The village of Allouez is hoping to put a new development on the current site of the Green Bay Correctional Institute.
Village president Jim Rafter says the community is hurting for tax dollars, and the prison is a 50-acre property that generates nothing for their tax rolls. A fully developed mixed-use complex on the site would be just the tax boost his residents need.
“For the Village of Allouez, that would be a 100-million dollar property, it would be approximately 700-thousands dollars a year.”
Allouez is a landlocked community, with incorporated municipalities on all sides, and Rafter says that means they just can’t expand to create more property taxes.
So far, the proposal has broad support from inside the community. “We were hoping to get 1000 signatures from residents 100 businesses by sometime in October and we hit that mark last week.”
Any actual closure of the property would have to go through the state legislature, but State Representative David Steffen is already on board and looking to help move the project forward.