La Crosse business district fundraising to re-brand as Uptowne

Old Towne North running Kickstarter campaign
to raise $22,000 for nationally-known city planners

The North La Crosse business district is using the Kickstarter approach to help re-brand itself.

Plans for promoting the ‘Uptowne’ concept could hinge on whether $22,000 is raised through an on-line fund drive, which goes through Wednesday.

Organizer Andrew Londre says they’re almost halfway to that goal.

“We’ve got another $1,000 commitment from an uptown entrepreneur,” Londre said. “So we’re just at about 10,000, maybe a little bit over that.”

Londre adds that money would be used to bring in some nationally-known city planners to help local residents work on ways to improve the north-side neighborhood.

“So we’re going to bring all those people in – around a dozen or so – and we’re going to be engaging a really, really large group of neighbors and business owners and every other stakeholder group we can get our hands on,” Londre said.

The Kickstarter campaign offers various incentives for donors to give large amounts of money.

Londre says La Crosse residents are used to seeing “study committees” that spend months looking at a problem, followed by a report that gathers dust.

The city also has tried the “charette” process, which involves a brief and intense comment period.  Londre tells us this is a third approach.

“It’s more along the charette time frame, but it’s actually going to be more citizen led,

community led with expert assistance,” Londre said.