The Buzz: Cemetery buys, tears down houses


Maureen Wallenfang


USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Published 7:45 p.m. UTC May 22, 2018

Reader question: A while back, the old greenhouse at North Leminwah and East Pacific was torn down to create green space. On Friday night we found out that two adjacent houses on Owaissa Street have also been torn down. Are there plans for this block? My wife and I lived in the upper apartment at 913 1/2 N. Owaissa St. when we first moved to Appleton in 1985. It was a shock to find it gone.

Answer: The houses at 903 and 913 N. Owaissa St., across the street from Riverside Cemetery, were purchased by the Appleton Cemetery Association and demolished. It’s the same non-profit group that bought the Riverside Florist and Greenhouses property in November 2016 and demolished the buildings in August 2017.

Riverside Florist merged with Reynebeau Floral in Little Chute in 2015.

The space where the houses were will be used as green space, said Charley Siekman, board secretary for the Appleton Cemetery Association.

“The houses came up for sale and it seemed like an appropriate thing to purchase them. We don’t have an overall plan. The purpose was to keep the area at the entrance to the cemetery appropriate and pleasant and in keeping with the appearance of the cemetery.”

The group planted ten new trees and retained six mature trees on the greenhouse site.

One of the home garages was kept for storage.

“There’s discussion about whether we really want to keep that,” Siekman said.

A portion of the former greenhouse space will likely be used for overflow parking for the Memorial Day events that draw a lot of people to the cemetery, he said.

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