Marathon County to sell the old mobile home park to Schofield

Plus Wausau Ignite attendance, downtown construction and more news to start your week

After taking the property through tax deed and cleaning it up, Marathon County this month approved selling the former mobile home park land to the city of Schofield.

The Northern Housing Community was a public nuisance for years, the subject of plenty of Schofield City Council meetings and numerous Health Department inspections. At one point, new owners took over the park while promising change, but that change apparently never happened as conditions at the park worsened.

The county spent about $225,000 on cleanup of the property, one supervisor said. The county will sell the park for $550,000, according to the resolution in the packet.

The Wausonian reached out to Mayor Kregg Hoehn to learn more about what the city hopes to see on the site, which offers access to the Wisconsin River and looks nice now that it’s been cleaned up. And what the process going forward might be.

Hoehn first responded that the city has no plans because the city doesn’t own the site.

Bill Conway, who represents the Schofield area on the Marathon County Board, said that city leaders in a previous city meeting said they hope to acquire the property to have a say in how it’s redeveloped.

While technically true that the sale hasn’t closed yet, Hoehn’s response doesn’t seem to reflect the offer to purchase that was just accepted, or that the city has had conversations on these matters.

When I pointed out to Hoehn that the board had already approved the offer to purchase, he responded that he didn’t want to get ahead of himself.

I don’t want to get ahead of the process. We haven’t been told by the County yet. If the County approves and the sale goes through The Council will decide over the next few months of meetings as to the best usage of this property. We do this for any City owned property.

Wausau Ignite attendance in its first season

A story I had crunched numbers on but never got to was on Wausau Ignite attendance. I wanted to see if Wausau’s new softball team would add users to the park, or draw from the Woodchucks attendance; or as my pre-supposition said, some combination of the two.

So which was it?