As noted in today's Northwestern, the Redevelopment Authority (RDA) meets today at 4 p.m. to consider a proposal from Oshkosh River Development LLC to take over from Akcess. Partners in the proposal are brothers Andy and Art Dumke and the managers of Discovery Properties.
My teaching responsibilities will not allow me to go to the RDA meeting. If I did attend, here's what I would say:
Now that Akcess has officially withdrawn from the redevelopment area, we have an opportunity do what should have been done years ago: find out what kinds of developments are desired and will be supported by the public at-large. If nothing else, the Akcess period showed us that proposals for office space generate neither community enthusiasm nor tenant interest. To bring forward another office space proposal--and to add to it a requirement that taxpayers foot the bill for transient docks--is a difficult proposal to sell.
And as a simple matter of fairness, we owe other potential developers the opportunity to put in a proposal. To transfer the land from Akcess to ORD without allowing any other proposals will be perceived as more of the same kind of old-boy politics that gave us the 100 block, Five Rivers, and other fiascos. We will succeed only in building more cynicism and suspicion about the way economic development gets done in Oshkosh. Let's take a deep breath, find out what the community wants and will support, and after receiving that feedback put out a new request for proposals.
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