HERE’S HOW TO MAKE 100 BIKE RACKS DISAPPEAR
By Michael Burke

Journal Times Online, WI
Sept 14 2005

Last time in this column, I contended that very few area businesses
bother courting bicyclists as shoppers or commuters. If you have no
bike rack, you’re essentially pulling up the welcome mat for anyone
who’d ride a bike to your shop.

Cathie Barton’s son and his friend learned a hard lesson last year at
the former Country Market grocery store on Racine’s south side. With
no bike rack there, the boys locked their bikes together, then went
in to pick up a few groceries for Barton of Racine.

You can guess what happened next. Two other teen-age boys hopped on
the two locked bikes and rode off together.

“My son’s bike was never recovered, and although the thieves were
apprehended, restitution is extremely unlikely,” Barton said.

She concluded that a future consumer learns certain lessons from that
experience, and they include: “As long as we have to get in the car,
we may as well go to a different store.”

In a related (non)development … months ago we should have seen
up to 100 new bike racks installed around the Racine community. But
we’re still waiting for the first one to see daylight; they’re all
in city storage.

Late last year Sustainable Racine put up $7,800 for 100 bike racks.
The fund is created by the annual All Saints Healthcare System
golf outing.

There was also an early effort, with a Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin
representative, to find good sites for the racks. About 30 were
designated for the Downtown area, said Jeff McDorman, Racine manager
of recreation and cultural services.

Other racks were to go along the bike paths, North Beach, parks
and golf courses, Gateway Technical College, the boat launch, the
skateboard park and numerous other sites. Up to one-quarter of the
sites haven’t yet been determined, McDorman added.

The racks were shipped to the city in about April. So far they’re
as useful as a paper bike in the rain, because they’re still sitting
there.

The first snag stemmed from the rack’s shape, an inverted U. That’s
different than the stylish kind called for in the Downtown
Redevelopment Plan. Because of that discrepancy, nothing happened,
in spring or summer.

“We had intended to roll them all out together,” said Donnie Snow,
director of the city parks department – and himself a bicyclist.

Apparently, no one in the city parks department called Downtown Racine
Corp. to discuss the divergence in rack styles. DRC Executive Director
Devin Sutherland didn’t even know the racks existed until about two
weeks ago.

“I can’t think this ought to be something we get stuck on,” he said.

“Why the city placed an order that was inconsistent with the plan,
and why they were not shipped back directly, I don’t understand,”
Sutherland added.

Nor had he seen the plan for where the Downtown racks are to go. DRC
wouldn’t mind being brought in on that, either.

Bonnie Prochaska, executive director of Sustainable Racine, wants to
see the racks put out. “We’ve lost a whole season,” she noted.

Snow said he’s given his staff an ultimatum to get some racks
installed ASAP.

As they say in pool, “Rack `em up!” New blood

for Downtown The new owner of a Downtown storefront is keeping so
mum about his plans, he hasn’t even told his wife.

In fact, Michael Kademian of Milwaukee is not so sure himself what
he’ll end up doing with 407 Sixth St.

Its former owner is Rick DiBlasio, stained-glass-window repairman
par excellence. He has built a larger wholesale repair studio outside
of Downtown.

Kademian, 58, is a former physician. “I was looking for a second home
in Racine,” he said. “I like Racine and I like the beach.”

At first he was looking for a small second home here. Instead,
Kademian wound up buying this building, whose second floor will serve
as a vacation home.

The self-described preservationist’s first task will be to refurbish
the building, to make the first floor look as authentic as possible
to its 1875 roots.

But good luck pinning him down on what kind of business it’ll house
with Kademian as owner-operator. “I sort of know,” he said, “but I
don’t have to decide right now.” He insisted his idea hasn’t even
left his head and traveled as far as his wife’s.

The idea could evolve or even change, Kademian added. But he promised
he won’t just stick something static like an office into the storefront
– it’ll be something that’ll contribute activity to Downtown.

Kademian’s Armenian great-grandfather immigrated to this country
and landed in Racine. “It’s kind of like coming full circle,”
Kademian said.

Better than average The third Average Joe’s Gym, a smallish workout
place aimed at baby boom-era men, will open soon at Shorecrest Shopping
Center, 3900 Erie St.

The first opened in Burlington and the second in Mount Pleasant on
Commerce Drive.

All are owned by members of the same family. The new one is 75 percent
owned by former Racinian Karyne Jensen Madden. It will be run by her
“ex-sister-in-law’s new husband.” Got that? Average Joe happens to
be settling in next to a Curves, which sort of caters to the same
population, but the opposite gender.