Posted on

Marathon City attempts sale of local park

Marathon City attempts sale of local park Marathon City attempts sale of local park

Marathon City is negotiating the sale of Veterans Park to S.C. Swiderski, Mosinee, which plans to build 32 apartments in four, two story buildings on the site of the park’s current ballfield, according to administrator Andy Kurtz at last week Wednesday’s joint meeting of the village board and plan commission.

Kurtz said sale of the park will provide critical funding for a new Veterans Park softball/ baseball complex on the eastern edge of the village, but that the parties have not yet settled on a sale price.

He called the sale of Veterans Park a “key element” to the “funding stack” of revenues needed to pay for the complex.

The administrator said the apartment buildings would include attached garages and be accessible from both Hickory and Chestnut streets. He said, too, that the apartments would meet the federal definition of “affordable.” Kurtz said S.C. Swiderski, which is ready to break ground for another apartment project in the village’s business park, is “happy to be in our community” and create more rental properties.

The administrator said the project had its complications. The apartment project can’t start until the softball/baseball complex is completed, but sale of the current Veterans Park is needed to afford the complex project.

Kurtz said bids for a new Veterans Park have lapsed and the project now must be rebid. He said a $450,000 grant from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has been delayed because of a federal glitch. The village can’t start construction of the softball/baseball complex until a grant contract is signed, he explained, adding that the village is asking the DNR for a letter authorizing an early start to the project.

Plan commission member Connie Stieber questioned the design of the softball/ baseball complex. She said one of the four diamonds at the complex should be sized for adult softball games. That way, she said, softball tournaments, such as the Knock MS Out of the Park tournament, would be able to be held at the complex.

Kurtz said planners considered Stieber’s suggestion but rejected it as too expensive. He said that adult softball can be played at the Marathon Sports Center diamond or at the softball/baseball complex with some rule modifications.

“The additional cost for an adult field with lighting and fencing is significant,” he said. “A youth facility is what we need. There are adult facilities in town.”

Trustee Mark Ahrens said he has heard grumbling in the community about the softball/baseball field project.

He said that many pieces of the complex project had to “fall together” before it could be started. He said the village needs to keep the local public informed.

“We need to continue to be transparent,” he said. “We just need to put the cards all on the table. It will be fine.”

Ahrens stressed that the baseball/softball complex project would not add to village property taxes. “This won’t be on the tax roll at all,” he said.

Kurtz said the overall project is moving forward, but there is more that needs to be done.

“Things are progressing and we have more work to do,” he said.


Summer library program performerGreen Bay children’s performer Randy Peterson presented a pirate-themed performance last week Wednesday at Oak Street Park, Edgar. His show was sponsored by the Marathon County Public Library.
LATEST NEWS