Green Bay Public Market expected to fall short of 2025 NFL Draft deadline

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

November 4, 2024

GREEN BAY – A massive redevelopment project half a decade in the making is one step closer to completion after community leaders officially broke ground on the Green Bay Public Market.

The only catch – On Broadway Inc. (OBI) executives said the new indoor market and gathering place will not be fully operational in time for the 2025 NFL Draft – a deadline previously set in an attempt to draw draft visitors to the downtown area.

“The front will be done,” Ron Franklin, vice president of operations for the Green Bay Public Market, said. “Which will be great for bump shots and other news-based items, but we won’t be open by the draft.”

Brian Johnson, president and CEO of OBI, said the public market was not an idea born out of the NFL’s announcement to bring the draft to Green Bay.

Johnson said his organization was not the first to think of establishing a public market in Green Bay.

Reflecting on a 2018 conversation with one of OBI’s board members, Garritt Bader, Johnson said they were passing by the Old Fort Square building at 211 N. Broadway when he turned to Bader and said, “Garritt, what do you think about this building, the history of it, and what do you think of a public market?”

Johnson said it just so happened Bader had already been discussing the idea with other local business owners, community leaders and OBI staff members who had already begun conceptualizing a public market for the city – even turning over business plans they had written to help make the project happen.

Johnson said his team “probably visited more than 60 different public markets across the world” to learn more about the business model before committing to the project.

“(We) learned something new and interesting from every single one of them, and it ultimately led to our decision to support the board to make an offer to purchase this building in 2019,” he said. 

Unfortunately, Johnson said OBI had to let that offer lapse to focus on the district’s survival – and subsequent recovery – through the COVID-19 pandemic.

But, he said he and his team weren’t willing to wave the white flag on the public market project.

“A number of grants that we feverishly wrote for were secured, which really helped the recovery of On Broadway as an organization,” Johnson said. “But more importantly, it allowed us to get back to work on this vision that we just didn’t want to let go. As a result, we ultimately purchased (the) building in April of 2022.”

Attraction, retention, expansion

Barb LaMue – OBI board president and president and CEO of New North Inc., a local nonprofit focused on economic development in Northeast Wisconsin as a whole – said many people travel to public markets, not only across the country but around the world.

“I’m here to tell you… there’s nothing like this in all of Northeast Wisconsin,” she said. “So this is truly going to be a magnet.”

With a population of roughly 320,000 people, the Greater Green Bay metro area sees roughly six million visitors a year – according to the public market’s website (greenbaypublicmarket.org).

Of course, the city already has a lot to offer both its residents and visitors – but Johnson said OBI saw several gaps a public market could fill.

The Old Fort Square building neighbors two food deserts – which, as defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, means downtown residents in those areas have limited access to readily available, healthy and quality food.

“Of course, (tourists) come here to visit the Packers, the Botanical Garden (and) the National Railroad Museum, but everybody needs to eat,” he said. “So we saw an opportunity there to really create a visitor destination experience that could combine food with a great local experience.”

So on top of establishing that catch-all destination experience catered toward the city’s visitors – the Green Bay Public Market team said it will also serve as a reliable grocery source for the district’s residents.

Community leaders from other organizations and partners in the project said the market will also assist the city in its efforts to make Green Bay – and Northeast Wisconsin as a whole – a place people want to relocate to.

Brad Toll, president and CEO of Discover Green Bay – a local organization focused on bolstering the city’s tourism industry – said visitor studies show “that more than 90% of people that relocate to a destination experience (it) as a visitor first.”

“What a huge opportunity for recruitment for our community,” Toll said. “To fill those jobs that we’re working so hard to try and fill and keeping our real estate agents here as (they try) to sell homes to the folks looking to make our community home.”

Pat Skalecki – vice president and principal at GRaEF, the engineering firm tasked with the exterior design of the market – said from the moment the firm first heard about this project, “we knew we wanted to be part of this – as it was going to change the downtown Broadway District.” 

“In the years to come, (the market will) be another component to the quality of life in the City of Green Bay,” Skalecki said. “Promoting business growth in the area and another reason people want to live here.”

Johnson said OBI anticipates the more than $12.5 million project will create roughly 200 jobs to serve the nearly one million people expected to visit the market annually.

Through conversations with other community developers and large-scale modeling of the Broadway District, he said OBI predicts installing the market could spark more than $100 million in new developments on the vacant sites surrounding it – and that ripple effect isn’t expected to stop in Green Bay.

Brooke Hafs – vice president of donor engagement for OBI and the Green Bay Public Market – said they believe the project’s impact is going to overflow into “the entire district, the entire downtown, the entire city and the entire region.”

‘We all need to pull the wagon’

OBI is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which, for large development projects like the Green Bay Public Market, Johnson said, means community support and fundraising are a necessity.

