Hope sprang anew for two downtown hotels this year. The Green Tree Inn was purchased by local investors, who will re-launch it as a yet-to-be-named boutique hotel in 2015. Meanwhile, JAMF co-founder Zach Halmstad’s Pablo Properties bought the former Ramada Inn & Convention Center, which had previously closed amid financial troubles. With renovated rooms and convention facilities, plus a coffee shop, a farm-to-table restaurant, and a bar, the facility will re-open as the Lismore Hotel next year.

The Confluence Project — a plan to build a community-university performing arts center, a multiuse commercial and residential building, and a public plaza in downtown Eau Claire — passed many milestones in 2014, including a groundbreaking for the multiuse building and gaining support from Gov. Scott Walker. Inarguably the most important hurdles were two referendums on the April 1 ballot. City of Eau Claire voters rejected a referendum designed to stymie public investment in the project, while Eau Claire County voters approved a $3.5 million contribution to the arts center.

UW-Eau Claire English professor Max Garland will conclude a two-year term as Wisconsin poet laureate at the end of 2014. As poet laureate, it has been Garland’s job to promote the importance of the literary arts in general and poetry in particular — something he did by traveling more than 19,000 miles and visiting scores of Wisconsin communities from Door County to Downsville. How much does the state of Wisconsin budget for the poet laureate post?

Beer remained the most popular beverage in the Chippewa Valley for the 169th straight year (and that includes Prohibition). In local brewing news, Jake Leinenkugel announced he was retiring as president of his family’s Chippewa Falls brewing company, while in Eau Claire Lazy Monk Brewing eyed new quarters and Fire House proprietor Will Glass raised money and secured property for the Eau Claire Brewing Projekt, an experimental experimental brewing facility. In addition, Eau Claire’s Infinity Beverages launched a one-of-a-kind product: a whiskey distilled from craft beer made by Sand Creek Brewery in Black River Falls.

2014 was an incredible year for music events in the Chippewa Valley. We’ve got everything from big, sold out theater shows to somebody’s basement to open mics to solid venues. With long-running stuff like our Sounds Like Summer Concert Series, new stuff like Gatsby’s Gala, the scene is stronger than ever. Add to that a hearty dash of future stuff and multiply it by five and you’ve got the proposed Eaux Claires Music and Arts Festival. Dreamed up by Justin Vernon and set in action by the same dudes that put on the like-minded Boston Calling festival, the ambitiously huge two-day event will debut in mid-July on the Country Jam grounds just outside of town.

In addition to fronting an Americana/folk band, the Long Beds, hosting the nationally syndicated Tent Show Radio program, Chippewa Valley author is best known for penning popular memoir-infused works of nonfiction such as Population 485, Truck, Coop, and Visiting Tom.

The restaurant and bar business is about as volatile as the average Wisconsinite’s stomach after a plate of extra-spicy Pad Thai. As dining and drinking establishments close their doors, new joints rise to take their place — and that means that, somewhere in the Chippewa Valley there’s always a new place to check out.

Chippewa Valley author Nickolas Butler hit it big early this year with a debut novel about a quartet of 30-something men — a farmer, a former rodeo rider, a financier, and a rock star — who bonded as youths in the fictional (but very recognizable) Wisconsin burg of Little Wing. The book’s movie rights were snatched up before it was even published, and it became a national best-seller.

Athletes with Eau Claire ties had some notable achievements in 2014. Among other things, former Eau Claire Express pitcher Jordan Zimmermann threw the first no-hitter in Washington Nationals history; Drag’n Thrust, a Twin Cities-based team composed of eight UW-Eau Claire alumni, won the gold medal at the World Ultimate Club Championships in Italy; and Eau Clairians made up two-thirds of the second-place team at the Kubb World Championship, which was held in the lawn game’s birthplace of Sweden.

Well-established Chippewa Valley theatrical troupes were responsible for dozens of successful productions in 2014, ranging from small-scale dramas to full-fledged musicals. New and revived groups stepped onto the stage as well.

A block of 19th- and early 20th-century downtown buildings — including the former Kline’s Department Store and the so-called “mural building” — were demolished this year to make way for the Confluence Project. A more recent but much-beloved former restaurant was razed in 2014 as well, but not before preservationists salvaged the notable architectural feature shown here.

This summer, beloved veteran TV anchorman Jerry Gallagher delivered the news for the last time to a Western Wisconsin audience before moving to a station in his home state of Iowa.

This spring JAMF Software had a brand new riverside building about to open and no art to put in it. Commissioning more than 50 works of art from UWEC students and Chippewa Valley regional artists for its new digs, JAMF — through growing very fast — used the walls of it new headquarters to celebrate the art community in the Valley while also honoring their home of Eau Claire.

In 2014, some standout TV programs matched up a local-driven vibe while maintaining stellar production. The Sue Orfield Show debuted on Chippewa Valley Community Television in late-Spring, featuring tons of local music from Eau Claire’s vast scene, and of course, the invaluable Orfield herself in collaboration with each artist. Meanwhile on Wisconsin Public Television, Around the Farm Table, now in its second season, shows off Wisconsin’s pride by shining a spotlight on Midwestern farmers and artisan food producers practicing sustainable farming practices. Featuring delicious foodstuff as well as top-knotch production, the show is a showcase of the coolest parts of rural Wisconsin.

Tons of local artists had openings all over the state and nationally this year, our local visual arts scene took home many awards and had art up all over town in one of the Valley’s many art galleries on campuses or off. But those were all indoors. The sculpture tour around Eau Claire takes art to the streets by curating a collection of sculptures from the local and national scene and puts them on the sidewalks of Eau Claire.

Besides the Confluence Project, many new projects are afoot in downtown Eau Claire involving both public and private ventures. As in prior years, much of the activity has been in the North Barstow Street neighborhood, where the city hopes to build a new parking ramp beginning next year.