As President and CEO of On Broadway, Inc. and a former eight-year Green Bay City Council Alderman and Council President, Johnson has spent the last decade with a front-row seat to everything the city has gotten right, and a few things it has not. In the latest episode of The Green Bay Way, Jim Schmitt sat down with Johnson for a conversation that covers the full landscape of where Green Bay stands today and what it needs to do to stay competitive.
A District With a Number
One of the most concrete takeaways from the conversation is the Broadway District’s development target. On Broadway is working toward raising the district’s total assessable value to $250 million over the next decade. That number is not aspirational math pulled from a whiteboard. It is built on massing studies, an identified investment pipeline, and project timelines broken into one, three, five, and ten year horizons.
Johnson also shared that On Broadway is one of only six programs in the country accepted into a pilot program through the National Main Street Center, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and has been told it is operating in the top one percent of all programs nationally.
The Red Tape Problem
If there is a theme that runs through the entire conversation, it is this: Green Bay’s processes are slowing Green Bay down.
Johnson pointed to a national conference where the Governor of Oklahoma described his state as a 30-day permitting state. Submit your permit, get it in 30 days, or it is free. Johnson’s point was not about copying Oklahoma. It was about what that kind of standard signals to developers, to employees, and to the city itself.
Green Bay is not there yet. Johnson acknowledged the city has made real progress simplifying processes, including consolidating multiple permit applications into one, but said more work remains. His framing was direct: death by a thousand cuts is still death, and the suburbs are not waiting.
Outside Money in Local Races
The conversation took a candid turn when Schmitt and Johnson discussed the newly elected city council. Johnson confirmed that over $200,000 in outside PAC money came into Green Bay’s most recent city council races, and noted that both men had served during an era when local government was genuinely nonpartisan in practice, not just on paper.
Neither dismissed the people who were elected. The concern was structural. When outside money funds local races, the people elected to those seats are accountable to someone. The question is whether that someone is the residents of Green Bay.
The Public Market, Leicht Park, and Soccer
Johnson addressed the public market directly, acknowledging that the biggest mistake was tying the project’s timeline to the NFL Draft and setting expectations that the funding would follow the momentum. It did not, and construction costs escalated across the board during that same period.
He was equally direct about the path forward. The project is anchored by private support, new market tax credits, and philanthropic investment, with government funding representing a smaller share than most comparable projects. The margin still needs to close, but the structure is real.
The episode also covers Leicht Park’s pavilion, the Shipyard development, and the growing case for a soccer-anchored amenity that Johnson believes could shift Green Bay’s demographic trajectory by attracting and retaining a younger, more diverse population.
What Locals Get Wrong About Green Bay
One of the sharpest moments in the conversation came when Johnson observed that the people most negative about Green Bay are usually the ones who have lived here their entire lives. Visitors and people who relocate here arrive and wonder why anyone would ever leave.
That gap between perception and reality is not just an interesting observation. It is a strategic problem. Green Bay was ranked one of the best places to live in America. That kind of recognition has a shelf life only if the city actively uses it.
Watch the Full Episode
This is a long-form conversation and it earns the length. Watch the full episode on the Green Bay Way YouTube channel, or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
The Green Bay Way is where real conversations happen with the people doing the work on the ground.