All right, so I'm Christopher Stark,
and we're here today in Phelps, Wisconsin, again
for the Vilas Vision Leadership class.
So economic development in the arts
and most of you, of course, all of you
are from Vilas County with some exceptions
that are up here.
So please enjoy what I've come to call
the story of Phelps.
Sit back and enjoy.
This is downtown Phelps,
and there's one thing that's missing from that
right now that you know locally,
and what is that?
So that picture's just a little bit outdated now,
isn't it?
So that's how it looked just about a year ago.
This picture is about a year old.
I'm a big fan of maps,
and in all my reports I put maps to
identify where we are
because you never know where the audience is from.
Where they're gonna be from or whatever,
and so maps showing Vilas County.
And where the town of Phelps is located
in Vilas, and that's right, in the state of Wisconsin.
We're right up here against the upper peninsula.
And if you go just a few clicks down the road here,
we're almost to this yellow star right here
at the Phelps Accelerator Building.
That yellow star signifies what has really come to
be known as downtown Phelps unincorporated.
If you go about five to six miles to the east
on Route 17, you're in the upper peninsula of Michigan.
If you look up here, you're at Lac Vieux Desert
on the state line.
Most of you know that already, but what is that?
[crosstalk] That's right.
It's the head waters of the Wisconsin River.
So it all starts right here in Vilas County
and it all starts right here in the town of Phelps.
Another shot of downtown Phelps,
and it's only really two blocks long.
But the community approached me
and at that time, in 2012,
the Town Chair for Phelps
and the County Supervisor from Phelps
approached me three years ago,
and said, "Our downtown is dying.
"It's a decaying downtown. It's been in stagnation
"for a long period of time. What can we do
"to help improve the community development of Phelps?"
And of course, at that time,
I was fairly new here in the northwest.
I didn't have a clue.
I said, "Let's look at the situation."
And so asked to take on that role,
we're gonna show you some of the things
that I decided to do, and then I'll also show you
at the end some of the things that I would do differently.
As this whole thing was certainly very much
a learning process for me in
the community development steps.
So the first thing I did.
Now I'm going to show you more statistics here,
so I don't want the glazed over look.
This actually tells a story here.
This is Phelps going back 100 years.
This community has lived and died with the lumber mill.
Lumbering was everything up here in Phelps.
1910, it used to be called Hackley, by the way,
in its first few years of existence.
In 1910, here's the population of Phelps
abut 800 and something.
By the way, that's the same size as Land O'Lakes right now.
And that's got a fairly thriving downtown
as we saw earlier this morning.
But it's ramping up.
1920, 1930.
And look at this, 1930s.
What's happening in the 1930s nationwide?
The Great Depression is going on,
but look at Phelps.
Their greatest growth spurt occurring right here
1930 to 1940.
Look at that; their population increases that much.
The most people that they've ever had
was in 1940.
Their greatest growth spurt was during
the Great Depression.
Phelps during the Great Depression,
75-80 years ago, was absolutely booming right here.
And again it was almost all because of the lumber mill
in this community.
If we look now, what's happened then,
is that lumber mills started to lay off
in the 40s and after World War II,
not because of the war necessarily.
I'm sure the war actually generated
a lot of jobs, but 1950, so by 1960,
and the Historical Society tells me that
the lumber mill went out of business in 1958.
There by 1960 it's down to this,
and by 1970, we're back to the population
we were at in 1910.
So again, the community more or less,
lived and died with the lumber mill.
But Phelps has still got a lot of things going on in 1970.
They have a couple of...
where you sell cars, whatever they call that.
Dealership. Thank you.
Working on my English.
Dealerships. They have a lot of businesses.
Many people remember a lot of businesses in 1970.
And 1980, it starts to grow again
during the period of the 70s.
By 1980, by 1990,
it's during the 80s, it's kind of
stayed stagnant but it's held its own.
As we go from 1990 to 2000, the population
is increasing significantly,
but with a little bit of a different twist this time.
Now most of the population is much older than it used to be
and it doesn't quite have the younger,
these are people moving up here that
no longer have kids,
and it's a big concern to the school district here
in Phelps which is, I'm told, at least tied for
the smallest school district in the state.
K through 12, approximately 134-144 students.
You do the math.
2000-2010 you see the drop in population right there.
