STEVENS POINT, WI (WSAU) — The city of Stevens Point is looking to create a new event and convention space in a city-owned building next year.
Mayor Mike Wiza says his conversations with local tourism leaders have shown that the time is now to act because there isn’t enough space in the city to manage all the requests for convention and meeting space.
“From what Sara Brish with the CVB tells me it is a frequent enough occurrence where something needs to be done,” said Wiza. “Maybe they go up to Rothschild or Wausau or we send them over to Wisconsin Rapids. That’s great, we can be helpful, but I want to see those conventions and conferences come here.”
The city is currently eyeing one of the former mall anchor buildings for the space. Wiza says it had been leased to Mid-State Technical College as the Great Lakes Higher Education Service Center, but that lease was recently canceled.
Since the city owns the building Wiza says it makes sense to consider repurposing it as a convention space, especially when it could be funded through room tax dollars and not the city’s general fund. “We’re looking at maybe a 2% room tax increase. Our room rates are already pretty reasonable to begin with here in Central Wisconsin. So now when people come in for events we can give them a pretty reasonable room rate and provide the facilities that they need.”
The new event space is one of two projects that Wiza is looking forward to in 2024. Another is the redevelopment of the downtown Shopko building, which will get a public hearing in early January.
Other topics Mayor Wiza discussed with WSAU’s Mike Leischner include:
Start of video- 2024 tax bills
6:00- New event space and Shopko vision
13:06- New artistic light and Veterans Memorial
