GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – There are big plans in the works for about 65 acres of undeveloped land on the UW-Green Bay campus.
FOX 11 has been telling you about the ideas for several years, but for the first time, there is now a conceptual map showing where new development could be built.
A hotel, destination restaurant, mixed use buildings with commercial opportunities and new academic buildings are all part of the conceptual map for the area being called the Phoenix Innovation Park.
“We have over 2,100 students living on campus, but they have to hop in a car and drive about 10-15 minutes just to get the basic goods for their dorm room, so some convenience and retail opportunities are also needed,” said Alan Peters, UW-Green Bay’s economic development executive, who was hired to lead the planning for the innovation park.
The new innovation park would be on the west end of campus, mostly near the STEM Innovation Center. It is being modeled after University Research Park at UW-Madison, which is about 125 acres, according to Peters.
Peters says the plans need to get approvals from UW’s Board of Regents and the state’s building commission.
“We have spoken with the real estate folks and developers on the concept,” said Peters. “There’s interest in it, but they said the red tape, the process to kind of get through this is a bit overwhelming for them, so we’ll take the lead on the land portion of it, getting the pads ready and then we’ll engage with third party developers to do the vertical construction.”
Separately, Peters told county officials the university is in the process of getting “gener8tor” on campus. It’s a venture capital firm that helps entrepreneurs get ideas off the ground.
“They fit in front of like a TitletownTech,” said Peters. “They don’t overlap. They help more of the pre-seed companies.”
The companies could go to a Titletown Tech upon graduating from gener8tor.
“This is a system that works,” said Brown County Director of Administration Chad Weininger. “It has a proven record of doing that across the United States, but specifically Madison.”
The hope is the companies would stay in the area, perhaps even choosing to locate in the new innovation park.
The cost of bringing gener8tor to campus is $1 million per year.
The university is trying to gather funds for three years, asking the county to pitch in $75,000 per year.
Half of the money needed could come from a state grant, according to Peters. The university has also secured private funding.
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