TIF projects create ‘domino’ effect of development

By Steve Jagler, of SBT

To detractors, tax incremental financing (TIF) districts have been abused by real estate developers and should be blamed for urban sprawl, corporate welfare and environmental damage.
To supporters, TIF districts are powerful tools of economic development that create jobs, generate wealth and add to a community’s property tax base.
Though the debate continues, one thing is for certain: TIF districts and other partnerships between the public and private sectors are flourishing. Such partnerships were the focus of "Real Estate Development – A Public/Private Joint Venture" symposium conducted by the Marquette University Bell Chair in Real Estate May 15 at Strong Financial Corp.’s headquarters in Menomonee Falls.
Real estate developers and various public officials, including the mayors and economic development officials from municipalities throughout southeastern Wisconsin, were invited to the symposium. Small Business Times interviewed participants for this report prior to the event.
Mark Eppli, Marquette professor and the school’s Robert B. Bell Sr. chair in real estate, said TIF districts and other such partnerships can be used to benefit both the public and private sectors.
"If cities and developers don’t get along, not a whole lot gets done," said Eppli, who organized the symposium. "I expect that what we hope to achieve is to educate both sides, to get both sides looking at each other and say, ‘This works.’ We want to show that this can be done in a good way."
Featured speakers at the symposium, including Bruce Behling, senior vice president of Strong Capital Management, Barry Mandel, chief executive officer of The Mandel Group, and Peter Bell, president of the Pabst Farms Development LLC, planned to extol the virtues of TIF districts and other public/private partnerships at the symposium.
Behling, Mandel and Bell say TIF districts have been crucial to their development projects (see accompanying articles).
The City of Glendale is a prime example of the value TIF districts can bring to a community, according to city administrator Richard Maslowski. Maslowski points to the first four TIF districts completed by the city:
1) A former asbestos-laden elementary school and public works facility site along Port Washington Road near Green Tree Road, which Maslowkski said had "no value" in 1989, was transformed into a Manchester Suites Hotel and an office complex and now has a value of $28 million.
2) A former contaminated industrial site along Port Washington Road, valued at $4 million in 1990, was transformed into the Coventry office and apartment complex, now valued at $47 million.
3) The former Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co. offices and silos, with an original value of $2.3 million, was transformed into the Estabrook Corporate Park and is now valued at $51.4 million.
4) A former contaminated service station and abandoned hotel site, once valued at $600,000, was transformed into a Woodfield Suites Hotel and is now valued at $8 million.
Glendale’s three newest TIF districts are accommodating the new Glendale Technology Center and the Heart Hospital of Milwaukee ($9.2 million), a new mixed use development along Silver Spring Drive ($43 million) and a revamped Bayshore Mall (projected $150 million).
Bayshore, which will be renamed the Bayshore Town Center, will be renovated into a multi-story complex that will feature a variety of first-floor retail, second-floor offices, a series of public streets, outdoor restaurants and cafes, a town square and various entertainment venues.
"Bayshore will not be a mall. It will be more of a lifestyle center," Maslowski said.
The Bayshore project qualifies under the "brownfield" stipulation of the state’s TIF law because it actually is located on a former sanitary landfill and continues to "settle," creating uneven surfaces in the parking lots, Maslowski said.
"Without TIFs, none of these projects would have gotten off the ground. In some cases, these were blighted, vacant, industrial sites," Maslowski said. "They also were having a negative impact on surrounding properties. There were concerns that Glendale was not going to survive. Without it (TIF development), we would not be where we are today, and it’s really questionable what Glendale’s future would have been."
The TIF districts have expanded the city’s property tax base, its employment base and its residential values, he said.
"It’s a domino effect," Maslowski said.
Both critics and supporters of TIF districts will be closely watching the fate of a State Assembly bill that will reintroduced by Rep. Michael "Mickey" Lehman (R-Hartford) this fall.
Lehman’s new proposal will have some slight modifications from the bill that was approved by the Wisconsin Assembly, but died in the Senate in 2001.
The bill would stipulate that the Wisconsin Department of Revenue prohibit a city or village from creating a new TIF district if it has already exceeded state TIF limits, which are based upon percentages of the total value of the property in the municipality.
Lehman’s bill also will include provisions that would: restrict cash grants to developers and landowners; restrict the terms in which annexed land from towns can be included in TIF districts; require a joint review board to determine whether a proposed development could not occur without the creation of a TIF district; impose a $1,000 filing fee for a new TIF district; and reduce the maximum life of a TIF district for industrial development to 20 years, from the current 23.
Lehman denies that his bill would impose further restrictions on the use of TIF districts.
Instead, Lehman said, his proposed changes would clarify the state’s existing TIF laws. Lehman said his bill would ensure that the statutes "are appropriate and updated, and our processes are known."

