The city of Appleton will provide up to $25 million in financial support for the redevelopment of the Thrivent property, according to WHBY.
The project is the result of Thrivent announcing in 2023 that it wanted to redevelop its campus which lies north of Interstate 41. It spent several years gathering community input and developing guiding principles for the project.
Developers are looking to build as many as 2,100 new housing units on the 600-acre Wilden Portfolio Park site. The city will use tax incremental financing to help with infrastructure for the initial 250 acres to be developed, Appleton Mayor Jake Woodford said at an event hosted by The Commercial Association of REALTORS Wisconsin in June.
Ian Martin, founder of developer Land by Label, also spoke about the project in June.
“It’s the breadth of the housing that makes it interesting and appealing,” Martin says. “You can feel the housing tension here.”
Martin says the key for developing the full breadth of the housing planned is to figure out how to sell the land to developers at a price that allows them to consider types of housing beyond large, single-family homes.
Martin says when work begins, there will likely be a little bit of everything from retail and office space to housing developed in the first five years. He adds that some trails and recreational development will be built and that will make the other offerings more attractive.
