PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — More steps are being taken to eventually move the coal piles located in downtown Green Bay.
The Brown County Board of Supervisors met Tuesday and voted ‘yes’ on a lease agreement with C. Reiss, the owner of the coal piles — but there’s still work to be done.
The deal between Brown County and C. Reiss would essentially move part of their operations to the former Pulliam Power Plant site. Tuesday’s vote marked the county’s official approval of the lease agreement. It now gets sent back to C. Reiss for its approval, or potential changes.
“Our negotiating team is still working with their negotiating team, but ultimately… we feel it’s positive and moving forward, and ultimately, we’re hoping that C. Reiss will eventually agree to the document that the County Board approved,” Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach said.
He said the Pulliam site will undergo a transformation, including construction of a new dock wall for C. Reiss’ operations. The coal itself would move to the Fox River Terminal — also operated by C. Reiss — which sits directly next to the Pulliam site.
“We’re very hopeful that this is a huge step to have the lease done. The construction of the port has already begun, and we just want to keep everything moving forward in a timely manner,” Brown County Board of Supervisors Chair Patrick Buckley said.
C. Reiss has until May 4 to make changes to the lease. Otherwise, the county and C. Reiss will have to go to binding arbitration.
Despite its approval Tuesday, not all board members agreed with the lease and expressed their concerns.
“We’re creating a bad precedent here by setting this line in the sand. I don’t like it one bit, and I hope it doesn’t jeopardize it and I hope C. Reiss certainly continues to work and agrees to it,” Brown County Board of Supervisors Patrick Evans said.
C. Reiss said in a statement:
C. Reiss remains committed to working with Brown County to finalize the lease and move the Pulliam project forward. The parties exchanged revised lease language as recently as yesterday and continue to work through a limited number of remaining items. Because discussions are ongoing, it would not be appropriate to negotiate those details publicly, but we remain hopeful the lease can be completed promptly.
The county hopes to have the site ready by 2028 or 2029. As for what could replace the coal piles, C. Reiss has said it plans to redevelop 10 acres for mixed use and the remaining 25 acres will be for light industrial use.
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