GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A prime piece of property up for redevelopment in downtown Green Bay could be gaining in size.
For the last few months, the city has been considering two proposals to put multi-story buildings on the Adams Street parking lot. Now the city believes there is an opportunity to purchase the neighboring Bay Lake City Center building.
Green Bay’s vision for its downtown has never included Bay Lake City Center. The city’s opportunity to get rid of it could be now.
“It’s the last remnant of the mall,” said Kevin Vonck, the city’s economic development director.
“While it’s not the worst structure in the world, it’s definitely not the highest and best use of the property.”
But, Vonck tells FOX 11 acquiring the former Boston Store building could be challenging.
“What makes the building tricky is it’s one building, but it’s actually 12 condominium units, so there is a variety of different owners that are in there.”
On Tuesday, the Redevelopment Authority provided initial approval for the city to work on buying the building.
It means the two proposals for the Adams Street parking lot will be put on hold. Base Companies and Barsan Construction’s $60.7 million proposals would put 16 and 11 story buildings on the lot. T. Wall Enterprises wants to put a four-story, trident-shaped building with about a $35 million price tag on the property.
“There is no question we need housing downtown,” said Jim Schmitt, Green Bay’s mayor.
“Everything we have down here is full right now and then there is some corporate businesses who’ve expressed an interest and if we could put a deal together with them, combine the two together, we’ll need more of a footprint than just that parking lot.”
While the city has been working with the two developers on the parking lot site, Schmitt tells FOX 11 adding in the Bay Lake building property could open up things for new developers to come forward.
“They gave us a good proposal for what we told them was available. If we can say there is something a little bit more available, I think we could not only get better proposals from those two developers but probably more proposals as well.”
The city hopes to know in the next few months whether it can pull off a deal for the Bay Lake building.
Before Spring Lake Church purchased a portion of the Bay Lake building, the city says it was assessed at about $10 million.
