Marathon Co. to vote on land purchases

By Kevin O 'Brien

Marathon County supervisors have identified three parcels of land in the village of Kronenwetter they would like to buy for a new Highway Department headquarters. Two committees voted last week to recommend spending close to $800,000 for the purchases, a proposal that will be taken up by the full board at its next meeting on April 22.

Two of the three parcels are currently owned by Wisconsin Public Service (WPS) and are located southwest of Wausau Homes and east of the Weston Power Plant. Purchasing the three vacant parcels, all located along Old Business 51, would give the county a little over 18 acres of space, which is slightly below what the Highway Department needs, according to commissioner Jim Griesbach.

The total cost of all three parcels is $794,715, based on offers to purchase reviewed and recommended by members of the Infrastructure Committee and Human Resources, Finance and Capital (HRFC). Only one of the offers, which expires in May, was included in the agenda packet, as the other two had just arrived earlier that day, according to county administrator Lance Leonhard.

Leonhard said buying the three contiguous parcels would give the county about 50 percent more land than it has now on West Street, which includes 7.88 acres for the existing Highway shop plus vacant land and the existing medical examiner’s office.

“It certainly allows for a better development and better flow than what we currently have on our current site,” he said. “It’s in a good location for access.”

Supervisors also signaled that they are interested in purchasing five mostly residential parcels adjacent to the WPS land, including four along Gate of Heaven Drive, which leads to a cemetery to the east, and another along Old Highway 51. The committees met in closed session to discuss negotiating strategies for those parcels, but no action was taken in open session.

If the county were to buy all eight parcels reviewed at last week’s meeting, it would have about 24 acres of land to build on, which is enough for the Highway Department’s needs, Griesbach said. Access to the new site would also be greatly improved over what is available now at the intersection of West Street and 17th Avenue, he noted.

“We do have enough land down there,” he said. “If something were to ever happen, we could always put in what’s called a twiddle lane - kind of like a left-hand turn lane - if we would ever have to do something in the future.”

Without buying the five additional parcels - which add up to roughly 6.2 acres - Griesbach said his department would not have space for on-site storage.

“We’d kind of be in the same boat we’re in right now at our Wausau facility,” he said. “If there’s a major washout on the weekend or we need do something in a hurry, we have no room for spare gravel or culverts.”

Board chairman Kurt Gibbs asked if the county would still have to pay an estimated $5 million to relocate a satellite shop near the Cental Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee if the 18 acres were purchased. Griesbach said it would be “a little tight,” but he believes those facilities could be moved to the site in Kronenwetter and allow the department to go from five to four sites.

According to a letter from Kronenwetter’s planning and zoning director, Peter Wegner, all three of the parcels that were recommended for purchase are zoned B3-General Commercial, which would allow a Highway shop as a “public service” building. Griesbach said he also spoke to the village about the facility’s water needs (800,000 to 900,000 gallons per year), and he was told it would not be an issue.

Shad Harvey, the county’s land use manager, said the county would probably want to rezone the four residential properties into B3 and make it all one parcel if they were all purchased.

Supervisor Randy Fifrick, chairman of the Infrastructure Committee, noted that a bulk of the land the county is looking to purchase is already tax-exempt because it is owned by the WPS utility, so it would not take a lot of value off the tax roll. Griesbach said the eight parcels paid a combined total of just over $13,000 last year.

One concern, however, was how the county’s large plow trucks would handle the Cedar Creek interchange to the north. Supervisor Gayle Marshall noted that the interchange has a very short runway for getting onto Interstate 39, and a lot of passenger cars have a hard time getting up to the 70 mph speed limit.

“I can’t imagine that trucks are going to have an easy time doing that,” she said.

Griesbach said the bridge on that interchange is wide enough so trucks can use the outside edge and should have enough room to get up to speed in time to merge.

“A majority of tire time our big trucks go out is during a snowstorm, so hopefully, people will be watching for them anyhow at that point,” he said.

Options for existing site

Members of the two committees also devoted some of their time to reviewing options for selling or rebuilding at the existing Highway Department shop and on other countyowned land along West Street south of Marathon Park.

Based on estimates from a local contactor, a side-by-side comparison showed that constructing a new shop at the existing location would cost $42.7 million, versus $40.9 million for building at the Kronenwetter location.

“There’s no concrete numbers until we draft plans, do final plans and we go out for bids,” Griesbach said. “So, they are just projected prices.”

The biggest cost differences come from needing to build a replacement for the Mosinee site if the headquarters stay where it is, and for demolishing the old buildings at the existing site, he noted.

If the county were to tear down all of its buildings on West Street and put the roughly 12 acres up for sale, he said the estimated sales price would be about $1.2 million, according to an appraisal done by Phillips Valuation & Consulting of Wausau.

As an alternative, if the county were to sell off two existing buildings - a warehouse and the medical examiner’s building - it could get an estimated $1.4 million, according to the appraiser. The other nine buildings on the site, which date back as far as the 1950s, could fetch as much as $2.3 million.

“Potential redevelopment of this site, with a combination of maybe some commercial and residential, might be the way to go,” Griesbach said.

Noah Phillips of Phillips Valuation said any developer that would want to buy the entire 12 acres of land would likely want to split it up into multiple parcels for a mix of development, which would significantly increase the value of the land.

“The variables and the possibilities are really endless,” Phillips said. “It’s currently zoned industrial, so rezoning would need to take place.”

Before the county could move to sell off the site for redevelopment, the county board would have to amend its West Side Master Plan, which calls for possibly building a new ice arena and other park facilities near the intersection of West and 17th. The board recently approved $690,000 in repairs to the county’s existing ice rinks in Marathon Park, but several supervisors said they would like local hockey teams to take the lead on any new facility.

- The map above shows land in the village of Kronenwetter that Marathon County is looking at purchasing for a new Highway Department headquarters. The three parcels outlined in white will be considered at the county board’s next meeting, and the five other marked parcels are still the subject of negotiations.