OUTAGAMIE, Wis. (WFRV) – Outagamie County has pumped the brakes on a potential sale of the 43-acre UWO Fox Cities campus in Menasha.
Supervisors on the Property, Airport, Recreation & Economic Development committee unanimously voted to table approval of the sale of the campus until they conduct three appraisals to make sure they understand the value of the property.
Outagamie County jointly owns the campus with Winnebago County and they’ve been in talks with the Menasha Joint School District about selling it to the district to use as a childcare facility.
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“We need to make sure that we’re doing right by the taxpayers and that this is the best decision for all concerned,” said Outagamie County executive Tom Nelson who has been front and center in these dicussions.
An Outagamie County official told Local 5 News that they’ve done an appraisal on the UWO Fox Cities campus before, but that the property hasn’t been appraised in over a year.
Back in August, the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Fox Cities campus board of trustees approved a motion recommending that the two counties do an appraisal on the property.
Local 5 News asked Nelson why they began talks about selling the campus before doing an updated appraisal on the property.
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“Our goal was to see if we could find a way to do a seamless transaction from one public entity that wouldn’t cost anything,” said Nelson. “However there are some concerns that that might not be the best choice so what we’re simply doing is pausing.”
The childcare services idea for the campus has generated mixed reactions among people in the Fox Valley. Some people said this would fulfill a critical need in the community, while others wondered how the district could do this without a significant increase in taxes.
Outagamie County officials tell Local 5 News they will revisit the potential sale of the property at a later meeting. Nelson reminded the public that the two counties own the campus and there’s no set deadline for when they would have to sell it.
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“Any transaction that we do is going to be prudent, in the best interest of the taxpayers of both Winnebago and Outagamie County,” Nelson said.
UWO Fox Cities will close for good at the end of June.
Winnebago County officials were supposed to have a news conference on Wednesday to discuss the sale of the property. That news conference has been canceled. For now, there is an item regarding the sale of the property listed on the agenda for their board meeting on Tuesday.
