City offers to buy former Press-Gazette building to replace decaying Green Bay Police HQ

GREEN BAY - Green Bay, after years searching, identified a potential future home for the Green Bay Police Department: The 100-year-old former Green Bay Press-Gazette building.

The city’s Finance Committee meets at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday and will consider a letter of intent to purchase the historic building at 435 E. Walnut St., right next to City Hall, and two nearby parking lots from their owner, EAMR LLC, for a combination of cash and options to buy three city-owned properties.

The city has known for almost a decade its police and fire departments had outgrown their downtown headquarters buildings, but finding a new central city location and millions of dollars to build the facilities has taken years. Green Bay police officers have worked out of the building at 307 S. Adams St. for 55 years now.

“For the first time, we have a realistic opportunity to develop a new, high-quality facility that’s home for the police department,” Mayor Eric Genrich said.

The purchase terms call for the city to pay Minneapolis-based EAMR $3.6 million and give the company options to purchase Green Bay Metro Fire station house 1, station house 3 and a third, vacant parcel in the 1600 block of Sixth Street. The city would use $600,000 from the Whitney Park area tax incremental financing district (TIF), $300,000 in unspent bonding and $2.7 million of the city's general fund balance to complete the purchase.

In exchange, EAMR would transfer to the city the Press-Gazette building, a parking lot across Madison Street from the building, and another parking lot at 212 S. Madison St.

Green Bay Police Chief Chris Davis said the former Press-Gazette building would give the department a lot more space and the opportunity to offer a more welcoming space to the community compared to the building on South Adams Street, which he said is "not very inviting" to the community.

"The current thinking in police facilities is (focused on) how we make these facilities more open and inviting for people and also how do we make them a community resource," Davis said. "The Press-Gazette building has an opportunity for us to become that community resource and at a lot lower cost than building new."

Green Bay Police had outgrown its current space almost a decade ago: 'I think this carpet was originally mauve'

According to prior Press-Gazette reporting, the Green Bay Police moved into their current headquarters in 1969 when the department had 136 officers. The city added a second floor in 1993 to increase the space to 66,000 square feet and about 5,800 square feet of garage space.

The Green Bay Police Department's ranks by 2016 had grown to 192 sworn officers and 41 civilian employees who had outgrown the building, which was also starting to show its age and constraints. The break room was converted to operations space and officers worked in tiny cubicles. Some officers worked out of basement offices with no windows. Davis said the second-floor carpet hasn't been replaced since the 1990s and has turned brown from use over the years, but on the original color still shows at the fringes.

"I think this carpet was originally mauve," he said.

A space needs analysis in 2016 showed both the police and fire departments needed new headquarters to replace their cramped, aging buildings. The idea at the time was to build a joint headquarters estimated to cost $38 million . City leaders said new headquarters for both agencies would be a priority, but still would take years to complete.

"We’ve tried to make it hospitable, but it really has outlived its usefulness," Davis said.

Repurposing an existing downtown building could cut project costs

The $38 million price tag is not only eight years old now, but it also envisioned one building for both the police and fire departments. A more estimate put the cost for a police building at $50 million, but even that was delivered prior to a recent spike in construction costs, said Brian Johnson, the City Council President and chair of the city's Ad Hoc Facilities Committee.

Johnson's Council district includes both police headquarters, the former Press-Gazette building and the two Metro fire station house properties involved in the tentative deal. He said renovating the Press-Gazette building specifically would significantly reduce project costs, give the Green Bay Police a modern headquarters, and also spur new, property-tax-generating development on central city land that's current not taxed.

"It's the layers of this deal that make it more attractive," Johnson said. "The way you're swapping parcels of land, you create the ability to generate new (property tax revenue) to capture and maybe help pay the debt on this (project)."

Is the former Press-Gazette building a good fit for the Green Bay Police?

Now, the department has 188 sworn officers and 45 civilian professional employees and the city hired another consultant, Berners Schober, to conduct a new space analysis for the police, municipal court and city hall. The city received those analyses last October.

The police building analysis found critical safety concerns, substantial deficiencies, cramped spaces and undersized spaces that combined to significantly impede functionality and security.

The city’s Ad Hoc Facilities Committee meets at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday and will take up its own resolution to approve the purchase. And Berners Schober is expected to shift its space analysis from the current police department building to the former Press-Gazette building.

The firm's work will help the city answer a few questions about the move, such as where a shooting range could be located and where to securely park squad cars not in immediate use by officers.

Davis said those are major issues of the Press-Gazette building conversion to work out, but he expects the consultants will be able to figure out solutions. The shooting range is needed because officers have spent more time training on use of force, particularly with firearms and decision-making. He also said city officials can address the need for secure parking for equipment and officers.

"I think there are ways to solve for these issues. But any facility you don’t build from the ground up you’ll find some issue or another," Davis said. "I’m hopeful at least that there are ways to work around that (in the Press-Gazette building.) We figured out a way to make it work in this facility."

Former Press-Gazette building could help Green Bay Police headquarters become a 'community resource'

It's not just that the former Press-Gazette building would give the department more space, but how that space could further the department's aim to be a community resource. He said the added more windows and natural light in the former Press-Gazette building would make for a more welcoming space to residents.

"We want to be seen as a community resource, so is there a way through our facility to send that message?" Davis said.

He said the building could offer the secure spaces officers need to conduct police investigations and public safety work, but also a more welcoming, accessible space for community gatherings and an atrium-like area for Green Bay Police Department staff to congregate, a place where officers can eat lunch and connect with colleagues.

That the building has 100 years of history and community connections behind it will only help the effort, Davis said.

"You take a historic building and, if you’re thoughtful about it, you can turn that into a really nice community resource for public safety," he said.

What would the city do if the building doesn’t work for the police department’s needs?

Genrich said the city would put the former Press-Gazette building and parking lots up for redevelopment if the site doesn't work. This could be done via a request for proposals process or putting the property up for sale.

But Genrich is confident the space can work. Davis, another member of GBPD’s command staff, and city leaders toured the building at least once in the spring after the Green Bay Press-Gazette moved its staff into the Rail Yard Innovation District .

“Based on the preliminary evaluation, we understand there are old systems in there, but the bones of the building are very good and it’s ample square footage for the operations we envision,” Genrich said.

Green Bay Metro Fire stations would not be sold right away

The city has already identified a South Broadway site as the potential new home of a Green Bay Metro Fire headquarters and station house to replace Station 1, 505 S. Washington St., and No. 3, 885 Shawano Ave. Metro Fire has outgrown both buildings, which also have serious deficiencies.

The city and General Capital since May have been working on a mixed-use plan to combine the fire station and at least 200 housing units on the site. But that process will take time.

The letter of intent makes the options to purchase the two fire stations and Sixth Street property contingent on EAMR and the city agreeing to terms for developing the three properties, Genrich said. He added that he hopes two fire stations can be re-used rather than torn down.

“They’re both historic properties,” Genrich said. “We don’t want someone to come in and knock them down with a wrecking ball.”

The fire stations would not be the only two potential redevelopment sites the tentative plan taking shape would create. The current Green Bay Police headquarters sits on nearly 2 acres of prime land that could be developed to create more new property value in the central city.

Editor’s note: The Green Bay Press-Gazette’s parent company sold the building in 2017 and moved to a new space in downtown Green Bay in spring 2024.

Contact Jeff Bollier at (920) 431-8387 or jbollier@gannett.com . Follow him on Twitter at @JeffBollier .

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: City offers to buy former Press-Gazette building to replace decaying Green Bay Police HQ