| Big Radio News Staff |
The city of Janesville has bought another property tied to the former General Motors site — this time closing on the Zoxx Social Club property.
Janesville City Council came out of a nearly three-hour-long closed session Monday that included ongoing discussions to buy parcels in and around the 240-acre GM site on the south side.
The council voted to buy the property formerly known as Zoxx 411 Club at 411 W. State St. The purchase price as negotiated is $280,000. City council President Dave Marshick says the sale is set to close Aug. 1.
Zoxx had operated decades as a dinner-and-beer spot for hungry, thirsty workers at the former GM plant next door.
More recently, it has run as a relic of the past — a tavern that still operates and draws a nighttime crowd next door to a defunct, 240-acre former factory property that’s leveled to bare concrete and asphalt slabs.
Janesville’s GM plant officially stopped producing vehicles in 2009, and stayed shuttered and on “standby” until 2018, when General Motors officially decommissioned the plant and sold it off to Commercial Development Company. Commercial Development Company has owned the property ever since, although the city has been trying to force ownership of the property through condemnation rules for more than a year.
Commercial Development Company has leveled all of the more than 2 million square feet of auto assembly factory buildings, but the company stopped short of working on cleanup of soil contamination the state Department of Natural Resources says riddles the 115-acre GM plant site.
Commercial Development has only publicly brought forth a few fleeting prospects for redevelopment, and none recently. That is years after Commercial Development initially trumpeted its ownership as a turning point for the GM site — even working with a former city manager and his administration on a name to market the property for future redevelopment: Centennial Park.
Those plans have fallen apart like the acres of deteriorating asphalt and concrete slabs Commercial Development left behind on the main GM plant site. The slabs serve as the only cap to keep known soil contamination in place.
The city seeks to buy out the former GM site through the condemnation process, while at the same time applying for $20 million in EPA grant funds the city would use to build out some houses and park space on the edges of the 115-acre former JATCO site.
The JATCO is south of the main GM plant site. And it’s well separate from Zoxx, which is on a sliver of land just east of the main GM plant site.
Zoxx is one of four sites next to the former GM and JATCO sites that are not owned by Commercial Development Company. Zoxx has been on the list of properties next to GM site that the city seeks to buy through eminent domain.
The city’s purchase Monday includes buyout of the property and relocation of Zoxx.
The city has spent months negotiating with Commercial Development to try to reach an agreed sale price on the GM and JATCO sites. So far, the city has only reached the finish line on bids to buy outlying properties, including the Zoxx parcel, and another small parcel next to the GM site that the city closed on last month for $138,000.
City officials have told Big Radio there’s still a gap between the city’s offer to buy the GM and JATCO sites, and Commercial Development’s asking price.
If the city and Commercial Development don’t reach an agreement on a sale price, the city would sue Commercial Development and ask a judge to set the sale price.
