County favors Weber plan for Lot C: Offices, housing and retail

It was a long but productive day for Don Weber.A La Crosse County committee gave a preliminary nod Thursday to Weber Holdings $68 million proposal to build offices, retail space and 94 housing units on the 2.3-acre downtown parking area known as Lot C.

The firm, led by Logistics Health Inc. CEO and Riverside Center developer Weber, was the committees narrow but consensus choice over a combined plan by Borton Construction, Three Sixty Real Estate Solutions and Doerflinger building owner/renovator Mike Keil. Doran Companies of Bloomington, Minn., was taken out of the running early among the three finalists after 5 hours of interviews Thursday afternoon.

Theyre all qualified developers, said Supervisor Joe Veenstra, chairman of the countys Administrative Center and Downtown Campus Study Committee. When the decisions as hard as it was, it means you had good proposals.

Along with the housing, the Weber Holdings proposal calls for a street-level caf and market discussions already have begun with a potential, yet-unnamed market tenant along with 100,000 square feet of office space for 500 health care-related jobs Weber pledged to add downtown over three years.

It also has room as requested for Associated Bank, which had agreed to sell its building at 605 State St. to the county as a new administrative center if it could move to Lot C. The total taxable value of the finished complex was estimated at $54 million.

Development of Lot C is part of the countys interlocking plans that include the selling the administrative center at 400 N. Fourth St. for $250,000 to Stizo Development LLC a partnership of Three Sixty and Borton that would gut the building to remove asbestos and then convert it to student housing and buying the current Associated Bank building for $4.6 million to convert into county offices.

Like the Weber concept, the Borton-Three Sixty-Doerflinger proposal was a mix of office, retail and residential space, plus a hotel later on after the local market has time to absorb two other downtown hotels now in the works. Both included rooftop green spaces and offered the county money for the lot itself, Weber Holdings $500,000 to $1.5 million, Borton-Three Sixty-Doerflinger $12.50 per square foot.

But the latter proposals development would be in phases that run through 2020, at some point potentially spreading into adjacent property that until recently had been a regional postal processing center. Phase One, from March 2015 to January 2016, would construct only the Associated Bank section, 3,000 square feet of retail or service space and 60 market-rate residential units.

Committee members acknowledged that while they liked both local presentations, the fact Weber Holdings wanted to build the entire complex as a whole, starting in summer 2015 and completed two years later, gave it a slight edge.

The inclusion of some street level and underground parking in the Weber plans was a plus as well, committee members said, though both proposals admitted the county and city likely will have to be enlisted to fully address the parking needs downtown.

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County favors Weber plan for Lot C: Offices, housing and retail