May 16, 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

T.E. Brennan wins ethics award

T.E. Brennan’s ethics policy is based on the simple, down-home advice president Dick Tillmar gave his kids when they were growing up — don’t lie, cheat, steal or take short cuts.
The advice in all its simplicity drives an ethics policy that was recognized with the 2003 Southern Wisconsin Business Ethics Award, sponsored by the Madison Chapter of the Society of Financial Service Professionals. T.E. Brennan now has a chance to receive national honors in the American Business Ethics Award competition, which will be decided this fall in a competition held by the Society of Financial Services Professionals.
The Society was founded in 1928 and includes more than 25,000 members in more than 200 regional chapters nationwide.
Brennan was founded in 1895 and is the oldest independently owned risk management consulting firm in the country. The company prides itself on independence, objectivity and impartiality when it comes to its relationships with its clients.
"What we do is pure consulting," said Therese Hamilton, Brennan’s director of communications. "We are paid only by our clients. We don’t sell insurance. We don’t accept commissions. We are our clients’ advocate."
That loyalty to clients is what makes Brennan, a firm of 19 employees, stand out, Tillmar said.
"We only work on behalf of the client," he said. "Everything else – vision, strategy, mission — flows from that."
The regional ethics competition was held in 19 regions throughout the country. This year was the first time T.E. Brennan could enter the competition because it was the first time a competition was held in the southern Wisconsin region.
In the application process, Brennan had to submit a copy of its code of ethics and demonstrate how it supports clients and employees, and how it is practiced and promoted. Application sections also included an explanation of the company’s commitment to business ethics, a description of the company’s conflict resolution procedures, examples of the way the company has addressed ethical challenges and examples of corporate citizenship.
In the first round of the regional competition, business students from Edgewood College in Madison and Madison Area Technical College judged entries. In the next round, a panel of nine judges from academia, business professions and the media judged entries that advanced from the first round.
Awards are given in two categories – Large, or companies with more than 250 employees and Small, or companies with fewer than 250 employees.
Although Brennan is a small company, it institutionalized its ethics policy the way large companies do, Hamilton said.
"We’ve devoted time and resources to putting the code in writing and having a system in place to enforce it," she said. "It’s easy to stray from your values, so you have to be constantly thinking about it."
If anything positive resulted from the recent corporate scandals of Enron and others, it is a demand for ethics in business, Tillmar said. While Brennan has always prided itself on its commitment to ethics, the company must be even more diligent now that its commitment has been recognized publicly and officially.
"The corporate ethics problems showed what greed can do," Tillmar said. "Again, the solution is simple. Don’t do anything your mother wouldn’t be proud of."

May 16, 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

National marketing strategy begins for Pabst Farms
Developer dangles prime sites to retailers, technology firms

By Steve Jagler, of SBT

Essentially, the Pabst Farms development along Interstate 94 in Oconomowoc will create a new city in southeastern Wisconsin.
That city will be a sprawling, upscale community of 6,000 to 10,000 people, replete with housing, stores, restaurants, hotels, business offices, a technology center, a hospital, a new elementary school and even a new YMCA.
Development of the $1 billion project will begin this fall, with the construction of single-family houses, ranging in price from $275,000 to $1 million.
Peter Bell, president of Pabst Farms Development LLC, is busy traveling around the country, attempting to lure prime retailers and technology companies to come to Oconomowoc. Ultimately, he hopes the project’s technology center will become the national or regional headquarters for a major technology company.
Bell was one of the featured speakers in the May 15 Marquette University Bell Chair Real Estate Symposium, "Real Estate Development – A Public/Private Joint Venture."
Bell discussed the progress of the Pabst Farms project in a recent interview with Small Business Times executive editor Steve Jagler. The following are excerpts from that interview.

