STEVENS POINT, Wis. (WSAU) - Stevens Point city officials will be discussing the future of the CenterPoint Mall project tonight at their annual budget meeting.
City leaders have been attempting for over a year to acquire the property in order to build a new home for Mid-State Technical College and consolidate shopping space for the down town, but current owners Third Court have rejected price offers.
The city condemned the mall as blight earlier this year. Third Court claims that both the city and the community development authority caused the blight and, because of that, cannot condemn the property using eminent domain. City officials say that the holding company hasn't denied that the property is now a blight and that they didn't mitigate their own losses in the process.
A lawsuit filed last month claims that turning the mall into a college campus would violate an existing agreement that requires the mall to be run as a first class retail shopping center. The city says that Valley Bank and other holders of the property stated publicly for some time that they were fully behind the city's attempts to refurbish the mall and buy it out.
The lawsuit is the latest salvo in the city’s bid to redevelop a significant portion of its downtown. The city offered $910,000 as the final condemnation price. But Third Court, which is owned by Iowa-based Valley Bank, rejected that offer.
Tonight's hearing on the Mall starts at 6:30.
