BY THE NUMBERS

The “Eau Claire Metropolitan Area” (Eau Claire and Chippewa counties combined) is one of the fastest growing metro areas in Wisconsin. Eau Claire was the sixth-fastest growing of Wisconsin’s 72 counties between 2010 and 2017. Much of Senior Planner Pat Ivory’s work is based on Eau Claire’s solid population growth over the past 20 years. Analyzing these trends, Ivory says we can expect Eau Claire to grow by 400–500 people a year for the foreseeable future.

Those people need places to live, and many of them want a house nestled within a good neighborhood.

New neighborhood developments near the outskirts of a city are often associated with (and sometimes blamed for) an exodus of people away from crumbling downtowns and old working class neighborhoods. With good reason – that’s certainly what’s happened across America over the past fifty or sixty years. But is it still the case?

According to Mike Schatz, previously the City of Eau Claire’s Economic Development Director and Downtown Eau Claire Inc.’s Executive Director, downtown residential vacancy is basically zero. There are waiting lists for apartments. Existing homes in Eau Claire’s older, established neighborhoods are in very high demand. It’s a competitive market, says Schatz, with houses fetching high prices after only days (or even hours) on the market.

People aren’t draining from the city. The city limits are overflowing.

Pat Ivory says Eau Claire does see some infill – small developments built on open land within the city limits – but of course, the majority of new development is along the borders. A conservative count shows at least 10 all-new neighborhood projects are currently in progress.