Brown County and UW-Green Bay Hire Planner for Phoenix Innovation Park

PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK

GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Brown County and UW-Green Bay have hired a planner to help oversee the development of the Phoenix Innovation Park.

A variety of uses are planned for 64 acres of undeveloped land on the west side of the campus, near the Brown County STEM Innovation Center.

“You have a Division 1 school, but you don’t have the Division 1 experience, so creating that on campus, make it more of a destination development,” said Alan Peters, the newly hired economic development executive.

Peters has 20 years of private economic development experience in the Milwaukee area. He’ll now be helping lead the planning for the Phoenix Innovation Park, which is a joint effort between UW-Green Bay and Brown County.

The two entities previously paired together for the 2019 opening of the STEM Innovation Center.

“I think it really brings together a lot of the resources from the county and the school, but it also allows somebody to focus full time on actually establishing and growing that innovation park, which is a very important aspect of the city’s economic development strategy,” said Cole Runge, Brown County’s planning director.

A main goal is to increase UW-Green Bay’s enrollment to at least 15,000 students. Enrollment surpassed 10,000 this year after seeing increases in 8 of the last 9 years.

“We’re envisioning a lot of different amenities for students and others to bring people to the campus who aren’t just students,” said Runge.

County and school leaders have previously said those amenities could include restaurants, childcare, and perhaps even a hotel. New academic buildings are also part of the vision.

“I think water science is something the school is very strong at, advanced manufacturing, there are some other areas that come forward,” said Peters.

There isn’t a timeline yet for when construction could start on the park.

The new development position is being paid for jointly between the county and the school. UW-Green Bay says it is paying its share with proceeds from the sale of the Chancellor’s house.