Green Bay Council shows support for terms that will effectively relocate coal piles

GREEN BAY – During the Dec. 17 meeting of the Green Bay City Council, board members passed a resolution in support of the lease terms that will go in front of the Brown County Board, which would effectively move the coal piles at the C. Reiss’ Mason Street location.

“This has obviously been a huge city priority, community priority, harbor commission priority for literal decades…  according to Former Mayor Schmidt, even as far back as Romy Dennison, who was the mayor, I think, in the late 50s, early 60s,”  Mayor Eric Genrich said prior to the vote.

“Just a monumental opportunity, I think, for all of us, for our community members and residents, to see this project move forward, to see the opening up of 35 acres of our near downtown waterfront for future reuse that will be to the benefit of all of Green Bay and Brown County's residents.

“And, in addition to that, enabling port growth and expansion at Pulliam with the construction of a new terminal up there; obviously, relocating C. Reiss’ operations, but enabling future growth on that parcel for use into the future.”

“This is something that the mayor and I had discussed as a formal procedure to really demonstrate the city support for obviously a very critical vote that is going to happen by the county,” said Council President Brian Johnson.

Johnson said that it wasn’t necessarily about moving coal piles, it was about port expansion.

CEO Keith Hasselhoff addressed the council stating that “C. Reiss has been part of this community for more than a century. Our company has done business on the Great Lakes since our founding in 1880, and we have called our Mason Street location here in Green Bay home since 1900.”

“The history of our company is closely linked to that of this community, and we know our future will be as well,” he added.

“We were told it would be best for the community if we relocated to the Pulliam site. So we engaged. But from the start, we made clear we would commit to being part of the project, but we also need to be good stewards of our company and the future of our business here.

“To be clear, we've offered a range of options to meet the community's request to move the coal piles. When it was announced this summer that the county did not receive the $25 million federal grant that it sought to complete the full project as originally designed, C. Reiss offered a design of a smaller footprint at the Pulliam site that would allow us to move the coal piles using just the $15 million the state had granted for the project, for the smaller footprint.

“C. Reiss put forth two offers: one similar to the lease that the county has in front of them and the other one — the purchase of the site for $3.5 million. The potential sale would provide the county with a 100% return on its investment and generate approximately $2.1 million to use on other projects. While the county administration has declined to pursue this option we'd still be open to it. The county administration has preferred a lease option, which is the agreement before them.”

The council approved the resolution by a 12-0 vote.

The matter is scheduled to go to the Brown County Board for approval on Wednesday, Dec. 18.