Profiles of Best Practices (For an Adobe Acrobat version of this profile, click here!) Growing and Expanding Area Businesses—Industrial Park
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Situation
The City of Chippewa Falls is the county seat and primary industrial center
for Chippewa County. Both the City and County recognized the need for
additional industrial park space in Chippewa Falls since the two existing
industrial parks are reaching capacity.
Economic Development Strategies
In order to build economic development, the main strategy of the City
of Chippewa Falls was to attract new businesses and expand existing businesses.
Implementation
The City of Chippewa Falls wanted to address issues of industrial park
land availability in order to ensure that it remained the primary industrial
center for the county. The City recognized the importance of industrial
park space with appropriate amenities and infrastructure for attracting
new businesses as well as for supporting existing area business expansion.
As a result, the City and the County began collaborating in order to create
new industrial park space in 1999.
In order to acquire more land for industrial park expansion, the City and County began negotiations regarding annexation. The negotiations focused on property owned by the County that was contiguous to the City border because the site was ideal for industrial park development. This property was annexed into the City and the City and County collaborated to provide the infrastructure needed to develop an industrial park. It was recognized that transportation to move both goods and labor to and from the industrial park location was absolutely essential if the park was to be viable. As a consequence, the City and County began recruiting support and funding for highway improvements. In the summer of 2002, an East Bridge Corridor connected a new business park in the City of Chippewa Falls to Highway 29.
Partners and Leadership
Chippewa County and the City of Chippewa Falls both played an important
role. Both parties also pursued outside sources of funding and improvements
in the highway infrastructure. Rep. Obey was critical in assisting the
City and County in locating HUD and EDA funding that totaled $1.4 million.
Wisconsin Department of Transportation was also an important player in
developing the East Bridge Corridor, which provides convenient highway
access to the new business park from Highway 29.
Outcomes
The outcome is a 250 acre high-amenity business park capable of serving
a wide variety of business types. The collaborative nature of the project
also allows the county to sell the property for $15,000 per acre.
Contact
James Hanke
City of Chippewa Falls
30 W. Central St.
Chippewa Falls, WI 54729
(715) 726-2727
jhanke@ci.chippewa-falls.wi.us
