Industrial tenants target Oak Creek, Franklin
Companies eager to locate near the freeway between the Milwaukee and Chicago markets are gobbling ip industrial sites in Oak Creek and Franklin.
Capstone Quadrangle, a Waukesha-based affiliate of Quadrangle Development Co., Bannockburn, Ill., has purchased 6.5 acres of land in the Creekside Corporate Park located south of Ryan Road near Interstate 94.
Capstone Quadrangle paid about $643,500 to buy the parcel from DeMattia Group, according to Michael DeMichele, director of development for DeMattia’s Milwaukee offices.
Capstone Quadrangle will construct a speculative, 102,000-square-foot, multi-tenant building at the site. The precast concrete building will be the home for light manufacturing, distribution and office space, according to Jon Packee, a broker for Grubb & Ellis
Boerke Co., the Milwaukee company that is marketing the site to prospective tenants.
"It’s an excellent midway point for companies doing business in northern Illinois and the Milwaukee area," Packee said. "There’s been a lot of activity and some big leases signed down in that area."
"Being near the freeway is huge for us down there," DeMichele said. "That’s why we’ve seen some pretty good activity down there. That’s what developers should be doing. They’re preparing for the (economic) turnaround. When things come back, they’ll be positioned to be part of it."
The Creekside Corporate Park is being developed with a tax incremental financing (TIF) district created by the City of Oak Creek.
A nearby company, Cummins Npower, a division of Cummins Inc., Columbus, Ind., plans to move from its current site at 9401 S. 13th St. to a new building being constructed less than a mile away on Ryan Road by February, a company spokeswoman said.
Also in Oak Creek, Henkel Surface Technologies of Madison Heights, Mich., has signed a lease to occupy 112,000 square feet in a vacant industrial building at 525 W. Marquette Ave.
The site will be used for warehousing space, according to a company spokesman who declined to disclose any further information about the firm’s plans.
Nearby, west of I-94 in neighboring Franklin, Packaging Corp. of America (PCA) is moving into 94,000 square feet of warehousing and manufacturing space in the Franklin Industrial Park at 4620 W. Basswood Dr.
PCA will be the first tenant in the 2-year-old building, where the company will manufacture and store corrugated packaging supplies, according to Larry Majercik, general manager of the plant.
The company will begin with 15 employees at the site and hopes to expand to 30 workers by the end of the year, Majercik said.
PCA, which is based in Lake Forest, Ill., will continue to operate its manufacturing facilities in Milwaukee at 5600 W. Good Hope Rd. and in Burlington, Majercik said.
Aug. 22, 2003 Small Business Times, by Steve Jagler of SBT
