Will Oak Creek's New 9th Grade Center be Pokemon Paradise? It Looks Like it

OAK CREEK, WI - If given enough time, Oak Creek's new 9th-grade education center is going to be a teenagers Pokemon Go paradise - at least it looks that way.

According to Oak Creek police, officers were called to the construction site located on the corner of E. Puetz. Rd. and Howell Ave. on a report of a trespasser on Jan. 10.

When officers arrived, police observed that a young suspect was trying to gain access to the site to play Pokemon Go - a location-based and GPS-enabled game accessible via smartphone.

The officer spoke with the youngster, who stated that he "just went over there due to the Pokemon game" and claimed that he didn't know that it was private property since there were other vehicles parked in that location. Police advised the youngster about trespassing and the young person told police he wouldn't go back there.

An Old Place for Pokemon, A New Audience on the Way

For decades, the Oak Creek municipal complex used to be located near Puetz and Howell, the site of the new Oak Creek High School campus expansion.

Several years ago, a GPS-enabled game called Ingress became popular with many smartphone owners. The game involved going to different landmarks, such as town centers, libraries, statues, monuments, cemeteries, etc. in order to capture these landmarks for their faction.

In Ingress, each faction tried capturing these landmarks, and linking them together in order to create territories for their faction.

Fast forward to 2016, and the same company that developed Ingress also developed another GPS-enabled game, Pokemon GO. That company, Niantic, used all of the landmarks that were collected by Ingress players and used them to produce "Pokestops" and "Gyms" in Pokemon GO.

Although the old city hall and library are no longer on that corner in Oak Creek, the old Ingress landmarks remained, and were used in the production of Pokemon GO. Now Pokemon GO players are trying to access a construction site that contains Pokestops and Gyms - and the developer of the game still thinks it's a municipal center ... and a safe place for kids to go.

It seems dangerous, at at times suspicious, but that's the lowdown.

Here's a link to the game Ingress. A lot of Pokemon GO players are signing up to the play the game in order to access all of the Ingress intel maps. In doing so, Pokemon GO players have their best access to finding Pokestops , Gyms to enhance their game play.

>>> image via patch.com