GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – Brown County supervisors approved a site agreement that will allow C. Reiss Company to relocate their downtown Green Bay coal piles.
“Relief, we’re done with this for now,” county chairman Patrick Buckley told Local 5 News when asked how it feels to finally reach an agreement to move the coal piles.
“Moving the coal piles after 125 years is monumental, it’s almost hard to describe,” added supervisor Patrick Evans.
The Brown County Board of Supervisors met for an official vote at the Brown County Central Library on Thursday night, following a tentative agreement reached between officials and the C. Reiss Company on Tuesday evening.
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County supervisors approved a resolution authorizing a site agreement at the former Pulliam Power Plant site with C. Reiss Company. Officials revealed that C. Reiss will use this site for salt storage and use their current spot for storing the salt (Fox River Terminals) to house the coal.
C. Reiss officials said the coal won’t be moved from its current spot near the Mason Street bridge all at once. Instead, they will let the piles gradually dwindle as they continue to do business with their customers. Once the former Pulliam Power Plant site is ready for the salt to move in they will begin sending new shipments of coal to the Fox River Terminals site.
“Like to have it done in five years could be 10 years because there’s a lot of work that goes into putting the dock wall up and the property prepared and going from there,” Buckley told Local 5 News.
The agreement is the result of months of meticulous negotiations between all the parties involved.
“The dollar amount, the acreage, the length of the lease those were three big ones,” said C. Reiss Company CEO Keith Hasselhoff when asked what parts of the site agreement were the most challenging to negotiate. “We had to give in some areas to get what we wanted in other areas.”
Some of the terms of the site agreement between C. Reiss Company and Brown County include:
- C. Reiss will lease 16 useable acres on the northernmost portion of the Pulliam Power Plant Site from the county.
- C. Reiss will pay $350,000 per year for rent. There are rent escalators throughout the life of the lease.
- The lease is for 60 years with an option to extend if both parties want to.
- The lease must be fully executed prior to Sept. 15. County officials tell Local 5 News that they still need to hash out parts of the actual lease agreement but that it will look very similar to the site agreement.
County, city, and C. Reiss officials scheduled a news conference ahead of the supervisors’ vote on Thursday evening. That news conference began about a half hour late because the parties were still negotiating the final details of the site agreement.
Officials tell Local 5 News the goal is to revitalize the current site of the coal piles into something that can benefit the community like apartment buildings, storefronts, and/or a revamped waterfront there.
“I think you’re going to recognize that this is a good deal, but more importantly than that this is a good thing for the community here that we all jointly represent,” said Green Bay mayor Eric Genrich.
Genrich and common council president Brian Johnson also played big roles in the negotiations.
An official statement from Shipyard District Director Tarl Knight expressed gratitude and joy over the relocation and agreement.
On behalf of the taxpaying business owners, property owners, and residents of the Shipyard District and its neighborhoods, we finally celebrate the agreement between the Brown County Board of Supervisors and Clemens Reiss Coal Company to relocate the coal piles and start the process of remediating the land, water, and air of our district and along the Fox River. Now it’s time to continue advancing our mission together for our neighborhoods, our district, and our whole community
Shipyard District Director Tarl Knight
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The full release from the Shipyard District is available below:
The original deadline for negotiations was in the evening on May 30; however, the deadline was extended by the state to June 3 at 5 p.m. because of the progress that had been made. If they didn’t meet this deadline, the county risked losing a $15 million state grant that would help them redevelop the port of Green Bay and move the coal piles .
“The deadline helped, it gave everybody a sense of urgency, we got to budge off what we want when we got to find that middle ground that will work for everybody,” said Hasselhoff.
Local 5’s Paul Steeno was in attendance to cover the vote. This story will be updated with more details as they become available.
