University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. MWC file photo.
CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) You have probably heard that the UWSP-Wausau campus is moving. Next fall they will relocate from Marathon Park to the NorthCetral Technical College campus.
They will leave behind four buildings near Marathon Park. The county will decide what happens to them. The buildings could be re-purposed, or they could be demonished.
The buildings are the main classroom space off a Stewart Avenue. It’s a huge building with classrooms, offices, a dining hall and a theater-auditorium. There’s a fieldhouse with a swimming pool and a basketball court. There’s the newest of the buildings, across the street, with a state of the art theater. And there’s a dormitory.
The dormitory is what I’d like to speak to you about today. It hasn’t been used in six years; that’s how long its been since UWSP-Wausau has offered student housing.
This is the last-best chance for Wausau and Marathon County to address its affordable housing crisis. We shouldn’t let the opportunity go to waste.
There are 28 dorm rooms on each of three floors. To convert them into affordable apartments would take a lot of work. They would need kitchen facilities and bathrooms. Currently the dorm set up envisioned students using community showers and walking across the street to eat at a dining hall.
These apartments would be very, very small. At best, one room studios. You probably wouldn’t want to live there. Two people would literally be living on top of one another. But I also think they could be priced so inexpensively that they would be affordable to the otherwise-unhoused. While imperfect, it would be better than living on the street.
Someone would have to manage the building. Someone would have to be in charge of maintenance. There would have to be security to keep the drug dealers and other bad actors out. And all of those are legitimate obstacles.
But I keep coming back to this: here is is, a building that’s set up for housing in a community that can’t generate enough affordable housing. Will we rise to the occasion? Or will the building be torn down?
Chris Conley
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