By Heather Graves
Correspondent
GREEN BAY – A proposed grocery store and apartment building in downtown Green Bay are again gaining traction following the backing of a development agreement at the Tuesday, June 8, Redevelopment Authority (RDA) meeting.
“I think you guys hit a home run, I really do,” District 9 Alderperson Brian Johnson said. “It is not often that, I think, designs come before this body that at least we don’t look at it and say ‘Gosh, I wish this was different or that was different.’ I think you did a really bang-up job on the rendering.”
The developer, 200 N. Monroe PropCo LLC, is proposing a five-story, mixed-use structure on a 2.4-acre lot in the 200 block of North Monroe Avenue.
“We pledged to the Green Bay community that we would help foster and facilitate a market-rate development, and a market-rate development was always based on a grocer,” Ted Matkom, a member of the development team, said.
According to the development agreement, the project would cost $22 million and include 172 market-rate residential units – a mix of studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, a 15,000-square-foot, ground-level grocery store and approximately 7,000 additional square feet of retail space.
The estimated cost of a studio apartment would start at about $1,000 per month.
“There were some things for me that check some nice boxes,” RDA member Melanie Parma said. “I think they did a nice job of approaching that large site and being sensitive to the area… Obviously, the grocery store is exciting.”
The developer is requesting 80% of the tax increment financing (TIF) available for the life of the tax increment district (TID) on a pay-as-you-go basis after the city covers its debt service obligation from the original purchase of the property.
The city purchased the former Associated Bank parking lot property for $1.2 million in 2018.
The city has long searched for a downtown project with a grocery store component, with the most recent effort in 2019 at this same location, which didn’t pan out.
To fund the assistance for the project, the city will need to create a new TID that will include this project with a base year starting Jan. 1, 2022.
“When we first made the decision to exercise the purchase option on this lot, I think there was some public discussion about the fiscal responsibility around the city’s acquisition of this lot for $1.2 million,” Johnson said. “I just want to point out this is why you do those things. Strategic site acquisition is what leads to $21-million developments and investments in your community.”
Johnson said he recognizes the affordable housing need in the community, but also acknowledges the market-rate housing need as well.
“I think sometimes that gets forgotten – and we try to trump the need of one over the other,” he said. “But I think the reality of that is if we want that to happen, we need state tax credits. We tried to put in an affordable housing development on this site and the state tax credits didn’t come through. And so that is why we have an alternative in front of us. And because it is the TIF incentive that is going to handle this. It is literally in the name TIF – tax increment financing, which means you need increment to make it work… And I try to have this conversation with a lot of people, why affordable housing doesn’t work in certain circumstances, and this is an example of why. Because it is the need for the TIF to make this development work.”
As for potential tenants, negotiations are still ongoing but could include Main Oriental Market and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
Main Oriental Market, a family-owned and operated specialty grocery store on Pine Street, could make the move across the street to occupy the ground-level space.
The owner, Tara Yang, wasn’t able to attend Tuesday’s meeting, but in a statement wrote: “Our vision is to expand our current selection of foods to better serve all populations in the melting pot of downtown Green Bay. As we expand, we also hope to create jobs and hire from within the community as well. The final details and the partners of our future business plan are currently being reviewed.”
As for UW-Green Bay’s potential use of the space, Chancellor Michael Alexander said the university would use the space for a new center for civic engagement, a resource center or flexible programming space.
“For years, the university has been requested to move downtown, have a presence downtown,” Alexander said. “This is the kind of space we definitely need to be successful in doing so.”
The proposal will be reviewed by the city attorney before making its way to the city council for final approval Tuesday, June 29.
Economic Development Director Neil Stechschulte said the project is projected to be completed before the end of 2024.
Stechschulte said the leased parking spaces currently on the property will be relocated.
“I don’t have a hard number of stalls that are currently being leased on (the property),” he said. “But it is certainly not, in my opinion, a number that couldn’t be accommodated elsewhere, especially knowing that we have time going into the rest of this year and into next year to try to identify alternatives for where that parking is. I don’t believe there were enough spaces being utilized on this lot that it was going to be a significant impact for the parking utility to lose those spaces.”