Tear it down, survey says, on what to do with old school building
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GLENWOOD CITY — Kevin Oium of Cedar Corporation out of Menomonie presented the results of a recent survey that the Council had requested to find out how local citizens felt about what should be done with the former school building along east Oak Street.
Mayor John Larson noted that the city had sent out more than 400 survey requests along with the utility bills and received 53 returns for the five-question survey.
The first question asked; “What would you like to see happen to the former school site?” Thirty of the fifty-three responds or 56.6 percent, choose to tell the City to “Tear down and redevelop the site.” Only 20.75 percent, or eleven responds asked the City to “Remodel and reuse the building.” Five people suggested, “just tear it down,” while seven people had a several other ideas, like a park.
The second question was, “If the City were to renovate the building, what would you like to see there?”
Forty-one and half percent indicated that they do not want to see the building renovated. The rest indicated for a library; 32 percent; Community Center, 28 percent; City hall, 22 percent; Multi-Family Housing and Senior Housing each received 13 percent, and 30 percent had other ideas about the property.
The Third question was, “If the City were to tear down the building and redevelop the site, what would you like to see there?”
Over forty-one percent stated that they would like to see a Multi-use municipal building (Community Center, City Hall, Library). Twenty-six percent had a list of other ideas with three items receiving about 17 percent of the responds that just wanted a new City Hall, single family housing, or a park. Others on the list include Multi-family housing, Community Center, Senior Housing.
Question number four is, “What sources of funding would you support if the City were to tear down and redevelop the site or renovate the building?” People responding could choose more than one answer to this question.
Over sixty percent of the returns stated that grant monies should be used to pay for up to 66 percent of a multi-use municipal building and fifty-two percent indicated that working with a private developer to share project costs, while twenty-six percent favored borrowing funds and increasing the mill rate.
The last question was, “if a private developer was interested in redeveloping the property, what incentives should the city offer to help the developer assuming the development would add value to the City’s tax roll?”
About fifty-five percent indicated that they would favor street and utility improvements to the site as needed. A quarter of the returns would favor free land and eighteen percent would offer no incentives with some people having a mix of other ideas.