The draft final plan for the riverfront redevelopment that has been six months in the making was unveiled to the public Monday night after two meetings to brief city staff and elected officials on it.
The plan, presented by Eduard Freer and Jon Hoffman of the design firm JJR, envisions a mix of recreation, housing and retail along a new Merrill Parkway built near the Wisconsin River. This parkway would start at a redesigned intersection of Big Eddy Road and East Main Street and enter downtown under the Center Avenue Bridge. It would also transform the gravel pit in the area into a pond that would allow for better storm water control. A hiking trail running along the river would be connected to the parkway in several locations with a pedestrian bridge crossing the river and linking up with a proposed river trail on the south side east of Riverside Park.
Planners first started work on the proposal with a listening session in June where input was taken from city leaders and the public. They refined these ideas and came back in July for input on what they had come up with to that point. Several of the components of the plan were changed from the July version after the input from leaders and citizens, Freer said.
Grants from the state and federal governments along with special interest groups and companies would pay for a large portion of the work. Freer said the city should start implementing the plan as soon as it has been approved by the various city committees and the Common Council in order to start applying for these grants.
“The deadline for a lot of these grants is in April and May,” Freer told the audience. “But you don’t wait until April or May to start the application process.”
Hoffman said there were a couple of known areas in the plan area that had environmental concerns but didn’t foresee any serious problems. The creation of storm water diversion ponds and other methods of lessening the environmental impact on the river by the city would actually be one of the selling points in obtaining grants and could serve to give the area the chance to become an education destination as well.
With some of the property needed for the initiative already in city hands, Hoffman said the city could begin work on the east and west ends of the project immediately. This would spur community and business interest in the project and draw business investment to the project. The city should also move to create a large public gathering space on the west end of the project that would serve as an anchor to downtown and provide an area for concerts and other programming to draw people to the area.
The plan also envisions a year-round resort in the area with programming such as water recreation, bird watching and other outdoor activities tied to Merrill’s historic links to the river. Senior citizen housing and other residential housing would also be programmed into the area as money becomes available.
Manufacturing would remain a key component in the area with light industries with ties to the river, such as canoe and kayak building, or woodworking a natural fit for the area. Retail space could be developed on the west end of the development, tying the area to downtown, as well as in several buildings already in the area, such as the old Page Dairy.
“We don’t know what condition that building is in, we didn’t have the funding to study that in detail,” Hoffman said.
He added that all five of the property owners in the development zone have been willing to talk about the idea of granting easements or access to part of their property to make the plan work.
“They are all shaking their heads, they aren’t crossing their arms,” he said. “They are willing to talk more about the idea.”
Another key to the plan is getting permission from the Railroad Commission and Canadian National to upgrade the two public crossings and put in two more. This would allow the project to become tied to the surrounding neighborhoods better, another key to the ultimate success of the plan. A side benefit would be with improved railroad crossings, it might be possible to get the area declared a quiet zone during the nighttime hours.
“Right now because they are unimproved crossings, trains are required to sound their horns,” Freer said.
Although the plan identifies several places where boat landings could be built on the north side of the river as part of the project, planners realize that due to the shallow nature of the river east of the WPS Dam, traffic would probably be limited to paddle craft such as canoes and kayaks.
“It isn’t about boating but that boating is an element of the plan,” Freer said when someone in the audience brought up that point. “It’s about increasing public access to this important asset, the river.”
Throughout the presentation, images of other riverfront redevelopment projects that JJR had designed in other cities showed what was possible in the area in the way of reutilizing existing buildings for retail space and  various recreation opportunities such as board walks and fishing access points.
The key, Freer said, was to better utilize one of the resources that Merrill has to attract people and businesses to town. He said up until World War II, the Merrill area was busy and prosperous. Since the war something happened to change that and the businesses and industries left the area. He added that while the city may have to spend some public money to match what it receives in grants on the project, it would be an excellent long-term investment in Merrill.
“I don’t want to say no pain, no gain, but I am saying no pain, no gain,” Freer said. “You have to invest in your community to attract new businesses.”
The JJR planners will take the comments, suggestions and other input received at the meetings held Monday and fine-tune the plan so that it can be reviewed – and hopefully endorsed – by the Plan Commission, Redevelopment Authority and Parks and Recreation Committee and then the Common Council. Once it has been approved by the Council and becomes part of the Comprehensive Plan, the members of the steering committee can start working on implementing it. That is when public involvement is even more important.
Freer said as part of the final review, planners will attempt to put a price tag on the main components of the plan and what the city could expect to have to match in various grants. He did say that some of the infrastructure improvements could be paid for by redistributing money from other projects and that Tax Incremental Funds could also be used in the area.
Freer added that creating the entire vision of the redeveloped area in the plan would take over a decade or more and a lot of work on the part of the city, public and area businesses but that several components could be finished in 18-24 months.