The hotel and health care facility at Drexel Town Square in Oak Creek are finally moving forward.
The city and Wispark LLC sold two properties in the multi-use development in December. The first was 6.9 acres to HSA PrimeCare, Chicago, for $1.58 million on Dec. 16 to construct a medical office building for Froedtert & The Medical College of Wisconsin.
A second parcel, 2.3 acres, was also sold to a New Mexico company for $800,000 on Dec. 18. A 108-room Four Points by Sheraton Hotel will be built on that land.
Jerry Franke, president of Wispark, said with the completed transactions, there are 11 developable acres of land remaining at Drexel Town Square.
Of the 11 acres remaining, 9 acres are under option or contract, Franke said. The remaining 2 acres are located just north of the Meijer fuel station and the city and Wispark are being “very selective,” Franke said.
“We’re looking for a type of restaurant the community has expressed interest in,” he said. “To put it in the mayor’s words, we want a good steak house.”
The mixed-use development project is on an 85-acre site at the southwest corner of Drexel and Howell avenues. Fifty-nine acres of the land is developable.
The eastern half of the project is more of a typical suburban-style development that is anchored by a 192,000-square-foot Meijer store.
The western half of the project is designed to be more of a traditional downtown with a mixed-use Main Street, a town square park, the hotel, a new City Hall and library building and a 510-unit luxury apartment development by Barrett Lo Visionary Development.
Other components of the Drexel Town Square site include a Water Street Brewery, a Chick-fil-A restaurant, BelAir Cantina, a U.S. Bank branch and a small multi-tenant retail building anchored by a PetSmart store.
Now that the land has been sold for the hotel and medical center, Franke is estimating a spring ground breaking on both projects.
“This is going to be an unbelievable year of transformation for the Drexel Town Square, especially the Town Center portion,” Franke said. “There will be four to five buildings of three to four stories, so it will really change the overall appearance.”
