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Most Wisconsinites know Door County as one of the state's prime vacation locations.
But after coming to Door County during summers "literally all my life," David Hatch figured out that Sturgeon Bay, the county's largest city, is a good place to do business too.
Hatch is president of Hatco Corp., a restaurant equipment
manufacturer. The company's headquarters is in Milwaukee, but its
only manufacturing facility, and the lion's share of the company's
employees, are based in Sturgeon Bay.
Hatch and his wife, Jacquie, own DJ's on the Bay, a restaurant that is a centerpiece in Sturgeon Bay's efforts to convert its waterfront from the home of marine manufacturers to a place tourists would visit.
DJ's, located just west of the south Michigan Street (Business 42-57) bridge approach, was one of four major projects on the southwest side of the waterfront ("Changes on The Waterfront," MARKETPLACE, July 22,1997). The others, from west to east, were the Bridgeport Resort, a condominium/ hotel complex; a 147-slip marina owned by Skipper Marine Development of Winthrop Harbor, Ill.; and the Door County Maritime Museum. On the northeast side is Stone Harbor Resort and Conference Center, a hotel/condominium complex with an attached upscale restaurant. Plans for a retail center have been delayed.
The $40 million project, called The
Waterfront, was estimated in 1997 to bring in $8.5 million to $10 million in annual spending, plus add 150 to 175 full-time jobs and 300 part-time jobs, in an area of Door County not ordinarily considered a tourism destination.
Before plans for waterfront development started being created, Sturgeon Bay was known for two things the site of a number of shipbuilders, including Palmer Johnson Inc. ("They grew into building big boats," MARKETPLACE, July 23, 1996), Bay Shipbuilding and Peterson Builders Inc.; and a place to stop briefly on the way up to northern Door County. Palmer Johnson continues to build boats - it was sold in June - but Peterson Builders doesn't build boats anymore, and Bay Shipbuilding, a division of The Manitowoc Co. ("Manitowoc steers toward ice," MARKETPLACE, April 30, 1996), has scaled back boat construction. The latter two companies at one time employed more than 3,000 people.
"The reason we went into this was to answer a call from the city,...