Festival Foods has plans for former Pick ’n Save site
Grocery store proposal goes to West Allis plan commission
West Allis is a step closer to having a new grocery store.
The city’s plan commission this week will review plans for a proposed Festival Foods at 11111 W. Greenfield Ave., the site of a former Pick ’n Save supermarket.
Along with groceries, the store would have a wine and spirits section with staffed check-out lanes and a separate entrance, according to city documents.
It would also feature natural and organic foods, fresh sushi, a healthy-choices salad and hot food bar, deli, bakery, meat and seafood selections, a variety of take-home meal options, and catering services.
Online ordering with store pickup, and possibly a delivery option, are planned.
The plan commission will review a special use permit, along with site, landscaping and architectural plans for the store on Aug. 26.
Festival Foods is proposing a full façade rehabilitation of the building, including a mix of high-quality and modern-looking materials, such as stone, brick, and metal paneling, according to the city.
While the general site layout and access locations would remain the same, the parking lot would be repaved, landscaping would be nearly doubled, from 5.4% to 10%, existing sidewalks and storefront concrete would be updated, and a pedestrian connection to Greenfield Avenue would be added.
Katie Bennett, lead planner for West Allis, said Festival had previously submitted preliminary plans and there’s been some back and forth with the city to this point.
“They’ve been a great team to work with,” she said. “Very amenable to working through different design ideas and compromising on things that we want versus things that they want.”
She said Pick ’n Save closed its location in 2015 and Festival Foods will be a good fit for the space.
“It seems like a logical use for that site,” she said. “Just based on all the improvements they’re going to be making to it, it will definitely improve just the overall aesthetic and feel of that portion of the corridor.”
The timetable for construction and the store’s opening is not clear. Attempts to reach a Festival Foods representative were not immediately successful.
Festival Foods is proposing several communityfocused services at the store, including a “brat barn,” where local groups could grill and sell food for fundraising purposes.
A community conference room and a Hometown Café are also proposed. Local organizations would be able to reserve the conference room free of charge.
The Hometown Café is part of Festival’s American Heroes Café Program, where area veterans and community members are invited to gather to share a meal.
The store is also looking at holding two seasonal merchandise events in the parking lot, a Mother’s Day plant sale in May, and a pumpkin sale in October.
The new business is projected to create 75 fulltime and 175 part-time jobs.
Proposed store hours are 5 a.m. to midnight, 364 days a year — closed Christmas Day — with more limited hours in the wine and spirits section.
West Allis Mayor Dan Devine said Festival coming in is great news for the city.
“That property has been vacant for too long and having a quality tenant like Festival Foods reviving that corner is a huge win for the city and for that neighborhood,” Devine said in an email. “It will also be nice to have new jobs and an improved tax base.”
Devine said it’s been one of the most asked about vacancies in the city and a lot of neighbors miss having a grocery option there.
De Pere-based Festival Foods owns and operates 32 stores in Wisconsin, including a 67,000-squarefoot store at 5600 S. 108th St. in Hales Corners, the first Festival Foods in the Milwaukee market.
MKB West Allis LLC, an affiliate of Skogen’s Festival Foods, purchased the building in West Allis earlier this year for $4.5 million, according to state real estate records.
The 85,500-square-foot building was sold by Benidt Investments West Allis LLC.