WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAU) — Wausau’s city leaders moved forward with a Wausau Center Mall revitalization project at a key committee Tuesday. The council’s Committee of the Whole voted to accept the one and only proposed option, but Council President Robert Mielke says the package passed 7-3. Mielke says he was one of the “no” votes. “Ironically enough, the three fellas running for mayor voted against it. Myself, Mr. Winters, and Mr. Oberbeck. For myself, the reason I voted against it at this time? I just don’t like the fact, and I haven’t liked this the entire time, that it’s only the one option made available or offered from CBL, for CBL. I just have a lot of concerns, if you want to call it that.”
The current version of the redevelopment plan calls for offering tax increment financing loans on the project. Part of that is a $4.1 million loan to move Younkers to the former JC Penney’s space and buy out their lease on the property. Another $2 million to $8 million in loans would be available to individual tenants in the mall for improving their stores.
Mielke says they should be discussing other possibilities, and not just the one proposal from the mall’s owner, CBL & Associates. “There should have been an option B or option C, that type of thing. I’m also a realist, you know, you’ve got to look it, and I don’t want to have an empty building downtown, either.”
The Committee of the Whole vote now moves the proposal forward to the Economic Development Committee, then Finance, and then to the full common council. Mielke believes all of those votes will happen yet this month.
