Business View Magazine | February 2018

250 251 Member FDIC Helping Sun Prairie Grow . The Bank of Sun Prairie has been helping our local community and businesses prosper for the past 115 years. When you choose us, you’ll get a bank that knows Dane County, relentlessly focuses on providing the financial tools and solutions you need to grow your business, and makes all their decisions locally. We take pride in providing our customers with the Right Balance of technology and personal service to help them succeed. Let’s talk about how Bank of Sun Prairie can help your business. Find out more at bankofsunprairie.com . SUN PRAIRIE, WISCONSIN Park,”he reports.“We facilitated that project in terms of land acquisition, creating a TIF district, annexation,zoning- the whole nine yards in a little less than nine months to make that project happen. Then there is a new, private business park coming online.“It’s going to be about 700,000 square feet of higher-end, industrial and office space,”Stechschulte says.“A private developer by the name of Interstate Partners is putting that project in.There’s about $3 million in infrastructure the city is going to be helping to fund with a TIF district.They’re putting up their first building: 130,000 square feet, starting construction, right now. So, hopefully, that will be up and done by the middle of 2018.” Other private development projects under- way include a newHilton Garden Inn to be completed by next autumn or earlier, and a newMenard’s Home Improvement retail store -about 200,000 square feet–that should be open by spring.The Full Mile Beer Company & Kitchen is breaking ground, downtown, and should also be ready for business by next fall. Speaking of downtown, Stechschulte says that the city has spent a lot of time and mon- ey over the last decade or so protecting, en- hancing, and expanding what was once a very small, old, traditional downtown core.“It used to be the edge of town, on the far east side of the community,with some pretty rough industrial uses there –an agricultural processing facili- ty and an animal processing facility for farmers in the area,” he recounts.“But the city took an aggres- sive step, acquired a lot of the land, and knocked down the industrial buildings.The main driver that really helped us turn the corner was, on a big chunk of the land we ac- quired,we added a considerable number of housing units, including apartments and townhomes, as well as some additional new commercial.We built our City Hall, here, back in the mid-90s to generate a hub of activity on this side of town. In fact, since the mid-90s, we’ve really done a focused effort, trying to provide more opportunities for employment and shopping and dining. “There are no national chains downtown; most of the proprietors and owners and operators here are all local, and that’s really helped create a sense of identity for the area.There are no commercial/ retail vacancies now in that traditional two-block

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTI5MjAx