Not everything is perfect in the city of Manitowoc.
In part three of our breakdown of Mayor Justin Nickels’ State of the City address, we look over a part of the report that shines a light on a major issue in the city.
“Housing is going to be a major issue for the Council,” the Mayor said bluntly.
Nickels admitted that over the past few years, he and the Common Council focused a lot of their attention on the downtown area and the City’s parks.
He said that they are not going to forget about those areas, but, “One thing we really need to address and be a partner in is available housing.”
Manitowoc Mayor Justin Nickels
Manitowoc underwent a housing study last year, which revealed that the city needed every type of housing possible.
“From the most expensive homes to low and moderate income and income-based housing,” Nickles revealed. “This isn’t anything that is unique to the City of Manitowoc, but we are hearing it from our business community. To recruit folks to move into the area, they want to but they can’t find a house.”
That being said, the wheels are turning on fixing this very important issue.
“On Reed, Avenue Mike Howe is developing 30+ single-family homes. That’ll be 30+ market-rate homes,” the mayor noted. “The old Santa’s Best Tinsil Manufacturing, we’re working with a developer, hopefully, to get federal assistance and state assistance, but that would be 80 senior living apartments or potentially market-rate apartments.” Additionally, the Mayor said that in regard to the Mirro site, “There will be some good news hopefully coming soon here the council approved not that long ago moving forward with the developer for 30 to 50 workforce housing townhomes.”
Also, there were some upgrades made to the Southfield Townhouses on Viebahn Street, and the former McKinley School and the Mid Cities Mall may both soon become housing.
Tomorrow we will take a look at what Mayor Nickels says is next in line in the River Point District.
