» Menards Northridge:

Menards Inc. plans to buy a former Pick ’n Save supermarket in Milwaukee’s Northridge area for an eventual expansion of its neighboring home improvement store.

Menard Inc. plans to buy a former Pick ’n Save supermarket in Milwaukee’s Northridge area for an eventual expansion of its neighboring home improvement store.

The company plans to buy the 61,700-square-foot building, 8120 W. Brown Deer Road, and eventually convert it into additional space for its 162,300-square-foot store, 8110 W. Brown Deer Road, according to the proposal filed with the city Board of Zoning Appeals.

That would be a welcome development in an area that has seen several store closings since Northridge Mall shut down more than a decade ago at the northwest quadrant of W. Brown Deer Road and N. 76th St.

The existing Menards “has been a good store” since its 2005 opening, with the retailer currently remodeling the building’s interior and adding more warehouse space, the proposal said.

The need to expand into the former Pick ’n Save isn’t immediate, but Menards wants to buy the building while it is available.

“Menards plans to be in this location for a long time,” the proposal said, “but in order for us to do this we need to be able to continuously expand the store.”

Meanwhile, Menards is seeking zoning board approval to use the former supermarket, which closed in 2014, for a self-storage facility.

That would help pay for the building’s maintenance costs until Menards expands into that space, the proposal said.

Company spokesman Jeff Abbott said the Eau Claire-based retail chain currently has no comment on the proposal.

City Development Commissioner Richard “Rocky” Marcoux and Ald. Chantia Lewis, whose district includes the site, both support the proposal.

The long-term expansion proposal fits the department’s recently revised redevelopment plan for the area around the former Northridge Mall.

Those plans included adding smaller neighborhood-oriented retail businesses, as well as converting some larger vacant retail buildings, such as the former Target store, into distribution centers and other light industrial uses.

The Menards store proposal shows that the Northridge area remains viable for retail and other commercial development, Marcoux said.

Northridge’s last remaining store shut its doors in

2003, with several nearby chain stores closing since then.

Most of the former mall is owned by U.S. Black Spruce Enterprise Group Inc., a Chinese investors group. It wants to convert the property, with nearly 900,000 square feet, into a trade mart for Asian businesses to sell furniture, toys and other items to North American companies.

However, city officials have seen little happen with that proposal. And both Marcoux and Lewis said they will be working with other developers in the area regardless of what Black Spruce does.

“We’re just going to work around them,” Lewis said.

The zoning board will likely review the Menards proposal at its July 27 meeting.