APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The City of Appleton shared its progress in redeveloping the College North neighborhood with its residents on Monday.
Jeanne and Jerry Roberts have lived in Appleton since 1985.
“Appleton has a lot of potential. It’s a great place to live. The downtown just has so much potential.”
The city showed its residents and received input on its progress on identifying underutilized sites that could be redeveloped, as well as the status of other development projects downtown.
Appleton resident Daniel Breed is excited to see more housing plans in the works. He’s also a pastor at a nearby church.
“It’s a neighborhood that is growing, seeing of course more condos, and more apartments being built downtown, and we’re excited as a church to be able to minister to people that are down there and to serve any way we can.”
Neighbors also expressed interest in expanding the arts.
“I think by making the downtown more vibrant, there will be more potential for that,” Jeanne Roberts said.
City of Appleton Director of Community and Economic Development Karen Harkness tells FOX 11 one of the catalyst projects in the area is the Appleton Library.
“But we also have a couple of other catalyst projects. Merge Urban Development has a phase 1 and a phase 2 that have already been approved by our City Council. Those are mixed-use developments, residential and commercial. But then we have other sites identified that maybe are office or more mixed-use, or straight residential.”
Harkness says this is a community effort.
“We need to hear from the community to be able to plan for 10 to 20 years out as to how College Avenue North is going to develop.”
The city also has a website where residents can give input on the redevelopment of the College North neighborhood.
You can find that link here.