“Anybody can create, but only communities like Green Bay can do,” Ken Strmiska, former president and CEO of the Green Bay Community Foundation, said. “Part of that ‘making things happen’ is private giving.”

Part of the $12.5 million bill for establishing the market is fulfilled by grants and government support – but $8 million of that, project organizers said, has to be fundraised.

At the groundbreaking event, Strmiska said the project had reached $7 million in donation commitments, leaving a $1 million gap.

“That last million, we’re going to get it from the community,” Strmiska said. “Give, be a part of this, because we all need to pull the wagon to make this happen, and I know that we can do it.”

Earlier in October, the Green Bay Public Market project was awarded half a million dollars from the new Non-State Grant Program – introduced by Gov. Tony Evers.

At the groundbreaking event, Wisconsin Department of Administration Assistant Deputy Secretary Diana Maas said the program was created to “support critical infrastructure, drive jobs and economic development, improve services for our people and improve the quality of life for our communities.”

“We had so much interest in the Non-State Grant Program, and it took us a while to go through the more than 250 applications submitted statewide,” Maas said. “Ultimately, 50 projects, including this one, for a total of more than $50 million, were approved across the state.”

With grants like that, private donor gifts and community fundraising, Strmiska said the market, “is a great example of a project that is going to take public dollars and private dollars” – emphasizing the importance of private philanthropy for the betterment of any community, a point reiterated by almost every speaker at the groundbreaking.

“Economic development projects are equally important… and our philanthropic community has really stepped up to embrace the impact that a project like this can have,” Johnson said.

Merchant friendly business

Though perceived as a disadvantage in terms of paying for projects, Franklin said operating the public market as a nonprofit has numerous benefits for its merchants.

“We are getting donations, we’re fundraising all the costs of the building, we don’t have a loan that we would have to pay back like a private organization,” he said. “So our rents are easily at least three to four times less than what they would be for a private organization, so definitely more business-friendly or vendor-friendly.”

Franklin said he and his team are still looking to add more businesses to the market’s repertoire of merchants, but added that they’re being selective to ensure a unique experience with each visit.

“For example, we’re not going to have three breweries in here,” he said. “That’s just not smart business… We will consider any of the options for immediate consumption foods, but we want to think outside the box.”

The Green Bay Public Market will continue to fundraise even after reaching its goal, Franklin said, to “make sure we keep the pricing as low as possible for all of the tenants.”

Rachael Grochowski – founder and principal at RHG Architecture & Design, the architectural firm tasked with designing the interior of the facility – said each merchant will have a stall where they can instill “their own personality… their culture and their own flavor.”

Local and retail art will be hung throughout the building, intertwined with interactive elements that Grochowski said will make walking through the building “like an adventure.”

She said her design plans also include a second-floor event space that will overlook the marketplace, a kids play area, a demonstration kitchen for courses and community work and a concierge desk adorned with some of the building’s original tiles.

NFL Draft burdens, blessings

Ask anyone in the Greater Green Bay region and they would likely agree – the 2025 NFL Draft coming to Titletown is a major opportunity for businesses not just within the city, but across the Northeast Wisconsin region.

Franklin said the draft coming to Green Bay the same year OBI is trying to get the public market operational has been both good and bad for the project because “everyone wants to be ready by the draft.”

The Old Fort Square building that the public market will eventually occupy is almost entirely gutted and ready for development, making that part of construction easier to work on during the winter season – but the renovations don’t stop there.

The plans for the building, Franklin said, include installing a new roof and expanding the front wall an additional 10 feet out into the sidewalk – something that needs to be done before any concrete work can be done inside.

“So when you have that added pressure of everyone (wanting) to be ready by the draft, it starts to add additional time to getting construction materials and delays on getting crews, because instead of having three, four or five projects going, they have 15 or 20 projects,” he said.

Franklin said The Boldt Company – which is tasked with the redevelopment of the building – has been working closely with OBI to shorten the construction timeline as much as possible by working on different aspects of the project at the same time.

He said Boldt is also a financial sponsor of the project and has plans to move its Green Bay office to the second floor of the building once construction is complete.

All in all, Franklin said the draft “has added some complexity… but knowing we have a significant amount of people coming to the area, that is a huge increase for us.”

Franklin said OBI and the smaller internal public market team are considering organizing some programming to be held inside the facility to give those coming downtown from the draft a preview of the public market – but there are no guarantees amid the project’s struggles with a volatile supply chain.

Though being fully operational for the major event would have been great, Franklin said the economic impact of the public market won’t be affected, and the project is still expected to be a catalyst for additional development in the Broadway District.

Now, with the groundbreaking behind them, Franklin said he and the public market team are looking forward to the new facade being built, a new sign being chosen and installed (the one seen in the renderings is not the final design) and the official grand opening of the Green Bay Public Market – now expected in summer 2025.