City Council Approves Mixed-Use Building on Downtown Parking Lot

council members call on developer to protect outdoor patios for Galloway Grille, Scooters

Tom Giffey |

An artists' rendering of the proposed Andante mixed-use development, which would be built on the so-called Railroad Lot in downtown Eau Claire. (Source:
An artist’s rendering of the proposed Andante mixed-use development, which would be built on the so-called Railroad Lot in downtown Eau Claire. (Source: Slingshot Architecture / Merge)

The Eau Claire City Council unanimously approved a zoning change and site plan necessary to build a five-story mixed use building along the Eau Claire River at 100 N. Farwell St., a site now known as the Railroad Lot.

The proposed building, known as Andante, would be built by Iowa-based Merge Urban Development, which last year entered into an agreement with the city to develop the property.

The development’s name, Andante, means “a moderately paced walking tempo,” a reference to both Eau Claire’s musical culture the walkable nature of downtown.

The City Council voted on the measure at its Aug. 11 meeting.

The proposed development would included 8,600 square feet of first-floor commercial space (suited for a restaurant, service businesses, or retail), and 76 residential units in the 54,000 square feet on the higher floors, plus surface parking. According to documents submitted by the developer to the city, “The project is intended to provide more housing options in the downtown area, particularly for young professionals and empty nesters, while helping to activate the space along the river.”

The development’s name, Andante, means “a moderately paced walking tempo,” a reference to both Eau Claire’s musical culture the walkable nature of downtown.

The patio areas in the back of the 600 block of Galloway Street.
The patio areas in the back of the 400 block of Galloway Street, which are used by patrons of Galloway Grille and Scooters, and which border the Railroad Lot. (Photo: Andrea Paulseth)

While it has been in the works for a year, the project recently spurred an online petition drive, which attracted more than 3,000 signatures, asking the city to preserve outdoor patio space for two nearby businesses, Galloway Grille and Scooters Bar (which are located at 409 and 411 Galloway St., respectively). The businesses’s co-owner, Jody Kvapil, and the building’s owner, John Mogensen, have said that the possibility of losing the patios (which are on city-owned land that is being sold to Merge) and adjacent parking spaces would be detrimental to the businesses.

Scott Allen, the city’s community development director, said that negotiations between Merge and Kvapil and Mogensen were ongoing and that progress was being made to accommodate the latter parties’ needs.

At the Aug. 11 meeting, Council members Jeremy Gragert and Andrew Werthmann introduced an amendment to the rezoning proposal that called on Merge to “show continued attempts to reach an agreement with the property owner and the tenant” as well as to include sidewalk access to the patios. The amendment, as well as the zoning change and site plan, received unanimous council approval.

“Because we had so much community interest in this project, we have a better project,” Werthmann told the council just before the vote.