County looks at selling parking lots as a test case
By Kevin O’Brien
A pair of county-owned parking lots in Wausau will be used as test cases for how Marathon County disposes of unused public property in the future, according to a consensus reached last week by members of the Human Resources, Finance and Personnel (HRFP) Committee.
After reviewing a categorized list of the over 1,100 parcels owned by the county – most of which are in parks or forests – committee members honed in on a couple of smaller parcels that could possibly be sold for private development. One is a parking lot on Forest Street near the county courthouse and the other is a parking lot on South Eighth Avenue north of UW-Stevens Point at Wausau. They are both located within primarily residential/commercial areas.
Committee chairman John Robinson directed county administrator Lance Leonhard to develop requests for proposals (RFPs) for the two parcels, incorporating criteria suggested by committee members for what the county is looking for when selling the land.
Supervisor Kory Hart, whose district includes other properties the county is looking to sell, suggested that the county consider a few factors when considering proposals, such as the impact on neighboring residents and whether the proposed development would generate property and sales taxes.
“We really need to be good neighbors, and make sure the residents are kept in mind,” he said, referring to both the parking lots and larger county-owned properties on River Drive and Thomas Street.
Supervisor Gayle Marshall suggested that the county consider selling the land to the city, which has its own economic development staff to help with repurposing the land.
The decision to focus on the two parking lots came after a presentation by Dave Mack, planning and land information manager for Conservation, Planning and Zoning (CPZ). He went through a summary of the nearly 40,000 acres owned by the county – 98 percent of which are currently used for forests, parks, the Central Wisconsin Airport, UW-SP, the Highway Department and other county buildings.
“A good share of what we own are parcels that we’re using and that we really can’t do a whole lot with,” he said.
Under the category of “limited redevelopment potential” is 376 acres of land that is underwater after the damming of Lake Wausau, Lake DuBay and Eau Pleine Flowage. Another 3.39 acres are located within the Rib River floodplain, and 2.76 acres are part of an abandoned railroad right-of-way between Fenwood and Edgar.
Land with better redevelopment potential includes 30 parcels (25 acres) seized from tax-delinquent owners and 10 parcels (3 acres) “with no clear explanation” of how the county obtained the title. Mack said some title research would be needed before those 10 parcels are sold off.
The county’s highest-valued properties are located on River Drive and Thomas Street in Wausau, where several county departments have or will be vacating buildings in order to relocate to the county’s Lake View Drive campus next to North Central Health Care. An old dorm on the UW-SP campus also has potential for residential redevelopment.
Board chairman Kurt Gibbs said the county needs to carefully consider any proposals that come in for the high-value parcels, especially when it comes to generating taxes or providing needed community services. A non-profit agency may not pay taxes, he said, but it could “supplant” work that currently needs to be done by county government.
“I think we do want to control what happens on that property in the future,” he said.
Leonhard said he would develop draft RFPs for the two parking lot parcels and bring them back to the committee for consideration at its Feb. 22 meeting.
