Former Shopko Area Eyed as Site for New Redevelopment District
E.C. City Council will consider creating TIF
A special tax district is in the works to encourage redevelopment in the former Shopko Plaza area on West Clairemont Avenue.
The 32-acre area includes the site of the former Shopko – which closed in 2019 and was demolished earlier this year – as well as an adjacent (and largely vacant) strip mall, some other commercial properties, and a whole lot of empty parking lots.
The Eau Claire City Council is scheduled to vote Tuesday, June 27, on establishing boundaries for a new Tax Incremental District encompassing this area. The district’s creation was recommended by the city’s Plan Commission in early June.
In such a district – often called a TIF district or a TID – additional taxes generated by new development are used to pay the city’s cost for the new infrastructure that made that development possible.
Aaron White, the city’s economic development manager, told members of the Plan Commission on June 5 that the city expects to generate $17 million in additional tax revenue in the district over the next 20 years. Most of this, he said, will come from an “initial surge of revenue” from an apartment complex that Greywolf Partners of Madison is building on the site. That 258-unit complex, dubbed Station 955, is expected to be finished by the beginning of the 2024 academic year.
The proposed district, referred to as TID No. 16, encompasses not only the former Shopko site itself but also the adjacent (and largely vacant) 1970s-era Shopko Plaza strip mall, a former grocery store building, a number of commercial buildings and restaurants, and the recently opened Howard Apartments, which were built in part of a former motel. The area also includes large areas of underused parking lots, White said.
According to a city project plan, the district “will be created to pay the cost of streets infrastructure and potential land acquisition needed to facilitate development in the area.” The city expects the project to increase property values in the area, as well as to spur new commercial and residential development, the document said.
Over time, the city expects to spend about $9 million to improve streets and build roundabouts to improve traffic circulation in the area, as well as to potentially buy property. The plan also calls for a pedestrian underpass beneath Clairemont Avenue near HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital, which will be useful for connecting UW-Eau Claire students living in the new apartments to upper campus. These costs are expected to be paid back within about 20 years thanks to tax of new development in the district, which are projected to be valued at $55 million.
