Eau Claire City Council Approves Graham Avenue Land Sale

The Eau Claire City Council unanimously approved the sale of a downtown parking ramp to a developer for a future housing project on Tuesday.

There’s currently a two-deck parking ramp sitting on the Graham Avenue property, which was scheduled for demolition this year under the City’s capital improvement plan. Under the agreement approved this week, the developer would be responsible for the $700,000 cost of the demolition project.

The developer will also be required to build a three to five story housing project with space for 26 to 55 units depending on how many stories the final building design includes. Eau Claire Community Development Director Aaron White spoke on the project at Tuesday’s meeting, highlighting protections in the deal in case the developer is unable to complete the housing project for any reason.

“So there are clawback provisions should the construction not occur after conversations with the developer and making reasonable accommodations should there be something unique that’s stepped up,” he said. “The property would come back to the city ownership and the city would then be free to execute development within that space.”

City Council member Clara Serrano also introduced an amendment to the deal, seeking to give the developers more flexibility in choosing between apartment units or condominiums in the building.

“So really my interest is just making sure the developer has ample flexibility that doesn’t tie them to, you know, having these three levels of only rental as possible development options in terms of density,” she said. “This is more density than what originally came to us two weeks ago. So I think that was part of the sentiment of Council two weeks ago, is we’d like to see more density here.”

Local officials have pushed for more high density housing development in the city to address the rising cost of living. Eau Claire has a vacancy rate of around 4%, well below the state average and levels that would typically be considered healthy. With the low vacancy rate, the construction of new developments is one of the few ways the City can tackle its persistent shortage of affordable housing.