Ken Kopp's Closing, and Our Neighborhood

By Jane Riley for the Hornblower

December 26, 2000

Anyone who hasn't heard about Ken Kopp's upcoming retirement and the possibility of Walgreens Drug Store replacing our neighborhood grocery has surely been out of town. Since the public announcement on December 1, the shocked response of area neighbors has been a standing wave in the media and in the "talk on the bus." A lot has been done. Our neighborhood along with Vilas and Regent neighborhoods organized a working committee to respond to the Walgreens proposal for 1864 Monroe Street. Alders Ken Golden and Matt Sloan helped set up a neighborhood meeting to hear the Walgreens proposal and to allow neighbors to offer suggestions to the Walgreens developer. At the request of the working committee, Michael Gay of the city Planning and Development Department's Office of Business Assistance, began to contact local grocers, co-ops and small scale grocers to see if there is any interest in the Ken Kopp's location. There is.

The working committee learned that the Walgreens proposal, which is not yet an official proposal, will require the Plan Commission and the Madison Common Council to approve several permits and two zoning changes.

The interest of some businesses in the Monroe Street location and the fact that the Walgreens proposal is not guaranteed to be approved support the neighborhoods' efforts to pursue an alternative proposal for 1864 Monroe Street. Discussion of alternative proposals was added to the agenda for the Alders' neighborhood meeting, held December 20, at West High School. In spite of a day-long snow storm and the demands of a holiday season, approximately 400 neighbors attended the meeting.

The first half of the meeting began with John Kohler, representative of Semper Development, the Twin Cities developer for Walgreens, and Michael Frame from Walgreens Corporation. John Kohler introduced the Walgreens proposal but emphasized that building design is at the most preliminary stage, and that Walgreens will be very interested in and open to neighborhood suggestions and preferences.

The Walgreens proposal, at this point, is to demolish the current building and build a two-story building of approximately 14,000 sq. ft. (the Ken Kopp's building with laundromat is slightly larger than 10,000 sq. ft.) with one drive-up window. They propose a flexible inventory, based on the decisions of the local manager, and normal (not 24) hours of operation. Walgreens will be a tenant in the building which will be owned, initially, by Semper Development.

The neighbors at the meeting contributed many suggestions: a building smaller than 14,000 sq. ft.; parking behind the store or underground; plenty of bike racks near the door, including covered racks; no blank exterior walls; an obvious door accessible from the sidewalk; windows and signage compatible with the character of the neighborhood; ambient lighting; landscaping that includes open spaces; three store fronts rather than one large store; an inventory of "good" food, not snack food; and, in a moment of hopeful idealism, the elimination of the pharmacy section! It was also suggested that regardless of what construction goes on at this location, this is the perfect time to modify the Harrison Street-Monroe Street corner to include a pedestrian island on Monroe Street. Traffic concerns related to Walgreens and the drive-up window were also expressed, as was concern about competition between a $6 billion corporation and our two independently-owned pharmacies.

During the next half of the meeting discussion focused on possible alternatives to the Walgreens proposal. One alternative that can not be considered is that Ken Kopp continues to own and operate his business. Ken needs and wants to retire. In addition to personal considerations, the store has not been profitable in recent years, and needed renovations and equipment upgrades have been estimated to approach $1 million. The neighbors at the meeting clearly recognized and respect Ken's right to retire and honored Ken with a standing ovation for his years of service to the neighborhood. To assure Ken Kopp of his successful retirement and to assure the continuation of the pedestrian-friendly, human scale, close-knit nature of the neighborhoods in this area, we have the challenge to put together a viable neighborhood alternative proposal for the Ken Kopps location.

We heard several encouraging reports and ideas for the property at 1864 Monroe Street. Michael Gay of the City's Office of Business Development reported that of the 22 grocery businesses he contacted, half a dozen expressed possible interest in the site. Cameron Ramsey, owner of the now-closed Madison Sourdough Company, proposed the idea of an entrepreneurial food mall where food artisans own and operate small, boutique-style shops under one roof. Mr. Ramsey reported three other food business are interested in this idea. Amy Guilliland, who plans to donate $100,000 to the Monroe Street Library, has suggested that a development at 1864 Monroe Street could include the library and that she would be pleased to have her donation applied to a project that would benefit the library and keep a grocery store in the neighborhood. This particular proposal opens up the possibility of developing a mixed-use building that includes underground parking, main floor library space and grocery store space, housing, possibly for seniors, and office space on second and third floors. The last specific proposal of the evening came from Steve McKenzie from Jennifer Street Market. Mr. McKenzie offered a $750,000 investment to open a grocery at 1864 Monroe Street and stressed two points. First is the necessity for the neighbors to support the grocery store on an on-going basis and, second, while $750,000 sounds like a lot of money, it is a small portion of what is needed to successfully put a new grocery business in that location.

These last two points lead us to our next step. The working committee will meet before the end of December to focus the comments from the neighbors who have called, emailed and filled out comment cards. We will coordinate the offers of volunteers and contact consultants to aid our efforts to write a proposal. We will follow up with businesses that expressed interest in the site. Beyond the specific tasks of forming a proposal and coordinating a pledge drive, all neighbors can contribute by supporting the Ken Kopps grocery store as evidence of our need to keep this service in the neighborhood. Some neighbors have expressed the difficulty of shopping within the current store hours (closed at 6pm and not open on Sunday) but this is an operational decision that can be addressed in a new proposal.

I think it is worthwhile to note again that the enormous effort of the neighborhoods to propose a viable alternative to a Walgreens Store is based on our neighborhood need. This area, and Dudgeon-Monroe neighborhood specifically, is a progressive, pedestrian-oriented neighborhood. We have the kind of neighborhood that cities around the country are trying to re-create. This neighborhood offers the benefits of connection: family connection, neighbor-to-neighbor connection, connection to community; that urban planners are calling healthy and successful. The description of this neighborhood can be found by looking up the definition of new urbanism, the progressive neighborhood. Happily the people living in this neighborhood are aware of the benefits of this type of neighborhood. Look at the DMNA Long Range Plan (at our website) to see how people reinforce the need to preserve our identity. The fierce reaction to a Walgreens Store coming to this neighborhood does not come from the name of the company but from the fear that a huge, wealthy corporation has no connection to the daily needs of the area it serves. This neighborhood is all about connection. Our response to Walgreens should be no surprise.

The DMNA home page at www.dmna.org will provide updates on this situation. If you do not have access at a computer at home and cannot get to the one at the Monroe Street Library, call Jane Riley, 238-6824, and ask to be put on a mailing list.

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Last Modified: 22-Apr-08 12:30 PM

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