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to do some other things along the river, so we’re
going to seriously look at those.”
“Another area we’re looking at is on West Main
Street,” David adds. “We are looking at putting
in a town square with some significant green
space and along that square, a hotel. That is very
big for us. It’s on our radar and we have been
talking to some hotel developers. There’s a lot of
interest, so far. So we want to be the initiator of
some of these projects as a city, because to put
it bluntly, they’re not going to happen unless we
do some things to help them along. And, we are
willing to do that.”
David believes that improvements in the city
will help attract both the new generation of
Millennial workers, as well as their Baby Boom-
er parents. “We’ve got a couple of apartments
downtown that have attracted retired folks who
have sold their homes and moved into these two
new apartment buildings that are right along the
river. And we have had interest from some pri-
vate developers to put in other condos and/or
apartments along the river for the Baby Boomer
who has said, ‘I’m done owning a house; I don’t
want that responsibility and yet, I want to be
downtown.’ And one of the things we have done
which may be more attractive to the Millenni-
als, or some of the young family people, is we
are working very hard to become a bicycle- and
pedestrian-friendly community.”
Jaynellen Holloway,Watertown’s City Engineer,
is tasked with making those initiatives manifest.
She talks about the city’s recent bicycle proj-
ects: “About a year ago, we were seeking a grant
called the Transportation Alternatives Program
(TAP),” she begins. “It allows for funding and
construction for bike paths, walking paths, and
street improvements.We have a group in town
called ‘Share the Road;’ it’s a bicycle group that
came forward and said, ‘We’re looking for ways
that the city can provide routes throughout
the city for bicycle and/or pedestrians.’ From
that we established, through our Public Works
Commission, a bicycle and pedestrian task force
that is working on a master plan.We’re very
fortunate in that we have some county paths
that go through our city; we have some state
trails within reach; and we have an interstate
bicycle path that goes through our city, along
with some smaller trails. On our bicycle task
Watertown, Wisconsin