And again the community fathers and the planning commission
were very concerned about this.
So that the average age by 2010 right here
in Phelps is 55.4.
And now that we're in 2015, it's only gone up
a little bit since then.
All right.
This is the situation of Phelps three years ago, in 2012.
They had just lost 76 jobs at
the Lillian Kerr Healthcare facility which
is just a quarter of a mile down the street.
And those were good paying jobs too.
In a community of 1200 and just lost 76 jobs.
Right after that, certainly the only bank
in downtown closed.
And what remained in the downtown
essentially was just seven businesses
and these were really not all full time businesses.
They were part time businesses.
A total of eight jobs in Phelps.
By the way, some of those are right now
in this building, so technically they're not downtown.
So we have the barber shop next door,
she's part time but she has moved into there
because one of those buildings was
declared unsafe to be downtown.
The Chamber of Commerce now located here
was formerly downtown.
Economic activity at the time in 2010,
I can get this from the 2010 census,
that Phelps was capturing only 1.4% of
all the retail activity in the county.
What's significant about that is
their population is a lot more than the 1.4%.
And this is a tourist county,
so that retail activity matters quite a bit.
When I showed this to the Planning Commission of Phelps
there was a lot of comments but they had to see this.
The goal is to improve this gradually,
so that by 2020, we hope it's on the upswing,
but we'll see.
Here's some of the recent
community development efforts here.
In July of 2012, this is just the background as I mentioned,
I was approached by the County Supervisor,
the Chair of the Planning Commission
and the Town Chair to improve the downtown.
In October, again being fairly new at
community development,
a lot of background in economic development,
I suggested interviewing a sampling of
residents from the community.
And I would emphasis to all of them,
not just people who are your friends,
because I wanted people of different opinions
to weigh in on this and to their credit,
indeed they did that.
So in November and December three years ago,
I was essentially interviewing along with
at that time, you heard the name Ken Stuby earlier today.
Ken was the Economic Development Director of the county
for the first couple of years that they had
an economic development program.
He's been gone approximately three years now
from the program.
But I interviewed about 35 people
and Ken interviewed about seven
and then I also did a focus group
with the entire senior class of Phelps High,
all ten of them.
[laughter]
But you get a lot of results
and we'll show some of those results here.
And these were the questions that I asked them.
First, because we don't have
a grocery store here in Phelps,
we don't have very many things in downtown at all.
So which shopping products do you need most
that you wish were available in Phelps?
And there you go.
Most of them were groceries and hardware.
The importance of those and pharmacy a bit.
Where do you currently shop for groceries?
No surprise.
Overwhelmingly most of them in Eagle River.
Most people are going to either the Pick 'n Save
or the Trig's in Eagle River.
You can see that some,
probably on the Eastern edge, go into Iron River.
And then a couple of them go to Land O'.
And what is Phelps' greatest asset?
According to them, not me now.
And it's lakes really with most referring to North Twin.
A beautiful asset of North Twin Lake here.
That's right across the street.
How do we develop downtown Phelps?
Demolishing the Big Store
and making facade improvements
along with the importance of a grocery store.
They factor in very heavily,
but I also really want you to focus on that
demolishing of the Big Store
because even though that doesn't show up
in overwhelming numbers here with my statistics,
that came up in conversation over and over again.
And I think it had been here so long,
the Big Store had been here 110 years in this community,
that I think it got to be in its last 20 years,
as you know, it didn't look very attractive,
and it was not structurally sound enough for
the Historical Society to capture funds and be rebuilt,
so the Big Store would show up very big
in subconscious or in the psyche of
many Phelps residents.
What should be the brand for Phelps?
I was looking for something and to see if
there was any consistency in there
and most of them and Phelps on the Lake
there was nothing that was a clear winner here.
This question was totally unnecessary.
I didn't have to ask it at all.
I just wanted to know what
people thought of their community.
What the Phelps residents thought of their town.
And the extreme answers when I asked this,
"What year was Phelps at its peak?"
ranged from 1920 to the present.
Somebody had the nerve to say the present
when I asked that question.
But the average of those who answered it,
not all 42 maybe perhaps 30 or 32 answered the question,
was 1967.
So you see that they believe the peak of their community,
there was a sense that it was in the past.
