The optimism once associated with the Akcess Group's office building development seems to be absent in today's Northwestern blip. Securing tenants for the building--which the common council and city administration should have required as a condition before approving the project--is apparently proving to be much more difficult than the developers expected.
I'm going to ask that the Waterfront development be placed on council member statements at the next meeting so that we can have an open discussion of possible backup plans.
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Back up plan? Get those ideas flowing. What would you suggest?
Please offer your thoughts on this. Thanks
I supported the original vision that Akcess promoted: mixed use development with retail, grocery store, housing, shops, etc. etc. When it became clear that Akcess could not deliver on that vision, and instead was going to develop an office complex that has zero support in the community, we needed to pull the plug and find developers who COULD deliver on it. The council instead chose to approve a term sheet without any evidence at all of tenant interest in the building, and so here we are.
Now we are stuck with a "master developer" agreement with Akcess in which it is not exactly clear how we even get to Plan B IF it turns out that Akcess can't deliver on the office. That's something I hope we can resolve at Tuesday's meeting.
If the office building and hotel do not happen, then I think we should charge the next city manager of mayor with finding developers that can put the mixed use vision in place. If it turns out that Akcess is correct in claiming that no grocer, etc. will develop on the Waterfront, then we should revisit Esslinger's "Bay Beach" idea for the Waterfront. Make it into a family friendly park area similar to Green Bay's. We could even find a way to link it to the Leach and market it as a "Beach to the Leach" experience for tourists and residents. While it's true a Bay Beach idea would not generate property tax revenue, it would generate bodies downtown, which we need badly.
I think the beach idea would work well with the Waterfront Education Center idea that Mary Hiles put forth in the Northwestern last month. She argued that Burlington, VT has had great success with such a place and there's no reason it couldn't work here.
All of this may be academic, because again that master developer agreement may have tied our hands. Too bad we're also stuck with a form of government that does not rely any candidate for an executive level position to put development ideas to the voters.
(I don't know if this post was sent properly, so I've tried again. Sorry if you recieved multiple posts.)
I too supported the original vision of mixed use. Will Mr. Rikkers be at the next council meeting? Why can't the city attny. prepare information regarding the terms of contract prior to the meeting, so you can go into the meeting fully informed? I do believe that Akcess is correct in claiming no grocer expressed interest in locating on the site. We've heard feedback from Rob Klebman stating the same regarding other areas of the city.
We can still explore the idea of an Education Continuim Community.
A park would also be wonderful.
"Too bad we're also stuck with a form of government that does not rely any candidate for an executive level position to put development ideas to the voters."
Ah, but we do rely on you.
The council needs to expedite the city manager hiring process. Don't prolong it.
What concerns me is that we don't truly have one city department responsible for economic development. We have a public/private conglomeration of organizations including OAEDC, CHAMCO, (loosely affiliated with the Chamber of Commerce), the Department of Community Development. Plan Commison, Redevelopment Authority and BID. What one person is in charge of the functions of the the multiple organizations? How are they integrated and how they are implemented within Oshkosh's Economic Development Vision? How is the value of public funding evaluated? Who's accountable?
Rather than using the form of government as a reason or excuse for not having successful development ideas, maybe we need to consolidate and restructure our economic development system. Then hire somone who specializes in economic development with the vision, experience and leadership to recruit investors and developers to the city.
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