An empty storefront in downtown Fond du Lac could get a spooky second life before Halloween rolls around. The roughly 18,000-square-foot former Edith's Bridal building at 9 South Main Street is being offered free of charge to any local nonprofit willing to turn it into a haunted house.
The offer comes from Sam Meyer of Meyer Property Group, who told KFIZ the building space is available at no charge to a nonprofit interested in organizing the attraction. The building is scheduled for renovation but currently sits vacant, according to the same report, leaving a window of opportunity for a temporary use before construction work begins.
Turning an empty building into a haunted house isn't as simple as hanging some cobwebs and flipping off the lights, though. The proposed attraction would come with safety and property-use requirements, and the project would also need approval from the Fond du Lac Fire Department before it could open its doors to the public, per the station's report.
A Tight Timeline Before Halloween
There's a catch: there are just a few weeks left before Halloween, and no nonprofit had stepped forward to claim the space as of the original report. That leaves a narrow runway for any organization to pull together a haunted house, line up volunteers, and secure the necessary fire department sign-off in time for October 31.
Wisconsin's fire-prevention guidance offers a sense of why that approval matters. State guidance describes assembly occupancies, like a haunted house open to the public, as spaces with the potential for crowds and an attendant panic hazard in the event of a fire or other emergency, according to the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services. Fond du Lac's own temporary land-use and change-in-occupancy application, meanwhile, notes that any permit granted creates no legal liability, express or implied, on the department or municipality, according to the City of Fond du Lac.
One More Downtown Project in the Pipeline
The Edith's Bridal building isn't just sitting idle in Meyer's long-term plans, either. Meyer previously said there's one more downtown project in the works at the building, but that it would follow completion of the Rueping Lofts development, as reported by Spectrum News 1. That timeline suggests the haunted house, if it happens, would be a brief stopgap use for the space before more permanent renovation work gets underway.
A similar model has played out elsewhere in Wisconsin. In Baraboo, a haunted attraction called Phantom Carnival was organized to support a new nonprofit, with preparations taking shape behind the Ringling House Bed & Breakfast's carriage house, according to wiscnews.com. That project, led by organizers including Julie Hearley, Stuart Koehler, Jacob Carignan and Shelley Mordini, was already starting to look like Halloween by August, the outlet reported, showing how much lead time a volunteer-run haunted house can take to pull together.
For now, the fate of the downtown Fond du Lac space rests on whether a nonprofit steps up quickly. Interested organizations can contact Sam Meyer at 920-924-4425.
