Business View Magazine | September 2020

337 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2020 WATERTOWN, WI SCONS IN multi-national companies is tough,” McFarland says. “So, what we try to focus on is what we can do to retain and attract businesses similar to what we have now and what we can do to make our community unique where a workforce would want to live. I was on the City Council when we voted in favor of the town square project because I wanted to know that we would be making an impact on attempting to attract a workforce that could support, attract, and retain new businesses to our community. So, we are happy to know that there is a potential for having housing right next to the town square that could also support our commercial businesses downtown.” Another way in which Watertown’s downtown businesses are supported is via a revolving loan fund created by the RDA to help them make improvements to their properties. “It’s a two percent interest rate over five years,” Fish-Peterson explains. “We’ve partnered with three local banks, so we have good community participation. We also work with our state representatives and with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation for other grants and any kind of incentives that would be needed for environmental remediation. In addition, on the east side of the river, the entire downtown is included in a federal Opportunity Zone.” “We have Tax Increment Financing available and we also have some smaller façade improvement grants,” McFarland adds. “The city does a lot of the legwork in researching and applying for things that are available. We also have done industrial revenue bonds for other developments in our community, which basically secures borrowing at a municipal rate instead of an open market rate. And, in Wisconsin, we have the Badger State Opportunity Fund; it’s a state-wide fund that makes participating in an Opportunity Zone project more streamlined. So, we’re very