After 90 minutes in closed session, a split Oneida County Board Tuesday rejected a $2.3 million dollar offer from LaCrosse-based Kwik Trip. The convenience store firm declared last year it wanted to buy the county highway shops on Rhinelander's west side and put a large store there.
The board first heard a presentation on options for the site, which included two choices to remodel the current shops and a third option to accept the Kwik-Trip offer and build a new county shops.
The vote to reject the Kwik-Trip offer was 10-9. County Board Chair David Hintz was asked if the board's rejection of the offer was the end of the proposal...
"....no, I don't believe so. We formally rejected their offer for the property of $2.3 million dollars....."
The rejection might mean a request for a counter offer from Kwik-Trip.
Earlier, Supervisor Scott Holowinski said another option was to leave everything as it is now and then remodel as the county has the money without borrowing. A projection showed a new shop could cost $13 million, including financing and the two remodel options about a third of that.
Kwik Trip is moving forward on a second store on Rhinelander's north side and is planning to open it's first store in Minocqua.
