Muse Building Clears Another Approval

This drawing depicts what the planned Muse music venue and school, with apartments on the second floor and public restrooms on the west end, will look like at the northeast corner of 3rd Avenue and Jefferson Street in Sturgeon Bay. Submitted.

Sturgeon Bay’s Aesthetic Design and Site Plan Review Board approved the building design and site plan Monday for the Muse building: a music venue and school being planned for the vacant lot at the northeast corner of 3rd Avenue and Jefferson Street.

Shirley Weese Young, who purchased the parcel, is planning to build the two-story structure where the Moeller’s Garage auto dealership once stood. The development’s first floor will house the music venue and school, and the second floor will have studio apartments. The development will also have an outdoor patio, public restrooms and exterior parking.

In the staff report to the board from city planner/zoning administrator Stephanie Servia, she stated that the public-restroom portion of the design, as presented, was “a little plain,” and she suggested “additional decorative embellishments.”

Servia said the board approved adding what’s known as a “soldier course” brick design, with bricks situated vertically on the west side of the building to extend between the top of the windows on the second floor.

Under the terms of a development agreement that Young has with the city, the project will have a minimum assessed value of $4 million upon its completion, with the city providing $900,000 in financial assistance in 15 annual payments of $60,000. The development agreement also calls for Young to “substantially complete” the project by Jan. 1, 2025.

The project is located in what is slated to become the city’s eighth Tax Increment District, where a joint review board composed of representatives of the various taxing entities in the area of the Muse building site was scheduled to consider giving final approval to the district on Thursday, after this week’s edition of the Peninsula Pulse went to press.