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This one is interesting.
The 3.5-acre Fond du Lac Street site was donated to the Ripon Chamber of Commerce by Villa Rita Holdings LLC.
Villa Rita also is the owner of the small Blackburn Street parcel where the schoolhouse was located.
The Ripon Area Chamber of Commerce, which owns the schoolhouse, sold that lot in December to Villa Rita for $1, according to state real estate records.
Villa Rita’s registered agent is Justin Krueger, a Ripon native who is chief executive officer and president of Icon National. That Scottsdale, Arizona-based general contractor renovates affordable housing sites.
Krueger in 2021 dropped plans for a mixed-use development about a half-mile northwest of the new schoolhouse site, according to RiponPress.com.
The schoolhouse’s new location could cause the building to lose its placement on the National Register of Historic Places, according to a letter to the Wisconsin Historical Society from the U.S. Department of the Interior obtained by USA TODAY NETWORK – Wisconsin.
The new site removes the schoolhouse from its historic context in downtown Ripon, according to the letter.
The ruling came on March 20 − three months after the Chamber of Commerce sold the schoolhouse’s previous downtown site to Krueger’s group. Krueger said he doesn’t have plans for the Blackburn Street parcel “at this time.”
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