WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — City leaders in Wausau have voted unanimously to end their relationship with embattled developer Mike Frantz.
During Tuesday’s city council meeting a measure ending Barker Financial’s ground lease for the stalled RiverLife development was passed by Alders.
Tuesday’s vote was largely ceremonial, after Barker Financial had racked up well over $2 million in construction debt on the project to local contractors, namely Sammons Group who had been pouring the foundation for what was to become a mixed-use retail and housing development. Liens were placed on the project in early spring, and the developers failed to cure them by a mid-August deadline.
Mayor Robert Mielke told residents during a roundtable discussion last week that there is no chance that the city will ever work with Frantz again. He also emphasized that the city has put new measures in place to vet developers in the future.
The vote also marked the last time that controversy surrounding Frantz would come before the city council. City leaders have found themselves answering questions about the investor on at least two occasions in the last 10 months, including in December 2017 when word of Frantz’s involvement in the failed redevelopment of Green Bay’s Hotel Northland was discovered.
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Several months later an investigative report uncovered a connection between Frantz’s then-partner Jason Sharky and a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme in Denver, Colorado. That led to Sharky resigning from the project, a move many on the council questioned because Sharky had previously been described as “the money” behind the project.
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The next chapter in the RiverLife development will be written beginning in early October when two developers including Wausau-based 500 East Bay LLC will go before the city’s economic development committee to pitch their visions for the project. Both have expressed interest in continuing the mixed-use development vision for the area.
