Stevens Point News

Main Menu

  • Covid 19
  • Sports
    • Sports News
    • High School Sports Scores
    • Wisconsin Rapids Rafters
  • Crime
  • Arts & Entertainment
  • Opinion
  • Obits
  • Contact
    • Subscribe
  • Classifieds
    • View Ads
    • Place Ads
  • Legal Ads
    • Our Legals
    • Statewide
  • E-Edition
    • Stevens Point City Times

logo

Stevens Point News

  • Covid 19
  • Sports
    • Sports News
    • High School Sports Scores
    • Wisconsin Rapids Rafters
  • Crime
  • Arts & Entertainment
  • Opinion
  • Obits
  • Contact
    • Subscribe
  • Classifieds
    • View Ads
    • Place Ads
  • Legal Ads
    • Our Legals
    • Statewide
  • E-Edition
    • Stevens Point City Times
Opinion
Home›Opinion›Kemmeter column: City shows signs of redevelopment

Kemmeter column: City shows signs of redevelopment

By jschooley
October 10, 2019
1161
0
Share:

By Gene Kemmeter

Stevens Point is showing signs of looming redevelopment within its corporate limits, with hints that much more could be coming soon.

The city’s first national discount store, Kmart, was razed this summer, a victim of an increasing trend to shutter large department stores. Kmart came to the city in the early 1970s, spurring development in the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point area that included the city’s first McDonalds Restaurant.

The Kmart arrival also doomed the nearby Tempo Department Store, a regional discount store that had come to Stevens Point a decade earlier. Tempo was owned by Gamble-Skogmo, the owner of Gambles hardware stores, and those discount stores were shuttered by the early 1980s, with many of the sites reutilized.

The Kmart site will become a housing development, while part of that local Tempo store now houses a restaurant. Another section of the Tempo shopping center will be the home of a micro brewery that is scheduled to open next month.

A second North Side landmark, Cooper Motors, also came down last month, along with a neighboring building that housed Ella’s Bar, opening a large site in the 600 block of Division Street for future uses.

Other sites around town have found new uses in recent years. The former Grant School property on Fourth Avenue is seeing residential redevelopment. The former Emerson School property is being developed into a neighborhood park.

The city’s east side, east of Highway 51, started becoming a commercial area in the 1980s and continues to see new development as older structures are removed and vacant lots are filled in.

Two pending projects may soon transform the downtown area. A housing development may fill the site of the former Lullabye Furniture factory that has been vacant for nearly three decades. A second development may begin the transformation of the former Portesi Pizza and Belke Lumber sites into business and housing structures.

The city recently approved a developer agreement for the “New Fox” project on Main Street to save the facade of the old Fox Theater building and construct an idea center behind that facade to serve as an incubator for small businesses.

While the new projects look promising, the list of potential redevelopment sites continues to change. The former Shopko store in the Centerpoint Marketplace mall in the downtown will soon become vacant with the demise of the Shopko chain. What will replace it may take years to determine.

Fifty, sixty years ago most development was spurred by major outside developers who came and went, expanding into open pastures, turning a quick buck and then moving on to green pastures. They often left behind aging structures, sometimes too large or too dilapidated for reuse.

More recently, redevelopment has come from within the community, local entrepreneurs seeking to build within their own area and create jobs. That situation helps to maintain a community.

Previous Article

Almond-Bancroft visits Pacelli, SPASH hosts Wausau West ...

Next Article

Worzalla announces expansion plans

0
Shares
  • 0
  • +
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Related articles More from author

  • Opinion

    Editorial- Let’s Keep Libraries Around

    February 25, 2013
    By STEVENS POINT NEWS
  • FoodOpinionTop Stories

    Food Swings – Chicken Meatballs

    September 29, 2013
    By STEVENS POINT NEWS
  • Community NewsOpinion

    Cuomo’s Column: Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

    September 29, 2013
    By STEVENS POINT NEWS
  • Opinion

    Life on the Outside: Apologizing to Stevens Point After Prison

    September 29, 2013
    By STEVENS POINT NEWS
  • Community NewsOpinion

    Life on the Outside: Setting Goals Made Life Worthwhile

    October 6, 2013
    By STEVENS POINT NEWS
  • Community NewsOpinion

    Life on the Outside: Hope Guides Me

    October 14, 2013
    By STEVENS POINT NEWS

Leave a reply Cancel reply

High School Sports

Go to High School Sports

Free SP Newsletter

  • Sports

  • Commentary

  • Lady Hornets’ win streak continues with win over Panthers

    By Jacob Heid
    January 26, 2023
  • Cardinals get senior night shutout win 

    By Jacob Heid
    January 26, 2023
  • ‘At this time of the year you want to be progressing’- Panthers win three of ...

    By Jacob Heid
    January 24, 2023
  • Awe

    Doing the unthinkable

    By Jacob Heid
    January 24, 2023
  • Curt Lamb

    Almond-Bancroft’s Lamb hits 400-win milestone 

    By Jacob Heid
    January 23, 2023
  • Pat Wood

    From the publisher: Christmas and Hanukkah

    By Kris Leonhardt
    December 24, 2022
  • Ice fishing contest Reels in $1,500 for Portage County Literacy Council

    By Taylor Hale
    March 17, 2022
  • Kemmeter Column: County celebrates year after quarantine

    By Taylor Hale
    July 12, 2021
  • Isherwood Column: Great engineering projects two

    By Taylor Hale
    July 11, 2021
  • Shoes News Graphic

    Show Column: Odd Jobs

    By Taylor Hale
    July 9, 2021

About Us


The Portage County Gazette is published every Friday by Multi Media Channels. It is locally-owned, locally-operated and locally-written. Subscriptions are $64 annually, delivered via the U.S. Postal Service.


To subscribe, go www.shopmmclocal.com/product/portage-county-gazette or call 715-258-4360

  • PO Box 408, Waupaca WI 54981
  • (715) 343-8045
  • News editor: [email protected]
Copyright © 2022 Multi Media Channels LLC.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted without the prior written consent of Multi Media Channels LLC.
×