Manitowoc Mayor Justin Nickels gave his annual State of the City address last night (May 15th) during the Common Council meeting, and there was a lot to take away from it.
His presentation was 45 minutes long and was broken down into a wide variety of topics.
The mayor started off with a major declaration saying “Our industrial park is full.”
He went on to explain that “30, 40 years ago when Tony Dufek was mayor, he thought of the idea of buying hundreds of acres of land on the west side of the city. People thought he was crazy because ‘Why would the city buy that much land? There is never going to be anything there. We have Manitowoc Company and Mirro.’ Thank goodness he and the Council at that time made that decision.”
Not only have local businesses expanded into the park, such as the Dramm Corporation, and have expanded their current foothold in the park, such as Color Craft, but outside businesses are coming here, such as Ammo Inc.
Manitowoc Mayor Justin Nickels
“Businesses are actually seeking out Manitowoc for our workforce, for our quality of life, for our cost of living,” Mayor Nickels noted before calling the trend “incredible.”
But a local economy is not only the big industries. Mayor Nickels noted that many smaller businesses are thriving as well thanks in part to the Revolving Loan program.
“It’s for smaller businesses that may have that GAP financing from a bank that need a loan,” Nickels explained. “We are less strict about it, but it’s a rolling loan program, so the dollars come back to us as they make those payments.”
Mayor Nickels covered far too much information for just one news story, so throughout the week we will dive deeper into each section of the report, which you can view in its entirety on the City of Manitowoc YouTube channel.
The address begins at the twenty-three-minute mark of the video.
