With Push From Commissioner Haines, New Commerce Center Details Emerge
by Brandi Makuski City-Times Editor
The City Plan Commission has authorized the rezoning of the land that will become East Park Commerce Center from agricultural to manufacturing.
Community Development Authority Director Michael Ostrowski, one spearhead of the project, says the land will be used for both heavy and light industrial business.
“We’re kind of mimicking what the Portage County Business Park has done,” Ostrowski said. “So we’ll get some of those lighter- type uses in there along HH and Burbank. Those uses would include some office- type buildings, and you could even include some retail in there.”
Commission member Anna Haines said she worried about the current zoning language, which dates back to the 1970s and doesn’t consider modern technology.
“What if, say Google, for example, comes into town and says they want to put a huge solar array next to their building?” Asked Haines, adding she wondered how new technologies would be considered given the outdated language found within current permitted use and conditional use codes.
“Can I just ask, for both the mayor and (city) planner, what are your visions for this property? If you’re zoning this M1 and M2, what would your ideal uses be there?” She asked.
“I think intermodal is going to be one of the greatest possibilities we have- massive trucking operations, rail and interstate. It would be a huge opportunity for us and Central Wisconsin,” said Mayor Halverson.
“Our geological stability makes us an asset to this kind of business that needs extreme stability; we have almost no seismic risk whatsoever, and very, very little in terms of natural disasters, aside from tornadoes,” he added.
“Green technology and green manufacturing certainly would also be huge, as the need to us to continue to build more high- tech for our country’s energy independence. This site is not an office park, and we’re trying to do that on purpose.”
Ostrowski said while one large developer could purchase the entire property, but officials would prefer several smaller buyers.
“The upside is phenomenal, and the downside is as well; if you have one user hiring 3,000, and that user leaves the community, the impact of having that one user to rely on would be huge for schools, home foreclosures, what have you,” he said.
“You look at Travel Guard; they take up 20 acres and they’ve got nearly 700 employees, so those are the types of users we’d like to see.”