The City of Two Rivers is making progress on doing something with the former Paragon property.
The plot of land located at 606 Parkway Boulevard has an extensive history, starting off as the location for the Paragon Electric Company, but that company closed down operations in 1999, and moved to Mexico.
City Manager Greg Buckley explained that Paragon’s parent company sold the real estate at that location on a 20-year lease. “After they vacated the building, for a long time it really wasn’t offered for sale,” Buckley explained. “It was on a ‘for lease’ basis because it was a master lease that was held by CBPLC because they were still on the hook for a lease that had about 15 years to go on it.”
The building was eventually donated to a Jewish school in Illinois and was put on the market in 2015. Paragon Partners bought it and was planning on building a water and sports drink bottling facility on the property. The City and Manitowoc County both aided Paragon Partners with some city financing, but the business never materialized. So, as Buckley explained, “Those loans ultimately went delinquent, the City and the County perused judgments, and were awarded a foreclosure on the property in October of 2019.”
The City has since agreed to pay off the County’s portion of the debt, and now solely controls the property. The Two Rivers City Council met on Monday, January 25th with the Business Industrial Development Committee, the Community Development Authority, and the Plan Commission to discuss the future of the project, and Buckley said they have made some progress on what comes next. “In general, there was priority shown toward marketing the full site for redevelopment,” the City Manager said. “A second option, which we are going to explore further, would be possible City ownership of the buildings, and perusing upgrading through some US Economic Development Administration programs that are specifically for industrial incubators.”
Buckley clarified that the City wants to sell the property first and foremost but is keeping the second option on the table just in case. The City did receive an offer recently, but details about that offer have not yet been made public.
