The Fort at the Rail Yard in downtown Green Bay's Rail Yard District, January 21. 2025. PC: Fox 11 Online
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — A new downtown Green Bay apartment complex is inviting the public in for tours.
The Fort at the Rail Yard apartments held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday on Donald Driver Way after a six-year-long process to bring the units to fruition.
The opening means the transformation of the former Larsen cannery property in downtown is officially complete.
Construction on the $21 million apartment community began in July of 2022, after being paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It also took years to sort out financing as the complex transitioned from its original plan to be a solely market-rate complex, to having a majority of affordable, low-income units.
“It was challenging and it was difficult, you know, it went from a market rate to what we have now and the quality was not impacted,” said Green Bay City Council President Brian Johnson before the ribbon cutting.
Nearly 20% of the units are listed as market rate while the rest are designated for affordable-living tenants who are earning up to 60% of the area median income.
According to the website, it offers 1-2 bedroom units costing between $1,068-$1,600 per month. Amenities include a 24/7 fitness studio, pet park and wash station, community lounge with wi-fi, game room and 24/7 emergency maintenance.
“In the city of Green Bay and in our downtown in particular, we’ve had a long history of businesses, whether it’s retail, restaurants, or office use, but we’ve really lacked that residential density and that’s what makes a project like this so critically important to the future of downtowns,” Johnson added.
“Housing is a huge priority for the city of Green Bay,” said Mayor Eric Genrich. “Literally not a day that goes by when I’m not in some meeting or thinking about it or talking about it with city staff or private partners, so to see a project like this come together is really exciting, and this is a sizeable one.”
Will Peters, a neighborhood development specialist for the city of Green Bay says the city needs to catch up on housing for all levels.
“Really, to meet that demand of our population growth by 2040, we need to be bringing on at least 300 units of apartments per year, and then another 150-250 single-family housing units per year as well.”
When it comes to the lowest-income residents, the city is facing a current shortage of over 37-hundred affordable rental units. Peters says affordability impacts everyone.
“When we talk about affordable housing, we’re not talking just extremely low income, we’re talking about teachers, health care workers, service providers, a broad spectrum of people here that were trying to find affordable housing for.”
As Peters says, this new development does make a small dent in what’s needed in the community right now, but we still need more.
“On average, your typical development project could take anywhere between two to three to four years, depending on complexity, to even come to fruition, and that’s from concept to construction.”
This week, Peters is asking for public input on the city’s 5-year housing and development strategy, which guides how federal dollars are used to help low and moderate-income families find homes.
“Everyone in our community deserves a safe, stable place to live, and as a city we need to ensure we’re doing our best and working with community partners to provide housing at all levels.”
The Department of Community & Economic Development will meet on Thursday, July 3, at City Hall in room 604 at 5:30 p.m.
Residents are welcome to attend and share input in person or via Zoom.
Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87657065660 (Meeting ID: 876 5706 5660)
By phone: Call 646-876-9923 or 312-626-6799 and enter Meeting ID 876 5706 5660
More information about the meeting can be found here.
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