Chippewa Falls (WQOW) - Efforts to improve a local downtown get a boost.
The City of Chippewa Falls is being awarded a $506,000 community development block grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. The city has been working to improve its downtown the past few years and the money will be used for those efforts.
"It's really a big boost in terms of putting the funding together to help implement some of the projects we're trying to proceed with downtown," says Jayson Smith, Chippewa Falls City Planner. "Especially in terms of the Plaza building, it'll help off-set some of the cost to purchase, relocation and demolition costs."
A portion of the money will be used to buy the Plaza building. A La Crosse developer is interested in the site for a four-story building which would have commercial space, 35 apartments and underground parking.
"What we have done so far is really stimulating other types of developments and bringing developers to the community to say we like what you're doing and we want to be a part of it," says Smith. "So it is exciting, it's showing some real benefits and it's going to continue to move rather rapidly."
The project does face one more hurdle. The developer is trying to get an affordable tax credit through WHEDA. An announcement on that could come in mid-April. If everything goes according to plan, the city hopes the developer could break ground in October of this year.
