In some ways, Uptown Racine may be the Downtown Racine of 15 or 20 years ago: dimmed by economic forces that had passed it by; and largely unloved.

But about a decade ago, attention and efforts were focused on lifting Downtown’s fortunes, and today it is a vastly different place.

Uptown may be at that same starting line today. But in this case, the methodology for trying to reverse its decline will be different and can be described in one word: artists.

It began when Mayor Gary Becker read an article in the U.S. Conference of Mayors magazine. The article described how a small Kentucky city with the American Indian-derived name of Paducah had transformed a dismal area by bringing in artists to live and work there. Becker thinks Racine can do it too, in Uptown, by recruiting artists for the area.
“You’ve got to find your niche,” he said. “We don’t need to expand Uptown into another Downtown.”
First Becker took a small delegation to Paducah to see how that city cured a formerly miserable area by turning it into an artists’ zone.

Thursday he took another step by hosting two key officials involved in the Paducah effort. As they walked through Uptown, both Tom Barnett and Mark Barone said their successful experiment could work here.

“When you turn these places around, you’re not going to do it with locals,” said Barone, who ran Paducah’s artist relocation program.

Local people, said Barone, who has since joined Syracuse University, have an ingrained attitude that a certain area is mostly beyond hope and is one to avoid moving into.

Artists bring several traits desirable for urban renewal, he explained. First, they have the vision to invest in a poor area and can imagine it in a sparkling new light.

Also, artists can sell their work in many ways and places, so they’re not tied to a geographic area.
And their own work becomes an attraction for shoppers. So, while artists are bettering a neighborhood as residents, they’re also bringing in outsiders.

“We were trying to make a national cultural destination,” Barone said.
“With artists, you get more bang for the buck. They generate tourism, because people want to see what they’ve got.”

Worse than Uptown
Barone and Barnett say Uptown has the potential to emulate the Paducah model. In fact, before the artist program started in 2000, they said the approximately 30-square-block Lowertown area of Paducah was much worse than what they saw in Uptown Thursday.

They described Lowertown as an area of 70 percent rental housing, a public housing project, drug-dealing, booze and a porn shop. Housing was so dilapidated that, in the beginning, the city was paying $5,000-$10,000 for the ones it wanted torn down or rehabbed by artists.

But Paducah officials don’t get them that cheaply anymore, because property values have climbed dramatically. The city’s $1.2 million investment over five years has brought in $25 million in direct investment.

Now the city pays about $50,000-$60,000 for the worst properties, said Paducah Planning Department Director Barnett. Then it usually it gives them to the artists who have been lined up with loans to rehab the houses.

Becker and Racine Corridor Specialist Kristin Niemiec said Racine is already considering buying certain Uptown properties to grease the wheels for a local program.

Niemiec also met Friday with a group of bankers, hoping to get them involved.

Paducah, a city of 26,300 people, was able to carry out its program with just a single bank pledging a $1 million loan fund.

“The truth is: They didn’t think they were going to make their first loan,” Barone said.
But what happened was that Paducah, advertising nationally for artists, started getting very
qualified loan applicants. And the bank started making the loans. “They went through their first $1 million in probably three or four months,” Barone said.

Things were happening in Lowertown.

A failed attempt
Earlier, in the late 1970s, Paducah tried to revive Lowertown by making it a historic housing district. “It did nothing,” Barnett said.

In fact, when those homeowners sold and left, they sold their houses to people of limited means. Some were buying two or three houses as rentals — when they couldn’t even keep up one house properly.
Now, Barnett estimates that Lowertown’s home ownership has climbed to nearly double the 30 percent rate of 2000.

Thursday, as the Paducah visitors admired Uptown’s architecture along Washington Avenue. At one building Barone remarked, “It’s a great structure — it’s just in the wrong place.”

In other words, it’s not located in an artist colony — yet.

Barnett said Paducah made sure its building inspection program clamped down on housing violations. “That’s a killer for a neighborhood and a city.”

When it went after the building owners, some repaired their buildings and others sold them. The city was satisfied either way.

Looking at the commercial Uptown buildings, Barone said, “I would want to acquire as many as possible, do the facades and gut them.”

He talked about how cafes, galleries, eclectic shops and night life can sprout from an artist program.

Getting started
“The hardest part is getting the first five” artists, Barone said, “so you can get the next five.”
Barnett said a little patience is required, because change doesn’t happen overnight. But it didn’t take very long, either.

“We knew at about Year 3,” he said, that a noticeable revival was under way.

“We thought if we could get 10, 12 or 15 artists, it would be fantastic,” Barnett said. “We were at about 70 at Year 5. Now we’re at about 80.”

“It was beyond our wildest dreams after five years, and it continues to grow.”

If a revival program built on the backs of artists works for Uptown — and there doesn’t seem any reason it should not, “With the art influence, (the area) will somewhat return to what it was in previous years,” said Uptown Business Association President Wally Madsen. He meant small shops and a greater mix of businesses.

“Absolutely,” Barnett agreed. “Livable neighborhoods.”

Becker said the effort will start here “as soon as we get the banks.”

At least one artist is already a believer, even before the Uptown effort formally exists. Suellyn Woodall is looking at Uptown buildings where she could work and live as a pioneer in the future artist colony.
“I could count on one hand,” she said, “how many cities in the United States do this for artists.”
It appears that Racine could soon be in that select group.