Coping with Northwoods economic change

Three Lakes connects to enliven its downtown

Three Lakes, a Wisconsin Northwoods town with an economy historically rooted in tourism, found itself challenged over time by economic change and a pair of downtown fires.

“We’ve turned from a tourism economy to a second-home community,” says Jacqui Sharpe, president of Downtown Three Lakes Rocks, a group formed with help from the Three Lakes Community Foundation and the UW-Extension Wisconsin Design Team program to promote central business district development.

That economic change upended how Three Lakes does business. “Second-home owners don’t spend the same way transient tourists, who turn over every week, do,” says Sharpe. “Waterfront properties that were once resorts have now become private homes and have driven up the cost of land. It changed the business landscape slowly over the last few decades.”

Amid that change, Three Lakes lost two popular downtown businesses to fires in 2019. First, fire claimed the Three Lakes Diner. Then, a month later, the Oneida Village Inn burned. As the community struggled with those realities, Downtown Three Lakes Rocks in 2021 turned to WEDC’s Connect Communities Program to seek pathways to growth and knowledge sharing.

Tapping downtown expertise

Joining Connect Communities gave Downtown Three Lakes Rocks access to access webinars, workshops, and roundtables. The program allows participants to share ideas, discuss what works, and identify pitfalls to avoid as they work toward their goal of breathing new life into Wisconsin’s downtowns.

Jacqui Sharpe, president of Downtown Three Lakes Rocks

“I think the biggest thing with Connect Communities has been realizing we don’t need to reinvent the wheel,” says Sharpe. “There is someone else in another town in Wisconsin who has dealt with some of these same things in different ways. You can really learn from that.”

Through membership in Connect Communities, the group learned about grant opportunities and different ways to attract and retain business and make downtowns more vital, Sharpe says. “A community as small and rural as ours doesn’t have a variety of specialists who can tackle some of these problems,” she says of the 2,000-resident community. “But we have Connect Communities and a dedicated group of long-time business owners eager to grow our downtown.”

In addition to owning Fika Bakery, Sharpe leads the development group and is executive director of the local visitors bureau.

“My job here is to do the destination marketing,” she says. “And the more I’ve done that work, the more I realized we need to also give you a place to spend your money once you get here.”

Commitment, connection trigger progress

The development group is in the early stages of determining the feasibility of a downtown Business Improvement District.

“We’re a very wealthy community, but you wouldn’t know that driving through our downtown,” she says. “If the math works out, we’re looking at ways to put some money back into the community through business investment and to let the downtown property owners be in charge of where that money goes and decide what best serves the district.”

The development group is also bringing public art downtown. A mural was installed on the side of a downtown building that is also home to newly opened Black Forest Pub and Grille. “Connect Communities offered a webinar on murals, and we soaked up as much information as we could,” Sharpe says.

A local pub, the Brew Station, opened in 2022 and won WEDC’s Place Makeover Contest the following year. That gave the owners design assistance and up to $5,000 to create an outdoor patio.

A new business, RevIV Aesthetics & Wellness, moved into a former medical clinic and is offering skin care and IV therapy. The business was recognized in 2024 at the Wisconsin Main Street Awards as a Downtown Revitalization Success Story in the Connect Communities category.

Downtown gaps created by the fires remain vacant. But Downtown Three Lakes Rocks is leasing the lot where the diner used to be and renamed it the Gathering Place. “It’s like a pop-up park right now,” Sharpe says. “There are picnic tables and mulch and flowers and twinkly lights, and it’s at least a usable space instead of a vacant lot.”