Schofield City Hall. MWC photo by Mike Leischner.
City leaders in Schofield have been given proposals from three developers for future use of the land currently occupied by City Hall, and all three come in the form of high-density housing units.
Those proposals came from three Wisconsin-based developers, two of which are local. Mosinee’s S.C. Swiderski is proposing two buildings with a total of 97 apartments, Plover’s Lokre Companies would have 130 units including 30 condos in four buildings, and Madison-based Commonwealth Development envisions one building with about 50 units, most of which would be low-income housing.
You can see the proposals for yourself as part of Monday’s agenda packet by clicking here. Developers have included summaries and floor plans for their visions, and the city has scored each design using a three-point system with 1’s being the best and 3’s being the worst, meaning the low score is better.
Using that scale, the Lokre proposal rates the best but it also requests the most city involvement at over $5.8 million.
Of course this story has been brewing for nearly a year now. The city held a public hearing on the proposal in November 2021 where some residents did express concerns about losing the neighborhood feel of the area if multi-family housing is part of the future. Additionally, there’s concern about increased traffic in the area that would come with adding 100 or more housing units.
After more discussion in the spring of this year, the council voted in May to move forward with a plan to move City Hall to the current city garage space on Alderson Street, though the vote wasn’t unanimous and some expressed concerns about moving the building into an industrial zone which regularly sees heavy vehicle traffic.
The request for proposals went out to developers at around that time as well. At least one unnamed developer contacted the city directly about the property. City leaders will get another look at plans for the new City Hall setup later this week.
The city has eyed a redevelopment of the City Hall property as a way of growing its tax base and filling one of the last developable pieces of waterfront property in the area.
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