A rendering of the fire station/apartment complex project at the corner of S. Broadway and Arndt Street in Green Bay. (Photo courtesy: City of Green Bay)
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Plans are moving forward to build a new fire station in downtown Green Bay.
City leaders say the initiative includes affordable apartments and retail space too.
With faded green awnings and weathered brickwork to match, many say the old Badger Sheet Metal building on South Broadway is showing its age.
Green Bay Metro Fire Chief Matthew Knott says demolition may be on the horizon.
“We’re really excited about this. This is going to be an awesome building for us and our community as a whole. The building’s going to be a three-story building, where we’re going to have large apparatus bays across the front of the building that will be facing Broadway,” said Knott.
The fire station as a whole will be on the first floor, and the second floor, and our administrative offices will be on the third floor. So this building actually replaces two buildings that we have. Our fire station one, which is our administrative building and fire station three which is located on Shawano, housing currently an engine and an ambulance.
“Today’s a really important milestone. We’ve been working toward this day since 2018, when the Redevelopment Authority first acquired this property,” said Matt Buchanan, Green Bay’s deputy development director.
Buchanan says the city secured federal environmental money to clean up the site and move forward to offer 95 affordable housing units. He says the public-private partnership is key.
“We’re negotiating a development agreement now. We expect that to come to the city for approval in the next month or so. It will make all of this — several years of planning work and demolition work — worth it,” said Buchanan.
Knott says he’s ready to move.
“It couldn’t be soon enough, right? But really, what we’re working on is a definitive timeline, but we anticipate in the next couple years, we’ll see a lot of progress, a lot of development on this site,” he said.
Green Bay leaders say they are still working on design details, but the project will cost at least $5 million.
Comments