PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
DE PERE, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — The first of potentially five buildings that could be built on downtown De Pere’s former Shopko site received approval Tuesday night.
The city is now expecting the investment into the site on N. Broadway to be about $90 million.
With the old Shopko torn down at the end of last year, construction is set to start before the end of this year on its replacement.
“As long as it doesn’t affect the historical district, I think it will actually progress it,” said Audrey Moulton, a U.S. Navy service member who lives near the site. “I think the Mulva Center and the industry over here needs a lot of upkeep. I think it’s very important because we’ve degraded on this side, right here in this particular pocket between George Street and Franklin.”
De Pere’s common council signed off on the first building – a five story, 64-unit apartment building.
Just to the south, the city will be building a parking garage that will be 36-feet high on the south end and 17-feet high on the north end.
Plans for the other buildings on the site are still preliminary, but were initially pitched as six floor mixed use apartment building, a two-story retail and office building, a seven-story hotel with 80 rooms, and a six-story mixed-use building with 20 condo units.
“So whether or not that comes in as five buildings or four buildings, the end result is a mixed-use redevelopment,” said De Pere Development Director Dan Lindstrom.
Representatives for the developers, De Pere 230 Development Partners LLC, were at the council meeting. They declined an on-camera interview request and wouldn’t say who is all part of the development team. They did confirm the plans are fluid, could take several years to accomplish and could take more than one developer.
“As projects come in, you’ll start to see us bring development agreements as they start to come online over the next five, six, seven years, but it is a long plan project,” said Lindstrom. “It’s not something that’s going to happen overnight.”
Construction on the first building is expected to be complete by the start of 2027.
The development agreement calls for the city to provide up to $3.3 million in financial assistance.
The assessed value of the first building is expected to be $13 million, with the developers saying it will cost about $17-$18 million to build.
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