Who is paying the property taxes on all these old vacant buildings you ask?
I would guess the welfare department.

I thought for sure that I just read something a couple of days ago that was on the subject of what to do with the down town area.Did they fill up that quick?

redder....... you sound like your discriminating to me. Now thats Janevilles main problem...... diversity is a good thingin a global market, but sounds like you are fixated on one breed, Feel sorry for you.

mouse...your kind of pissy...I live and work in this town...it is run poorly...I am sure the city and the developer had an aragement that had to be handled on the corner of 26 and 14....it was left empty with roads in dis aray ...so it needed to be finished...plus the city gets higher tax rev from the property...aweful nice building for space thats getting 12 bucks a square, there are alot of choices in this town if you are a small business..however..our fair electorate does not know how to attract small business to this town to increase its attractiveness to large...We need to vote in a mayor, and a ploitical machine to reinvent Janesville and its identity..then we can all move forward and live a productive life...no more mexican joints or chinese we need some good smal business operators to come in and do what they do stir things up and attract people, if that happens this is a moot point

Madcap75, Anyone who has lived here in Janesville long enough knows there was a very close time frame between the police chasing out the circuit "Kids" from the downtown and it's speedy death and mass exodus of business. Downtown had traffic then, people walked around down there, looked in shop windows and knew what shops were located down there. It created a place where store front would be seen. Now no one knows what is downtown. Who knows what stores are even open down there. No one looks at anything down there anymore because there is no reason to go there. Maybe you didnt like the reason "high school kids trying to get lucky" went down there, but the cold hard fact is they were down there. Period.

Janesvillecomments: Nice post.

Grandys618: Theres jerks everywhere world round, if you dont like the attitude of some of the people you met here, you should talk to some more locals. You could have had the same outcome in any other city, Don't knock mine thanks. Janesville has a nice balance of good people and jerks.

Mouse: Though I have never commented on you posts before, I dont know what left wing social group pays you to comment here, but your posts are all nonsense. your comments add noting factual to any posts you comment on. You just Walker bash. Don't forget it was our wonderful X governer Doyle who by the way was a democrat and the previous state congress, who overspent and in turn ruined the state budget and treasury. You can't blame anyone else for the mess were in ATM. Quit hating the guy for actually taking action on something instead of passing on to the next guy. Maybe support those who are trying to fix things instead of riding the dems "spending as usual" plan.. It isn't working. Were broke.

grandys618
Aug 9, 2011 at 9:59 a.m.
Suggest removal
The only thing Janesville is short of, is intelligent life.

This is what you think of Janesville? Yet you come on here will all your yap, telling us how to live. Your just another mouth peice dictator, certainly not made in America.

grandys618..... you leave Janesville, and then tell us how to live.
I think you need to go listen to your parol officer.

grandys618..... so I am to take it that you get on this site telling Janesville how to live and educate are kids, yet you don't live or pay tax for Janesville?
I think if thats the case you should keep your opinions to yourself, or go play with your own community card club.
Obviously most or not all of what you put on this site is jist taking the p...... out of Janesville residents.

I wonder what genius dreamed up this "poll" question? Why would you even ask?

grandys618......leave and that will improve the numbers

Pretty soon we will have to rename Janesville "The City of Stripmalls and Vacant Shops." Ridiculous to have two more being built when there are so many vacant areas now. Who is paying the property taxes on all these old vacant buildings? Old Blockbuster on Court St., old Robinson's cleaners, old Walgreens by 5 points, etc.

Walker has saved this state a boatload of money since he took office and jobs are now returning to this state, keep your head in the damned sand so you don't have to admit you guys were dead wrong!

Walker for President 2012!!!!!!

I agree on the quality and pricing at pick and save has gone down a lot. And that walker isn't doing our local economy any good either. RECALLS better than angus.lol.

I'd like to see a Wendy's restaurant open up on the west side. My 'fav fast food, but 16 miles round trip to the Milton Ave. one, takes too much gas.

ya, good thing for the hardware stores and grocery stores over here! They are so expensive that I still drive across town. I will not buy meat from Pick N Save, they only carry Black angus beef and the last time I tried to buy 2 steaks there they were 13 bucks a pound!!!!! Give me a break, oh and Mouse...what did your boy Doyle do for this state??? Nothing! so shut up.

The south and west sides of Janesville seem forgotten. Unless it is auto parts (2 on West Court) our used cars (at least 3 on Center) there isn't much to be found. I'm glad we have Sentry and Pick N Save (quality of Pick NSave has really gone down hill)and the hardware stores here. If it weren't for them we are forced to cross town for almost everything!

