5-year capital improvement project plan and the alderpersons currently serving on the committee and on the Council may not even be around when Soldier’s Square does come up again for reconstruction. I suppose they could have someone put together some concept designs for 0 stalls lost, 3 stalls lost, and 6 stalls lost so the community and the alderpersons could see them and decide which one they liked best, but that takes time and money, and why expend either of those things when Soldier’s Square is not going to be reconstructed for the foreseeable future?]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=922398&GUID=2DB50860-BE87-4E46-961C-5DAFB0360FDC
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