GREEN BAY - No fewer than seven businesses are renovating, opening or expanding spaces along a 1-mile stretch of Main Street.
The projects include new apartments, a graphic novel shop, a nonprofit cat adoption center, two bar/restaurants, an artist collective and a boutique. Combined, they amount to a rarely seen level of activity in Green Bay's Olde Main Street District, which stretches along Main Street from Monroe Avenue east to Grove Street.
"This is the most robust activity that Olde Main Street has experienced in the last 50 years," Olde Main Executive Director Jeff Mirkes said. "At this time, this volume of activity is remarkable."
The amount of activity also surprised Kelly and Dave Powers, owners of Powers Comics in Ashwaubenon. This winter, the Powers found the right space, at 1228-1230 Main St., for them to open a second store with space for events and products for more casual fans of comic-based franchises like The Avengers. The other side of the building will feature a cat adoption center and pet food pantry focused on older felines called Brewster's Place.
"It made me more excited to open our businesses since I didn't know that so much was going on," Dave Powers said. "I've always been a proponent of small businesses so I get excited to see others opening up. We like to cross-promote a lot, so we plan to talk with others opening up to see if we can work together."
Here's a closer look at the Powers' two new businesses and at the other five projects reinvigorating Olde Main.
Powers East, 1230 Main St.
Powers Comics, the Ashwaubenon shop the Powers' opened in 2007, focuses on hardcore comics fans and delivers a huge variety of old and new comics, graphic novels and more.
Powers East will be a spot for more casual fans who may have found The Avengers through movies rather than monthly comics. There won't be comics at the new location, but there will be gifts, accessories, action figures, graphic novels, posters and T-shirts.
"It's a streamlined version of Powers Comics that caters more to the casual fan than the collector," he said. "The focus fits well with the Olde Main vibe and gives us some room for events and gatherings."
Brewster's Place , 1228 Main St.
In 2012, Kelly Powers adopted a 9-year-old black cat named Brewster. After they had to put Brewster down in 2018, it gave her the idea to launch a "cat cafe" that would introduce families to older cats who often do not get adopted from shelters.
Because of coronavirus, though, the Powers have shifted away from the "cafe" portion and focused more on the cats.
You can still schedule individual appointments to hang with the cats at Brewster's Place, but Powers said she'll focus on adoption and helping make sure shelters and foster families have the food and litter they need to care for adoptable cats in the region.
"I want to take the cats from shelters that are older or who have been at a shelter for a while. You don’t always have to take the kittens home," Kelly Powers said.
The coronavirus pandemic forced the Powers to shift their timetables away from plans to open in mid-May. Now, they say Powers East and Brewster's Place should open some time in June.
Duel Sports Bar & Grill, 1114 Main St.
You won't have to do any dueling if you visit Duel Sports Bar & Grill, 1114 Main St., when it opens in mid-June.
Partners Jeff Zorza and Mike Cain chose the name to refer to the two bars they built in the new bar and grill and an idea they're honing to let bartenders and waitstaff compete with each other on select nights to see which one logs better sales.
The pair want everyone to feel welcome at Duel, so while it is a sports bar, you won't find any one team's memorabilia on the wall. Cain said they want everyone to feel welcome to stop by to try Duel's burgers.
"Its not just going to be sit-around-and-get-drunk kind of place," Cain said. "We want to be family-friendly and interactive. The focus will be on burgers and beers, but the dueling bartenders will be something extra."
Zorza and Cain also want to add an outdoor patio to the building, but it is too soon to tell when that project might begin.
901 Main Apartments, 901 Main St.
Garritt Bader, of GB Real Estate Investments LLC, welcomed the first tenants to the 20-unit 901 Main St. building in January.
As of now, Bader said 13 units in 901 Main have leased and remaining one- and two-bedroom units are available for prices ranging from $895 to $1,050 for a one-bedroom and $1,295 and up for a two-bedroom. The building is pet-friendly, offers some enclosed parking and has two units, totaling 3,100 square feet, of first-floor retail space.
"We're actively working with a group right now on one (retail) space available," Bader said.
Sunrise on Main Boutique, 1244 Main St.
Joan Johnson started Sunrise on Main Boutique and its nonprofit sister business, Reset Life, about 18 months ago, and already she needs more room.
Johnson bought the former Big Tomatoes building at 1244 Main St. and is renovating both the first-floor retail space and a second-floor apartment to create another residence in Olde Main.
Sunrise on Main sells upscale-yet-affordable women's clothing and accessories that are donated to Reset Life. Johnson uses the proceeds from sales at Sunrise to provide support and coaching programs for women "in the middle" who aren't wealthy enough to afford support services but who might not qualify for nonprofit assistance.
Johnson hopes to open in the new location in late May or early June.
RELATED: Sunrise on Main Boutique will expand with move into Big Tomatoes building | Streetwise
Crown & Common, 1139-1141 Main St.
Cyrus Development bought The Standard & Co. bar and the longtime home of Al's Upholstery, which relocated to De Pere, and gutted both buildings.
Kaveh Barakhshan, a partner in Cyrus, said the revamped Standard & Co. bar, 1139 Main St., will reopen as The Crown. The Al's building, 1141 Main St., will be the Common. The two spaces will share a kitchen and The Common will have an outdoor patio added to the building's east facade.
The Common is expected to open first. Renovation of the Crown will take a little longer.
RELATED: What's going on at Al's Auto Upholstery and Standard & Company on Main Street? | Streetwise
SAGE Green Bay, 900 Cedar St.
SAGE stands for "share, accept, grow and encourage," the four hallmarks of this nonprofit group for artists founded by Stacey Burkhart in 2017.
The group had operated out of The Premier, an arts space in the Broadway District, but has found its own space at 900 Cedar St., a co-op space it shares with four small businesses.
SAGE focuses on four things: Supporting artists and creative types in the Green Bay area via social media, hosting fundraising events to help it promote the arts, operating a free studio space stocked with member-donated supplies, and teaching life skills through art classes.
The coronavirus pandemic has forced Burkhart to alter SAGE's plans for the new space, though. The studio space is still available, but you have to book an appointment. SAGE's summer programs will also be offered online only. Burkhart plans to use social media channels to help local artists sell their wares.
Contact Jeff Bollier at (920) 431-8387 or jbollier@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @GBstreetwise.
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