What's up with the combo grocery store-apartments plan for downtown Green Bay?

GREEN BAY — A Madison developer this spring will present his third, mixed-use development plan in five years as the city looks spur development on a prominent, city-owned parking lot in downtown Green Bay.

Ted Matkom last year began to revise plans to redevelop the parking lot in the 200 block of North Monroe Avenue after interest rates, labor and material cost increases created a sizeable funding gap in the $22 million proposal. The plan focused on building 172 apartments and first floor space for a grocery store on the site.

Green Bay officials bought the 2.4-acre parking lot in 2019 and ever since have sought a private company to build housing, preferably affordable units, on a key, high-visibility site on the edge of downtown and Whitney Park. The effort has faced a variety of challenges.

City staff on Tuesday told the Green Bay Redevelopment Authority they expect Matkom in April to present a revised project plan and development agreement terms. Cheryl Renier-Wigg, city of Green Bay development director, said the proposal retains some elements of Matkom's prior plans as well as some new updates and changes. As the plan comes forward, staff will look to make sure terms of any agreements keep the project moving forward this year, Renier-Wigg said.

"He's confident. I'm willing to give them another 30 days," Renier-Wigg said. "We're looking at provisions, times and dates so there's movement on the project."

Here's a look at how site plans have evolved since 2019 and what we know about the new proposal expected this spring.

How did we get here?

The site was a former gas station decades ago that Associated Bank eventually bought and used as parking for its downtown-based workforce. In 2018, Brown County sought to buy the lot for parking, spurring Green Bay to exercise its option to buy the lot from Associated Bank for $1.2 million in June 2019.

The city, at the time, sought to control of whole blocks of downtown in order to attract developers to build higher-density, mixed-use projects that combine first-floor commercial spaces with upper floor housing. Metreau and CityDeck Landing had both recently been completed at the time.

Affordable housing, grocery store proposed first for downtown Green Bay site

Gorman & Co., the development firm Matkom works for, teamed up with NeighborWorks Green Bay and an independent grocer in fall 2019 to propose a $24 million project that would top a 24,000-square-foot grocery store with 70 apartments. NeighborWorks would build another 10 townhouse-style units on the site, too.

The plan hinged on the group securing low-income housing tax credits from the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority that the group could sell to raise millions of dollars to help finance construction and keep rents capped at rates low-earning households could afford.

The proposal did not receive any tax credits in spring 2020, so Matkom pivoted to a market-rate plan.

Monroe Avenue lot plans shift to market-rate, with increase in density

Gorman & Co. stepped away from the project at that point, but Matkom didn't.

He instead in June 2021 pivoted to a plan to develop market-rate apartments on the site with first floor commercial space and underground parking on the property. The revised plan included 172 units, amenities and 22,000 square feet of retail space — some of which still was planned to become a locally-owned grocery store.

Matkom continued to work on the project into 2022, but the development ran head-first into rising interest rates, high building material prices and rising labor costs, which increased the project costs well beyond the original budget and design. The project was far from the only local housing development to stall due to market conditions.

By 2023, Matkom started to redesign the building plans and sought new funding sources.

More: Started, stalled, or soon? Here are 8 updates on Green Bay housing developments

What do we know about the new, mixed-use plan for the vacant, downtown Green Bay lot?

Renier-Wigg provided the Redevelopment Authority some idea of what will stay the same and what will change about Matkom's site plan. Matkom did not return interview requests sent on Wednesday.

She said plans still call for 172 apartments and a first-floor commercial space, but the commercial space has shrunk from about 22,000 square feet to about 8,500 square feet.

The development will be four stories tall and will wrap around the site to hide surface parking at the center of the site. The central, surface parking lot was needed when plans to include underground parking were abandoned due to cost issues.

Renier-Wigg also said the new plans include a "rooftop amenity" for residents and some open space along Cherry Street.

What don't we know?

The project will likely require public support in the form of tax incremental financing, or TIF, to help cover the costs of the project and to address site contamination left over from when the parking lot was a gas station. The exact amounts still need to be determined.

We don't know exactly what the building plans will look like because detailed plans would not be finalized until late this year.

And it's not clear whether a grocery store is still part of the plan. Renier-Wigg said plans shared with city staff do not indicate what kind of retail user or tenant might lease the first-floor space.

What's next?

The Green Bay Redevelopment Authority's next scheduled meeting is on April 9 and Renier-Wigg said the city and Matkom hope to present a revised development agreement to the board during that meeting.

The agreement would lay out a lot of the key details like the total project budget, designs, public financial support needed, a potential construction timeline and much more.

The current timeline Renier-Wigg laid out would see a fresh agreement between the city and Matkom approved in spring, which would set Matkom up to finalize construction plans by the end of 2024 in order to start construction sometime in 2025.

Contact Jeff Bollier at (920) 431-8387 or jbollier@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JeffBollier.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: What's up with the vacant lot on Monroe Avenue in downtown Green Bay?