Late last July, Taylor Beebe began planning for her new restaurant, a small fries shop among State Street’s well-known stretch of restaurants and specialty stores. By the end of the year, Mad City Frites was open, offering Belgian-style fries to the daily shoppers and stoppers through Madison’s commercial center.
Nine months later, Beebe, the 23-year-old owner and manager of Mad City Frites, stood before the Madison Common Council, hoping to secure an alcohol license for her restaurant. That meeting broke out in a charged debate, one that started on Beebe’s restaurant and ended in an argument over the decline of retail and the future of State Street.
“We’re going to end up, if we don’t do something, like Bourbon Street and other streets in this country that are predominantly entertainment,” Madison Mayor Paul Soglin said in opposition to granting an alcohol license. “This license adds one more nail to the coffin of retail on State Street and [Capitol] Square.”
In spite of a 19-1 vote in favor of the license, Soglin vetoed Mad City Frites’ license the following day, citing a steady decline of retail on State Street.
“Through … the continued approval of individual liquor [and] beer licenses, we see the waste of taxpayers’ investing over $60 million over five decades in a district designed to serve urban retail,” Soglin said in a press release accompanying the veto.
The balance of retail stores, services and restaurants has been changing since 1998, according to the 2014 State of Downtown report. The report, published annually by Downtown Madison Inc., is based on information collected by the city from downtown store owners.
According to the report, retail and specialty stores composed 50 percent of State Street’s business mix in 1998 and only 27 percent in 2014. Meanwhile, restaurants and taverns barely shifted, with their share of State Street inching one percent higher during the same timeframe.
Service businesses like gyms and salons were approximately 12 percent of the downtown’s total business in 1998, and now make up 34 percent of downtown’s storefronts.
Downtown Madison Inc. president Susan Schmitz said State Street has always changed, and this decline in retail is just another example of State Street’s evolution.
“State Street’s changed over the years and will continue to change,” Schmitz said. “It adapts to its uses and the users.”
Those users are partially driving the change, according to Schmitz. As retail shifts toward online, State Street’s primary consumers are changing as well.
“It’s adapting to the needs of the young professionals and empty nesters who are interested in an urban environment and are moving downtown,” Schmitz said. “These folks want entertainment venues, and to them, entertainment is restaurant.”
Certain city officials, such as Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, are looking for other ways to encourage retail on State Street. Verveer and Soglin recently introduced a grant program to help retail businesses pay for renovations in the hope of attracting more retail owners.
“Generally, landlords are able to attract higher rent from establishments that have alcohol service,” Verveer said. “If we can help level the playing field just a bit and make a difference for someone thinking about opening a new business, I’m glad we can have the opportunity to do that.”
The Common Council is expected to override Soglin’s veto on Mad City Frites’ alcohol license during its Sept. 15 meeting.
