GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — A local developer is moving forward with plans for the East Town Mall.
A group led by Green Bay native Garritt Bader is converting the mall into a production facility for American Tent, but will keep much of the commercial storefront.
“As a native who grew up in that area and biked around the property for many years, I want to see East Town Mall remain a successful and vibrant commercial center,” said Garritt Bader of GB Real Estate Investments LLC. “There is a possibility for that and I think this plan can do it.”
Tony Ehrbar is the owner of American Tent. The 6-year-old company used to primarily produce tents for parties, but now more so for social distancing events. Moving to East Town will approximately triple its production space.
“April hit and we just started getting calls from schools, from restaurants, so we ended up being up about two times what we thought we were going to be this year and we’re still expecting to grow,” said Ehrbar.
Ehrbar says in the past year American Tent has hired an additional 30 employees and added a second shift. He believes the extra business will keep up even after the pandemic is under control.
“Most of our competition brings in tents from China,” said Ehrbar. We have some Chinese partners we work with, but most everything is done within our four walls so that value proposition stands up really well with customers.”
If the city approves production and processing zoning for East Town, Bader plans to close on the mall property mid-February.
“Certain tenants will need space next summer, probably most of the visual changes that people see will be sometime late summer or early fall,” said Bader.
Bader wouldn’t name any other tenants that could be going into East Town. He says he’s working with existing tenants on potentially new locations in the reformatted space.
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