The Broken Spoke Bike Studio in downtown Green Bay's WaterMark building. PC: Fox 11 Online
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — A longtime downtown Green Bay business announced it will close at the end of the week.
It’s one of four businesses in the mostly vacant WaterMark building, which Foxconn purchased in 2018, but never occupied.
After opening stores in Suamico and Ledgeview in recent years, Broken Spoke Bike Studio has decided to close its downtown Green Bay location after a nearly 10-year ride.
“A majority of our customer base are in the two areas, so for us, it just made sense at the end of the day to just have the two locations — kind of one on each end of Green Bay,” said George Kapitz, owner of Broken Spoke Bike Studio.
The plan is to use its downtown store as storage until the lease is done at the end of next year.
The other tenants in the six-story WaterMark building are The Creamery Downtown, logistics company C.H. Robinson and engineering consultant ISG.
Three stories have sat empty. A prime corner location facing Washington Street has also sat mostly vacant since The Children’s Museum moved out in 2019.
“I think the landowners are stopping the WaterMark building from succeeding,” said Amy Mazzariello, owner of the nearby Lion’s Mouth Bookstore.
Foxconn purchased the building to be an innovation center, but never followed through with its plans.
The Taiwann-based electronics manufacturer listed the building for sale two years ago for $9.75 million. It’s still for sale online, but no price is listed.
“I think it would be a benefit to downtown to have it change hands,” said Mazzariello.
Mazzariello says her business continues to thrive in the downtown.
“We’re doing really well down here, even with the building across the street going up,” said Mazzariello.
Kapitz believes the right business could find success once they’re officially out of their downtown spot.
“It’s no secret parking has always been an issue downtown, so retail might be a little bit of a challenge, but more of a unique space — possibly like a restaurant or event space, or possibly like an office space — I could see it being filled,” said Kapitz.
Foxconn did not receive any government assistance for the Green Bay building. It was supposed to receive up to $3 billion in public assistance as part of its $10 billion plans for southern Wisconsin. Those incentives were dramatically scaled back as they were tied to performance benchmarks that were never met.
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