Walkable communities on the rise

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

December 23, 2024

EAU CLAIRE – A new apartment complex in Eau Claire is helping people call the city’s downtown home.

Aaron White – community development director for the City of Eau Claire – said B7 Flats (224 N. Barstow St.) is located on the last remaining block of the decades-old North Barstow redevelopment district established by the city’s redevelopment authority (RDA).

“(These were) the last of several parcels that were owned by the redevelopment authority,” he said. “Since that district area was created… the city (has) heavily invested in upgrades to infrastructure.”

B7 Flats was one of the final developments in that district for a reason, White said, as the city had to first transform the area into a place potential tenants would want to relocate.

“A lot of thought and development design went into building an environment that people want to live in,” he said. “Bringing back small businesses and investors, replacing some buildings and improving others and getting a lot of business startups and growth in the downtown area helped grow the appeal.”

White said the city had made numerous requests for proposals (RFPs) for the remaining parcels – which were being used as a de facto parking lot – “but really didn’t get one that the redevelopment authority board wanted to move forward with.”

It wasn’t until the city altered its approach to garnering interest for the development site that White said it was presented with an opportunity that piqued the board’s interest.

Unique approach = unique opportunities

White said after their RFPs were met with lackluster excitement, the city and its RDA decided to put forth some initial effort to attract developers.

“We had an engineering and architect firm do some block modeling of how that block… could be laid out – different configurations and densities and looking at different parking types, etc.,” he said.

After advertising that block modeling, White said a few developers reached out expressing interest in buying portions of the block.

“We weren’t interested in selling off a piece,” he said, “but a couple of different groups approached us, and I ended up connecting them, and they jointly worked out a site plan.”

White said the joint site plan resulted in the development of B7 Flats and the Menominee food co-op.

“They collectively worked the site down, and then each built their own piece after the site prep was done across the whole block,” he said.

Since experiencing success with this new approach to redevelopment, White said the City of Eau Claire has stepped away from RFPs.

“We found a lot of developers telling us that they don’t even respond to RFPs anymore,” he said. “So this approach of defining an area for redevelopment (and) marketing it out like a realtor would… has generated a lot more leads, has generated a lot more projects coming our way and has moved things forward faster than the RFP process did previously.”

White said this new process also allows for those on the ground floor of the development process to make decisions that are important to their work without undue requirements.

“It’s definitely a balancing act,” he said. “We let the builders and the developers do their market studies, and let them kind of quantify what their market is – we don’t pretend to know their business. We just look for projects we think are enhancements to the community, and then allow them to present a proposal that they feel like they can cash flow properly.”

No vacancy

Though filling homes and apartments with additional community members is typically the goal of housing development, White said B7 Flats is a crucial addition to Eau Claire as the city works to achieve a healthy vacancy rate.

In 2023, White said a local development group conducted a vacancy rate report and found that for multifamily complexes (40 units or more) the rate was “at 1.7% vacant, which is extremely low – a healthy vacancy rate for a community is in the 5-7% (range).”

The solution to reaching a “healthy” vacancy rate, White said, lies not only in the type of housing developed but the location of said housing as well.

“The feedback that we’ve been getting – both from residents who are there and some of the builders who’ve been looking to build in these areas – is (the) conjoining of the walkability and the amenities,” he said.

White said that’s one of the reasons why developments like B7 Flats usually come last – the city has to ensure both the housing and surrounding amenities are attractive to prospective tenants.

“The interest in these spaces has really been wrapped around folks that are looking to kind of have the ability to live and walk around,” he said. “Walk to the little grocery store, walk to the entertainment venues in the downtown, walk to grab a bite at a restaurant, being able to park the car and move as a pedestrian or bicyclist through the downtown area.”

White said he sees those prospective tenants coming from a few subsets of people – including those looking to scale down their current living situation.

“They’ve sold their single-family homes,” he said. “They don’t want to be a property owner anymore. They don’t want to be anchored to a property. They don’t want to have to mess with maintenance and upkeep. So having a two-bedroom or a one-bedroom apartment in a downtown area that’s walkable across a broad section of amenities is very appealing to them.”

The other subset White said he sees potential tenants coming from are people who are able to work remotely.

“We’ve also seen a big uptick in folks that – this was post-pandemic – are (able) to move into this community and work remotely,” he said. “Folks moving from, say, the Twin Cities or wherever – they can keep the salary they collected in the Twin Cities, but they no longer have to be there. So they’re moving into a community that’s relatively close (in) proximity, has a much lower cost of living and they maintain the salary that they got when they’re living in the metro area.”

Complete but never finished

Now that the North Barstow district is fully redeveloped, White said the city and its RDA are looking for more opportunities to increase the vacancy rate and make Eau Claire a desirable place to live.

“Most of the projects they already have done have been in the downtown core, but they’re starting to look broader across the community,” he said.

For more information on B7 Flats or the Eau Claire RDA, visit b7flats.com and eauclairewi.gov, respectively.