The City of Green Bay is brokering a deal to purchase the former Green Bay Press Gazette building and some ancillary parking lots. The hope is to renovate the building into a new home for the Green Bay Police Department. PC: Fox 11 Online
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The City of Green Bay may have found a solution for the need to replace the police department’s headquarters building.
Next week the city’s finance committee will consider buying the former Green Bay Press-Gazette building. It’s the next step in relocating and updating the city’s police station.
It’s no secret the Green Bay Police Department needs a new place to call home.
“We’ve known for some time that the facility they’re currently in isn’t of the quality that we’re looking for our police officers and the work that they need to do. But at the same time we don’t have a limitless checkbook, right? And so we’ve been very fiscally responsible in identifying potential sites,” said Mayor Eric Genrich.
One of those sites is the former Green Bay Press-Gazette building.
The city is in the process of brokering a deal with the building’s owner to purchase the structure along with a few ancillary parking lots. In addition to paying $3.6 million cash for the building and land, money that would come from the city’s fund balance, Green Bay would also exchange three city-owned properties with the developer.
Those properties include fire stations one and three. There have been plumbing issues forcing the relocation of the fire department’s administrative offices from Station 1 and the age of the Station 3 building, leading to discussions about closing it too.
While talks are already underway to build a new fire station in the Broadway district, that would also include housing and retail space, no plans have been finalized.
The city, in buying the former Press-Gazette building, said it would strictly house the police department.
According to Mayor Genrich, “We are partnered up with consulting firm to provide a space needs analysis for the city hall, municipal court, and previously it was for the existing police department. Now we’re going to be able to shift gears and put them to work on identifying what needs to be done to improve the Press-Gazette building, but we’re in a good position to move forward with that analysis.”
A price tag for the renovation is still unknown, but the idea is it’s more cost effective than starting from scratch.
The mayor said, “It’s going to be tens of millions of dollars, right? But if you were building a new police department it would be upwards of $50 million, we’re hoping to come in significantly lower than that.”
While the mayor is confident the city can repurpose this property for the police department, he says if they can’t there are contingency plans in place for other redevelopment opportunities.
“Housing is always a big need for us, especially in our downtown, and other parts of town so I think that would be an option,” he said.
The proposal to buy the former Press-Gazette building still needs the approval of several city committees and the full common council before it’s a done deal.
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