Waterfront development project in "trouble"

Following repeated delays in groundbreaking and no tenant announcements many have suspected it for a while now, but today we officially learned from this report in the Oshkosh Northwestern that the Waterfront redevelopment project – specifically the office complex - is “really in trouble,” to quote the developer – and as such, there is a very real possibility that it may not happen.

This is both discouraging and disappointing because this was one project and developer that I, for one, had high hopes for. It wasn’t “pie in the sky” like the Five Rivers proposal was and the developer – Akcess Acquisition Group – was putting much of its own money into the project. The entire proposal was structured more soundly than we’d seen in the past and taxpayer interests were more judicially looked after in the way it was structured and the way our Common Council approached it. We’re told that the proposed Cambria Suites and Montreal Bread Co. complex can’t work without the office complex. Why, I don’t know. Hotels and restaurants work fine without an office complex adjoining or abutting them; but that’s the developer’s position.

So what is it about Oshkosh and its waterfront? Many other communities don’t struggle like this in developing their waterfronts, so it begs the question of what is wrong here.

I think one of the problems is we don’t think outside of the box in our community; another is that many people, both in elected office and the citizenry at large, are somewhat pedestrian in their attitudes. These are just a couple of my guesses and who knows, there could be a dozen or more reasons why our waterfront development is stalled. One thing’s for sure, once we figure out the problem, perhaps we can find a way to fix it. Hopefully it won’t be too late.