Brown Deer awaits Northridge redevelopment effort
Northridge Mall’s closing nearly 15 years ago not only devastated the retail landscape on Milwaukee’s far northwest side — it also hurt stores in neighboring Brown Deer.
The community now expects to reap some benefits as part of the former mall is redeveloped.
“It definitely has a major impact,” said Nate Piotrowski, Brown Deer’s community development director.
The last store at Northridge, which is north of West Brown Deer Road and west of North 76th Street, closed in 2003. Part of the mall that once housed a Sears store was later demolished and replaced with a Menards home improvement store and Pick ’n Save supermarket — the latter closing in 2014.
Meanwhile, several other national retailers on West Brown Deer Road, mainly between North 76th and North 91st streets, have shut down.
In recent years, some former big-box stores have been redeveloped for light industrial use. That includes ETE Reman Inc.’s headquarters, at a former Walmart, and another ETE Reman facility at a former Toys R Us.
Milwaukee officials on Tuesday unveiled plans to convert the former Northridge Boston Store, and its park
ing lot, into roughly 300,000 square feet of light industrial space.
William Penzey is giving the building to the city after dropping his plans to convert the entire mall into the headquarters for his company, Penzeys Spices.
The remaining 900,000-square-foot mall is owned by Chinabased Black Spruce Enterprise Group Inc., which wants to convert Northridge into a trade mart for Asian businesses to sell their goods to North American retailers.
Milwaukee officials have given up on the proposal, which has seen no progress, and hope to use the Boston Store redevelopment to spark similar light industrial projects at the main mall property.
For Brown Deer retailers and officials, that’s welcome news.
“We’re happy to see that something is happening,” said Carl Krueger, Brown Deer Village Board president.
Northridge’s lingering status as a dead mall has hurt Brown Deer in two ways, Piotrowski said.
There’s a spillover effect from the loss of a major shopping attraction, he said. The village’s border with Milwaukee is at North 68th Street, about a mile east of Northridge.
Piotrowski said the decline of people shopping in the area likely played a role in the closing of two Brown Deer big-box stores: Lowe’s, in 2011; and American TV and Appliance, in 2014.
Also, the empty mall raises concerns among regional and national retailers who are considering Brown Deer as a new location.
“They ask us: ‘Why should we come here?’ ” Piotrowski said.
Village officials and property owners make the case that Brown Deer, positioned between wealthy River Hills, Mequon and middle- and lower-income Milwaukee neighborhoods, is a safe, middle-class community whose 12,000 residents want to spend their money at local businesses.
That includes sitdown restaurants and coffee shops, which Brown Deer officials have made a priority to attract.
Scott Lurie has been working with real estate brokerage firm CBRE Inc. to draw either Starbucks or another coffee house chain to a vacant building he owns at 5091 West Brown Deer Road.
It hasn’t been easy, Lurie said. But he believes village officials are taking the right steps to help improve the community’s retail areas.
That includes approving the conversion of the former Lowe’s into a Walmart discount store and supermarket after the company agreed to an earlier closing time, a noise barrier and other conditions. That store opened in 2014 at 6300 West Brown Deer Road.
Also, the Village Board in 2015 helped finance the redevelopment of the former American TV site, 6700 West Brown Deer Road.
That property was sold to the Brown Deer Community Development Authority for $2.6 million.
The building and part of the parking lot were then sold to Pak Technologies Inc. for $2.1 million. That $500,000 difference is being made up through higher property taxes generated by the property’s redevelopment.
The village gave Pak $750,000 to help the company convert the building into a chemical products distribution center.
That was financed by the authority selling the parking lot’s front portion for $750,000 to Aldi, which built a grocery store there. The Aldi store opened in October 2016 at 6720 West Brown Deer Road.
Meanwhile, another retail redevelopment could be in the works at the Marketplace of Brown Deer, north of West Brown Deer Road and east of North Green Bay Road.
That 400,000-squarefoot shopping center, about three miles east of the former Northridge Mall, has added new tenants over the past 18 months.
That includes Ross Dress for Less, Firehouse Subs, Bob’s Discount Furniture and Kohl’s Off/Aisle.
But the shopping center is dated and has excess parking, Piotrowski said.
DDR Corp., which operates the shopping center, has been considering some renovations, he said.
Village officials are pushing DDR to do something more extensive — perhaps with new, standalone buildings and apartments, Piotrowski said. Similar new mixeduse developments in the Milwaukee area include Whitestone Station, in Menomonee Falls, and 84 South, in Greenfield.
Such a development at the Marketplace of Brown Deer could include village financing, Piotrowski said.
That project also would be helped by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s plans to remove the North Green Bay Road overpass at West Brown Deer Road and convert it into a surface intersection, Piotrowski and Krueger said.
That would free up additional land at the intersection’s northeast corner for the shopping center and create better access to the property, they said. That work is scheduled for 2022, according to the department.
Executives at Beachwood, Ohio-based DDR didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Tom Daykin can be emailed at tdaykin@jrn.com, and followed on Twitter and Facebook.