So I asked, "What are your hobbies and interests?"
because I wanted to know essentially
what can you do without directly asking them this,
what can you do to contribute to
the community development of your town.
Apparently, everybody in the community is a carpenter.
[laughter]
But also that speaks to
the employment statistics will bear that out
the census statistics because those involved in
the building industry is twice as high as
the state average, Wisconsin.
And that's because of our...
[inaudible]
Lumbering, yes, but seasonal homeowners especially.
They have a lot, in many cases,
bring in a lot more income
and they always want an addition put on
or some of the builders that are here
right in the community, John Volkman,
very well known among others here.
And a lot of their work is with the seasonal homeowners
that are up here.
Another thing that I focused on was this:
Maple syrup production, honey production.
A lot of people producing these.
Agribusiness and culinary arts.
They're all linked together right here.
Cooking and wine.
All of those go together even plant genetics.
And what we call culinary tourism.
Culinary tourism essentially the foodies.
People spend a lot of money to come to an area
and purchase foods that are unique to a given area.
And so saw this right here
and started thinking about developing that.
Now I also mentioned that I did a focus group of
the senior class of Phelps High.
I won't revisit all the questions that I asked them
in approximately an hour to an hour and 1/2 session here.
But essentially asking them,
ten is not a huge sample obviously,
but six out of ten
in the senior class at Phelps High indicated
that they would stay or come back to Phelps
if there were suitable jobs in the community,
and so I think that was an important message.
And which shopping products,
they had a little bit of a different take.
They didn't care as much about the grocery store
but certainly video games.
That was very important,
so it's interesting to collect that input.
Now as I mentioned, I really started to focus
on the Big Store because, as you can see here,
the Big Store, and Matt, I think this is the first time
you've seen this,
really had gotten so it was not very attractive.
And this picture was taken right where we were
a few minutes ago.
There's nothing there now obviously,
but to tell the story of the Big Store
It had...
It's been up here, this was the Big Store in 1905
so it first went up about 110-115 years ago.
Then called Hess and Evenson and it's been added on to
since a little bit.
It's much bigger than that before it was torn down.
From the shores of the lake,
again about 110 years ago when Phelps was called Hackley.
This is all courtesy of the Historical Society.
And this picture was taken, if you can tell me what year,
can anybody tell me what year the automobile is?
I'm not sure.
I'm actually estimating about 1940
because I think this is when Phelps
was just about at its peak as we mentioned.
You can see all the workers lined up
in front of the big store right there.
[inaudible]
Not that I'm aware of.
I don't know what they're doing here.
I don't think they're demonstrating.
It may be a very good thing.
They just may be lined up to get their picture taken.
- That sign says something that says C I C.
- Okay. All right.
Further investigation required.
We'll get the microscopes.
But this picture was taken,
I estimate about 75-80 years ago,
so about 1935-1940.
I can work further with the Historical Society
and try to pin a more exact date down.
But you see all the workers in front of the Big Store.
Both of them how important it was to the community
and get a sense from this picture of
the importance of the factory
and the mill town at that time.
This is some academic research.
And yes, I did a fair amount on
behalf of Phelps at that time
to see essentially how do you solve this dilemma
of the downtown and how do you improve the downtown.
I was trying to educate myself.
So after doing much academic research
and the interviews, etc.,
I guess I kind of created this
and felt that the big picture view,
the 3,000-foot level looking at Phelps was this.
There were three keys to success.
And the first being expertise.
We just didn't have a lot of expertise in
community and downtown development.
Had a lot of very intelligent people
and creative people in the community.
Not a lot of experience in downtown development.
Secondly, well let's skip the next one
and go to financing.
Important to have a financier and those with money to
make private investment in the downtown.
But the one that I came to believe was really
the most important thing above all
was building a guiding coalition and
that hadn't happened really since
about approximately half century since
the lumber mill had closed.
There hadn't been anybody who had
really addressed this issue well.
The planning commission and those individuals,
the Town Chair, etc., at that time were doing
a good job and doing the best that they could.
But building a guiding coalition is all about leadership.
It speaks to that, and if you've built the right coalition
you can do quite a bit in addressing
your community's downtown efforts.
So you can see that we had big meetings there.
At this one there were approximately 200 people.
That's community member discussing
the economic future of the community.
This was in January, actually a year ago this month.
And some of the community improvement strategies
that we came up with together,
where the first one was the Connect Communities.
Phelps, I felt, had to get involved in the
Connect Communities program which is
really a main street program for smaller towns.
They had to have the benefit of expertise.
Certainly more expertise than I have
in downtown development,
but those they get new ideas generated, the state.
The Grocery Store Task Force hasn't happened,
but we'll talk about that a little bit more.
And the Tourism Strategy, Celeste is not here at the moment,
but the tourism strategy we're continuing to work on.
When working with the lodge owners,
between the Chamber and the lodge owners,
but just something like collecting zip code statistics
would tell us where are these tourists coming from
and then we get information on where can we target.
Should we target our efforts to Chicago?
Should we target our efforts to Milwaukee?
Maybe all of the above.
But a little bit of tourism and creative place making.
Remember the culinary tourism?
All that honey and
maple syrup and all that activity.
Have somebody out here teach us culinary classes
at Nicolet College.
In Phelps somebody is growing wine right now
in the community.
Wine that can grown in colder weather
and all of these things help develop the community.
Trail development has become very important too
for both bicycle trails and now Phelps has ATV trails
in the past year, year and a 1/2.
All of those will help contribute money
to the downtown.
Thirdly, the Facade Squad was kind of an idea
in addressing, remember all those carpenters before?
All those people involved in carpentry that
why not tap their talent with a little local Facade Squad?
Now it turns out that this set off a buzz
the Facade Squad and the culinary tourism
but the Facade Squad has gotten bypass
because the Big Store was torn down
and that was one of the main places
that we were gonna start, right there.
But that's okay that it's been torn down though.
All right, so here's a little bit on the culinary tourism.
There's a maple syrup fest every year here in April.
And then this is a little bit about the trails
in Phelps here, and at that time was Town Chair of
Phelps, Collin Schuck, I worked with.
What became very important for us to
get private investment in the downtown,
and that hadn't happened in years in Phelps.
And I hope that I gave it a boost a little bit.
I certainly couldn't purchase anything.
I didn't have the financial wherewithal to do that.
But in August of 2014, I made a presentation to
the planning commission and a few other people.
There were about 22 people present, that's all, in the room,
and I really addressed the issue of the Big Store
and felt that the whole psychology of the community
would improve if we could actually tear down the Big Store.
And this was not a news flash to anybody in Phelps.
I think they all agreed but it was the first time that
they had heard it from somebody from
the outside the community.
And so I looked that they were all listening
to that very carefully.
And so just two months later,
we had, as you heard Carl, Carl Roudebush,
the chairman of our economic development corporation.
He was not in the audience that night
but certain Barry was who was here earlier
and our economic development director, Bob Egan, were.
They were listening very carefully,
and Carl purchased the Big Store
and that was in October of 2014,
and by July of 2015, eight months later,
nine months later, I guess that is,
the Big Store was no more.
It was torn down.
A big step, and I think that most people in Phelps
are very happy about that.
An example of private investment downtown,
this is the ice cream shop now in Phelps.
I am sorry I don't have a before picture
of this building because it was kind of
an unattractive two-toned brown building,
but when they bought it,
they changed the appearance of it,
and I've tried to get in there.
I've been in there before, but I try to get in there this past
4th of July when I was here for the events.
I tried to get in there three times and couldn't do it.
That's how busy they are.
They're not open this time of the year,
but I think April 1st to October 31st is when they're open,
but they're doing a terrific business in the community.
And of course, this is where we are today.
This is some of the private investment in Phelps
The Accelerator right here.
And as I mentioned, I would talk about what I learned
about my community development experiences,
and what I would do differently.
And I may have the opportunity in Land O'Lakes coming up.
We'll see.
As they want me to get involved in there,
but essentially the whole,
I'm glad that I did what I did with
the one-on-one interviews, and you learn a lot,
but my approach would be different
and I would in this instance, there was a little bit
too much of what I thought of,
in other words what Chris thought of,
and not enough involvement with the community.
There should be more with a wider involvement
of more community participants.
And less of what ideas that I'm coming up with.
And that's probably the single most important thing.
You've got to have buy-in from the community
to make a community development investment happen,
and so part of the guiding coalition.
And that's it.
Do we have questions.
[applause]
Thank you very much.