Filling a vacancy: More stores, or offices?
Walker’s Point developer seeks more retail; city holding out for office building
The owner of a mixed-use development in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood wants to add more stores, but that conflicts with plans by city officials to wait for an office building.
That dispute will likely soon play out before the Common Council, pitting two longtime antagonists: Development Commissioner Rocky Marcoux and Ald. Jose Perez, whose district includes Walker’s Point.
At issue is a vacant city-owned parcel at Freshwater Plaza, a development north of E. Greenfield Ave. and east of S. 1st St.
Wangard Partners Inc. opened Freshwater Plaza’s first phase, a four-story apartment building with street-level commercial space, about a year ago. A second retail phase, featuring a Cermark Fresh Market, began opening in June.
The site includes a vacant lot at 200-230 E. Greenfield Ave. that’s set aside for a future office building.
However, Perez and Wangard Partners want that parcel rezoned for retail and other uses.
Perez, in a letter to Marcoux, said office zoning isn’t the best use for the site and will hurt other retailers at Freshwater Plaza.
“The Plaza is a project that could, with the right vision, result in a vibrant neighborhood where people live, eat, play and shop,” Perez wrote. “A place where people could buy a pair of shoes, pick out an outfit and grab dinner before heading back to their homes only a few blocks away.”
In a separate statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Perez said Walker’s Point has been attracting more residents who want retail services during the three years since Freshwater Plaza’s zoning was approved.
“It is the worst kind of development to ignore changing circumstances in the interest of adhering to a plan, no matter how irrelevant to the present,” said Perez,
who in 2016 was among three council members who voted against Marcoux serving a fourth term as development commissioner.
Marcoux, in a letter to Perez, said Freshwater Plaza’s initial zoning was supported by city officials, including Perez, as a way of creating a mix of uses, including offices, at the former industrial site.
“We agree with your statement that Freshwater Plaza should be a place to live, eat, play and shop,” Marcoux wrote. “But, equally important, it should be a place to work.”
Freshwater Plaza also serves as a gateway to Milwaukee’s newly proposed Harbor District, Marcoux said.
That area, bordered roughly by S. 1st St., the lakefront, the Milwaukee River and Bay St./Becher St., includes the nearby University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences and future development sites.
“I don’t want the Harbor District defined by retail,” Marcoux said in an interview.
National off-price retail chains are interested in the lot, Marcoux acknowledged in a letter. Marcoux didn’t disclose their names, but off-price chains such as Ross Dress for Less, Kohl’s Off/ Aisle and Five Below have been growing in the Milwaukee area.
The development plans also could include 75 apartments, said Stewart Wangard, Wangard Partners chief executive officer.
If that larger project occurs, it would likely be a six-story building, he said, with 46,000 square feet of first-floor retail space, a second-floor parking structure and four floors of apartments.
“This is a logical extension” of Freshwater Plaza, Wangard said.
Wangard said the site is better suited for retail space than offices because of its visibility near the four-lane S. 1st St.
There are other nearby sites better suited for offices, he said.
That includes former industrial parcels south of E. Greenfield Ave., about two blocks east of S. 1st St., that are undergoing an environmental cleanup, Wangard said. The city’s new Harbor District plan envisions that area as a site for offices and other new uses.
Freshwater Plaza’s zoning, approved in 2014 by the Common Council and Mayor Tom Barrett, was the result of a compromise among Marcoux, Perez, Wangard and others.
The Barrett administration initially wanted the site reserved for an office building with hopes of landing the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s new local headquarters, which eventually landed in St. Francis.
Perez wanted a supermarket at the site — something his constituents had been seeking for years.
With the compromise, the site was zoned for the Cermak Fresh Market, the apartments, other retail uses and a future office building with three to six stories. The office parcel is owned by the city Redevelopment Authority.
The new rezoning proposal will likely be reviewed in December by the Plan Commission and Common Council’s Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee.