GREEN BAY - Interest in Green Bay's Shipyard redevelopment area has revived as a developer finalizes plans to build 225 riverfront apartments while two other developers are vying for control of another site. 

Iowa-based Merge Urban Development has proposed building 225 market-rate apartments, 4,000 square feet of restaurant or retail space and parking on a 5.5 acre site south of Arndt Street between South Broadway and the Fox River. 

The development proposal should mean west side residents will finally see activity on the 16-acre Shipyard site for the first time since the city bought the property 30 years ago, said Neil Stechschulte, economic development director for the city of Green Bay. Previously, the Green Bay Booyah came close to developing a stadium on the site and a Green Bay technology company, Breakthrough, briefly considered the site for its new headquarters.

ASHWAUBENON – A site plan for a climbing gym attached to a five-story building planned along Mike McCarthy Way was recommended Thursday, April 8, by the village’s Site Plan Review Committee and Plan Commission.

Community Development Director Aaron Schuette said Merge Urban Development previously received village board approval in January to construct a mixed-use structure on the north side of Mike McCarthy Way between Holmgren Way and South Ashland Avenue.

However, Schuette said at that time Merge didn’t have plans ready for the climbing gym, which will be attached on the east of the building and called the Odyssey Climbing Gym with four-story climbing walls and boulder walls.

DULUTH – The historic, onetime Seaway Hotel will be demolished to make way for new housing in the Lincoln Park neighborhood after a plan to renovate the local landmark fell through.

The Esmond Building, as it is now known, most recently was a low-income housing complex at the corner of W. Superior Street and 20th Avenue W. that a developer planned to remake into mainly market-rate housing. Former residents of the building were moved into the new Garfield Square apartment complex several blocks east last year.

The redevelopment plans ultimately were not feasible, said Jason Hale, the city of Duluth's senior housing developer, but construction on a new building could start as soon as this year.