GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – A team effort is leading to a new proposal introduced to Green Bay’s Redevelopment Authority for a downtown outdoor events center.
The plan, which now includes an Anduzzis restaurant and an indoor concert venue, are being unveiled as part of a new district called “The Shipyard.”
Officials believe the site, just north of W. Mason Street on the edge of the Fox River, will be a year-round destination.
For the stadium, officials say it would not only host Bullfrogs baseball games, but West High athletic events, a minor league soccer team and up to six large-scale concerts each year.
The indoor concert venue attached is from Festival Foods CEO Mark Skogen, however Festival itself is not part of the project. The venue’s capacity would be 2,000 people.
Conor Caloia of Big Top Baseball says combining their project with the indoor concert venue and Anduzzis proves the stadium is influencing major changes for the area.
“It’s a parcel the city has owned for going on 40 years and nothing has happened there quite yet. Our hope is the stadium kind of provides that barrier from the coal piles and kind of provides that end cap to South Broadway and really spurs additional economic development,” Caloia told FOX 11.
The city’s Redevelopment Authority approved a term sheet for the outdoor event center on Tuesday.
According to terms of the plan, the project will cost $9 million with the city putting in $8 million up front. The Bullfrogs’ owners would pay $4 million of that back through a 20-year lease.
City officials are also in talks to bring 120 to 160 housing units to a site just north of the stadium project. The city also wants to utilize neighborhood enhancement funds to improve the existing neighborhood west of the project.
