Racine Hotels; Funds Freed for Waterford SRO; Carthage NASA Grant

Dec. 3, 2019 9:35p; Edited to correct typos Dec. 4

(WGTD)---With promises of Foxconn-fueled growth next door in Mt. Pleasant, the City of Racine may be on the cusp of seeing significant development in its downtown area. No fewer than three downtown hotel projects are on the drawing board. The latest is expected to be revealed Wednesday morning in the mayor's office when Dominion Properties announces plans for a $27 million hotel development. Earlier this year, plans were announced for a Sheraton Hotel and Convention Center adjacent to Festival Hall, and another five-story hotel with 190-market rate apartments attached is to go up further north along Gaslight Drive. Problem is..while the latter projects are still alive there's been no visible progress. Another development still in the planning stage is a housing complex on the former Walker Manufacturing site along the south harbor channel wall near Lake Michigan. Also, plans are moving forward for 250 condos near North Beach, and work has already begun on another housing development at the former Ajax manufacturing site in the uptown area. An uptown project that's underway is the conversion of the Gold Medal manufacturing building into loft apartments. 

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(WGTD)---The officer-involved shooting at Waukesha South High School on Monday was enough to break a political logjam in Waterford, where up until that afternoon a dispute over funding held up the placement of a school resource officer in Waterford High School. The Racine Journal Times reports that the Waterford Village Board authorized emergency funding for the S-R-O just hours after the Waukesha shooting. The village and town of Waterford, and the school board, couldn't agree earlier this year on how the cost should be split. A referendum on a permanent funding plan is expected to be held this spring. 

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(WGTD)---Carthage College's partnership with NASA is going strong. The school announced that it's been award $500,000 to continue development of what NASA has identified as "critical technology"---a way to measure and report exact levels of liquids in space. A solution has been in development at Carthage since 2011. The new technology is expected to be part of NASA's new lunar exploration program, a planned return to the moon by 2024.

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(WGTD)---Kenosha police report that a widely-reported abduction was a hoax. A 13-year-old girl who was found in a ditch along Old Green Bay Road initially said she'd been abducted by three men. Without elaborating, Kenosha Police said Wednesday that the story was false. 

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(WPR)---At a Milwaukee Press Club appearance Tuesday, former Gov. Walker revealed that he visited, out of curiosity, the Foxconn construction site in Mt. Pleasant before Thanksgiving. Walker, who championed the project and a huge state incentives package while in office, said he stands by his decisions, and is optimistic that Foxconn will eventually create as many if not more jobs than were initially promised. Since breaking ground in 2017, Foxconn's plans for its Racine County facility have changed several times. But Walker says he knew from the start there'd be adaptations. 

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