Waupun Mayor Excited For New Food Truck Alley

(Waupun) The mayor of Waupun is “excited” for a new food truck alley. The city is receiving a $45-thousand-dollar Vibrant Spaces grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. The Vibrant Spaces Grant program is designed to help cities and towns revitalize underused spaces to build community and attract future residents.
Community feedback found that there was a lack of public space to gather in the downtown. City leaders say the streetscape plan envisioned activating city-owned green space in the 400 block of East Main Street for that purpose. Mayor Rohn Bishop says the project will draw in more visitors to the Waupun area.
“To hopefully have a good time and spend some money…it’s an underused lot downtown…it was the site of a full former building that had to be torn down and cleaned up,” says Bishop. “The food truck court…they’re very popular. When Fond du Lac has their food truck things up at Lakeside Park…everyone turns out for them. So, I think it’s going to be fun. We can sprinkle in some live music with it and get people downtown.”
Bishop says he is thrilled to see the growth downtown Waupun has experienced in recent years.
“I tell people Waupun’s got it going on,” says Bishop. “We have several buildings down there with scaffolding in front of them. The coffee shop is expanding and doubling in size. The jewelry store is expanding and doubling in size. The art studio is doing phenomenally well. We’re going to do some Waupun themed murals on some of the walls down there. The historical society is all cleaned up and they’re pretty busy. That baseball card shop is the number one seller of TOPS baseball cards in the entire country and it’s located all in downtown Waupun.”
Waupun will outline the project timeline for the food truck alley this year and send it out to bid in January, if needed. Work is slated to start next spring with the hopes of having the project done by the end of summer.