Rob Zaleski: Cottage Grove boxes out big guys
by Rob Zaleski
March 15, 2006
Though it didn't get much fanfare, the fast-growing village of Cottage Grove recently served notice that it's determined to create a new community identity.And that identity does not include a Wal-Mart Supercenter or any other big-box development on its outskirts. "That's not what we want to be," Village President Ken Dahl said on Monday - three weeks after the village board passed an ordinance that calls for a 60,000-square-foot cap on any future retail or entertainment buildings in the sprawling community on Madison's eastern fringe. By taking that bold step, the board also virtually guaranteed that the village won't experience any of the bitter and divisive squabbling that's occurred in Stoughton, Jefferson and Monona ever since Wal-Mart proposed building Supercenters in those communities. But Cottage Grove did have one advantage, notes Dahl, who in his other life is a divisional manager for Madison Block & Stone. Big box developers have yet to express an interest in Cottage Grove, even though the community had a startling 28 percent growth rate in the 1990s and is expected to add another 3,100 residents - boosting its population to about 8,000 - in the next 20 years. So what inspired the ordinance? Just a general feeling that, as it develops over the next decade, Cottage Grove truly wants to be different, says the 50-year-old Dahl, who's lived in the area since the early 1980s and is in his third year as village president. "We're trying to have stores and structures that don't dwarf the scale of the community," he says. "Nothing against other communities, but when you look at Verona and Epic Systems (which is building a massive campus on the city's west side) or DeForest and Windsor with their Walgreen's distribution center - which is about the size of 50 football fields - that's just not what the village of Cottage Grove is looking for. "And it seems like 60,000 square feet is a pretty good number for a cap, because retailers that size have maybe an 8- or 10-mile service area. Which fits perfectly with what we're trying to be. We don't need retailers that have to draw from 50 or 60 miles away in order to be successful." Besides, Dahl adds, if Cottage Grove residents do want to shop at big-box chains, East Towne Mall is just 10 minutes away. Whatever the motivation, the fact that Cottage Grove was eager to make such a statement is not just noteworthy but rather surprising as well, seeing as how the village has never really had much of an identity. Yes, it's a safe, clean community, with an impressive new commerce park and two very nice public golf courses - Door Creek and The Oaks - just outside its limits. But, as even Dahl acknowledged, it's always been perceived as little more than a bedroom suburb and doesn't even have a true downtown. However, that's about to change, says Dahl, who says there's widespread agreement among village leaders that Cottage Grove needs to retain its small-town flavor while, at the same time, transforming itself into one of the most desirable communities in southern Wisconsin. What will Cottage Grove look like a decade from now? Well, for one, it will have an actual downtown, Dahl says - a downtown modeled after the quaint, traditional downtowns of America's past. There will be a mix of offices, restaurants and small retail establishments - all within walking and biking distance of most neighborhoods. (Including the "hybrid" Three Oaks at Schultz Farm subdivision, which is still on the drawing board but will incorporate some of the new urbanist concepts found at Middleton Hills.) There will be a bike trail through the center of town that connects with the Capital City Trail west of the village and the Glacial Drumlin State Trail, which extends eastward to the city of Waukesha. Fireman's Park will double in size - providing that enough private funding can be found - and will include an indoor ice arena, a swimming pool and additional softball and baseball fields. And Commerce Park just off I-94 will have a variety of offices and light-industries that pay decent wages so that residents don't necessarily have to commute to Madison to earn a living. (If high-speed rail between Milwaukee and Madison ever becomes a reality, the village also hopes to provide a bus connection service, probably to the train station in Sun Prairie, Dahl says.) Of course, as Dahl points out, there are no guarantees all of this will happen. But after witnessing what's happened to other communities, he says, Cottage Grove is determined to chart its own course, so that it doesn't become just another nondescript American small town surrounded by big-box retailers. And who knows? If all goes as planned, maybe others will have the guts to follow.
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