There's plenty of space for more adult book stores and payday loan shops.

Nows the time to buy into business Walker is here to help you (not).

callmeal, really? getting rid of the circuit killed downtown???? I hardly think a bunch of High school kids looking to get lucky kept the downtown in business. Most businesses close at 5-6 Pm in downtown areas, the circuit didn't get hopping until well after that. Gas and snacks! That's all Obama needs to turn this country around!! Why didn't we think of that sooner.

I'm guessing you can get quite a good deal on rent right now at any of these locations, if you negotiate. There are some nice-looking open spots near Applebees as well. This seems to be a great time to open a business or move to Janesville, just to lock in some cheap rent.

The mall has quite a few vacancies. Creston Park is half empty, downtown is empty, there's a vacant storefront on the west side near the School for the Visually Handicapped, empty storefronts in the Target strip mall, empty storefronts in the old Blackhawk shopping center...

Why build all this new stuff when the old stuff just sits unused?

The strip at creston park is half empty.

The slum left at 14 and 90 by Menhards kind of answers the question.
Maybe goodwill could put it to use........

I remember cruising the circuit in days gone by. All the friends you saw and downtown was packed. Its a good thing the city killed that right? I mean , we don't want those darn young kids with all their disposable money to be in our downtown area buying gas and snacks at the 5 points. I hope the past city council is content with their vote to kill the circuit and basically, kill the downtown area. We all know it is better to have all the drunks and fighting at QUOTES and other fine establishments corralled in the downtown.

frogger, nobody wants to take a chance on the old dry-cleaner property because there might be horrendous costs involved in cleaning up the toxic waste chemicals to meet EPA standards. That's why nobody will every buy the old GM plant, unless they can get a "deal" from a sucker (local or state government body, i.e, your tax dollars) to cap the new owner's clean-up costs

Many downtown buildings are in bad shape because the major banks back in the 50s and 60s got Janesville's old money people to put the properties into extremely long-term trusts for their children and grandchildren, to be managed by the banks. The banks then sucked up the rent money and skimped on maintenance and upkeep for decades. I'm guessing when many of the properties change hands the new owners would be obligated to spend a huge amount of money to bring the buildings up to code. If anything, Walmart management learned well from traditional small town bankers.

In addition, with most business, it's location, location, location. When downtown was the primary business location back in the 1960s, the population and demand for business floor space and parking outgrew the area the business district is contained in. The construction of the Janesville Mall shifted retail sales out to Milton Avenue and the restaurants and auto maintenance followed the retailers.

I doubt there would be enough traffic to support the franchise costs of a McDonald's in downtown Janesville.

BoBones, this is a real issue. The City Council is planning on wasting money changing the downtown traffic flow to accommodate a miniscule portion of Janesville businesses. They would be far better off keeping the streets one-way, moving the circuit riders back downtown, and re-establishing synchronized traffic lights so as to not impede shoppers on Milton Avenue. That would benefit a great many more businesses and consumers.

Perhaps the Chamber of Commerce could conduct a count of empty commercial buildings in areas zoned for retail sales and make it available to the Gazette so they would have some hard data to publish. Failing that, how about commenters here listing empty buildings in the retail areas on:

Milton Avenue
Center Avenue
Highway 14
West Court Street past the 5-Points
East Milwaukee past the Fairgrounds
North Washington Street
Prairie Avenue

and any other areas zoned for retail stores.

With all the "REAL" issues facing Janesville, this was a stupid question.

Just as many cancerous materials in new buildings. Chemicals released from the breaking down of drywall, paint, carpet, glue, etc. are unavoidable and the same toxins in cigarettes. Hmmm maybe the state should ban carpet...

Don't you love being surrounded by the cancerous materials used in these old buildings? They look so nice though...

NO-Look at all the empty places and they keep putting up more.
WHO owns Robinsons cleaner land? Can't somebody buy that and turn it into something vs a dump site??
What about one of these mini strip malls there?What about Red Lobster. Pretty sure the lot is big enough. Traffic -plenty drives by every day.
Why can't they get business downtown? Like a Mc D. They do this in Chicago with the old building. Why oh yeah we are tearing it all down that is why. Keep up your property vs tearing it down. Oh - maybe learning from Walmart?? Let is go 20 years no up keep. Cheaper to build new than keep it up??!!