Brookfield Square redevelopment OK’d
An $8.75 million city financing plan to help redevelop Brookfield Square’s Sears site, and a separate proposal to sell land for a neighboring hotel, have been approved by the Brookfield Common Council.
The result will be the next big phase in the mall’s reinvention, as it adds a movie theater, bowling alley, restaurants and other attractions to put a bigger emphasis on entertainment destinations.
The new projects, including the hotel, will total roughly $60 million to $70 million, according to city estimates.
Those developments reduce Brookfield Square’s focus on selling clothes and other items that are increasingly being bought through Amazon.com and other online retailers.
The Tuesday night council votes set the stage for demolishing most of the Sears building after that department store closes in early 2018.
In its place will be a 41,000square-foot BistroPlex, operated by Marcus Corp. It will offer in-theater dining in all eight auditoriums and a stand-alone bar and lounge.
Also, Chicago-based WhirlyBall will operate a 45,000-square-foot restaurant and entertainment center.
The two-story building will feature game courts where teams of players in bumper cars use hand-held scoops to pass a ball to one another as they try to score by hitting a basketballlike target. The Brookfield Square WhirlyBall also will have laser tag and bowling.
Sears will continue to have a presence with an 18,000square-foot store that will likely sell only mattresses and appliances — a new concept for the troubled retailer. Also, a small portion of the Sears building is to be retained for three new tenants.
The city will spend up to $8.75 million to help mall operator CBL & Associates Inc. finance that redevelopment project, and to make public improvements. That’s higher than the initially reported $6.2 million amount because some of the items previously didn’t have cost estimates.
The expenses will include demolition, rebuilding the mall’s south ring road and parking lot, upgraded sewers and water mains, a Moorland Road sidewalk and an environmental cleanup.
Chattanooga, Tenn.-based CBL will invest an estimated $50 million to $60 million in the redevelopment, said Dan Ertl, Brookfield community development director.
A contract between the city and CBL guarantees the new buildings will total $22 million in assessed property values, Ertl said Wednesday.
Property taxes from those new buildings will pay back the city’s funds. After that happens, those new property taxes will flow to the city’s general fund, its school district and other local governments.
Also, the council approved a separate proposal to buy the largely closed Sears Automotive Center and its parking lot, totaling about 9.5 acres.
The city will finance the $8.1 million purchase price with its hotel room tax revenue, Ertl said.
The city will then sell 2.5 acres of that site to hotel developer North Central Group for $2.1 million.
Middleton-based North Central Group plans to raze the auto center and develop a five-story, 170-room hotel that will connect to a city-owned conference center. Construction could begin next year, with completion in 2019.
The hotel, likely a Hilton Garden Inn, will be owned by North Central Group, which also will manage the one-story, 44,000square-foot conference center. The firm will spend $10 million to $12 million to develop the hotel, Ertl said.
The conference center’s construction would be financed with the city’s hotel room taxes. A cost estimate isn’t yet available for that project, which will require a separate Common Council vote.