SBT: What’s the latest and greatest news about Pabst Farms?
Bell: Well, probably the strongest thing we’re working on right now is on May 16 we leave for Las Vegas for the ICSC (International Council of Shopping Centers) convention, and we’re going to present our design we’ve been working on for the retail, the Shops at Pabst Farms. We’ll try to get some feedback from the national retailers on how this is all going to work.
The Shops at Pabst Farms are going to be somewhere between 650,000 to 800,000 square feet of retail area, and it will be kind of a town center, a pedestrian-friendly, civic-involved shopping district. We hope to have an ice skating rink in the wintertime. We hope to have book sales and art sales for the community to be involved in, and it’s going to be like walking down an old main town street, with all new stores and new designs, most of which will be national tenants.

SBT: Do you have any commitments from any national tenants on the retail side of Pabst Farms yet?
Bell: We don’t have any hard commitments, because our design is just coming forward right now. We’re going to get some feedback on the design and make the appropriate adjustments.

SBT: What kind of retail tenants do you hope to attract? Are they smaller, niche retailers or big-box retailers?
Bell: In a shopping district like this, you’re going to get two or three larger-type tenants that could be in the 50,000-square-foot range, and then you’re going to get a lot of your national top tenants, both for soft goods and specialty uses, such as bookstores and record stores. You’re going to have a fine mix of restaurants at all levels. It will be the kind of place with a lot of benches, a lot of landscaping, where people can kind of spend several hours in the shopping experience.

SBT: Is it the intent for Pabst Farms to be place where people live, work and play at the same location, or is it the intent to be more of a destination?
Bell: We’re actually going to target both people. We want to include the people in Oconomowoc and the surrounding communities to be part of Pabst Farms. But there also will be a very strong marketing campaign to bring people to shop at Pabst Farms.

SBT: You mentioned the different municipalities. Are all of them on board now? Are all the pieces in place on the chessboard for Pabst Farms?
Bell: I think, obviously, all the approvals will have to go through for design and plan commissions and so forth, but conceptually, Pabst Farms is well received as a whole. As the residents of the area learn more about Pabst Farms in the meetings we go to, they begin to understand what we’re trying to accomplish, and that is really trying to build a community that is part of Oconomowoc, not separate from it.

SBT: With so many different uses of property, how is all of this going to be tied together?
Bell: Eppstein Uhen Architects — we are kind of using them as our master land planner. Pabst Farms has five different types of environments. One is called the Residences at Pabst Farms, the other is the Pabst Village Center. We also have the Shops at Pabst Farms and the Pabst Farms Business Park and Technology/Research Park.
Those five general areas are really five distinct developments themselves. What we’re trying, with the help of Eppstein Uhen, is to make sure that we keep continuity, architectural design, movement of traffic and quality throughout the whole thing.

SBT: How is the technology and research park coming along?
Bell: We currently believe we are one of the finalists for GE Medical IT. We would like to build something right in there that takes advantage of the fiber-optic line right along I-94 and takes advantages of the educational opportunities of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. They’ve got great technical colleges in Waukesha, Madison and Milwaukee.
We think we can build a really unique and special technology park that you might see in Palo Alto or the Triangle in North Carolina.

SBT: So, are you and Bruce Behling of Strong Capital Management going to arm-wrestle then for GE Medical to relocate to your development sites? GE Medical is really being courted, isn’t it?
Bell: (Laughs) Oh, yeah. The Strong park is definitely the site GE is looking at, along with us and a few other sites in Milwaukee.
We like to think we can offer the unique location between Madison and Milwaukee. We have Crites Field out in Waukesha for private jets. Obviously, we have General Mitchell (International Airport) to bring in the general public.
Most important, we’re going to have a very open landscape in which to build something. And we’re going to make this the most well designed data-provider area that you can find through fiber optics.

SBT: Do you have any other prospective tenants for the technology and research park?
Bell: We’re just finishing the design of the research park, and we’ll be going to various trade shows throughout the country. Pabst Farms will be a national presentation development. We hope to attract businesses from outside the state of Wisconsin and bring new, high-quality, clean companies to the area.

SBT: Would you expect, that when it’s all said and done, there could be companies that will move their corporate headquarters into Pabst Farms?
Bell: I would see Pabst Farms easily being, if not a national headquarters location, certainly a regional headquarters location. There’s just a lot of quality of life Wisconsin offers. It’s lake country out here. There’s a lot to offer. You’ve got good schools, good living conditions. You’ve got a wide range of housing products. People who want to continue their education have a wide range of choices. I think when you compare that to other areas of the country, this is very affordable and a good value in the Midwest.

SBT: What kinds of hotels are in the equation for Pabst Farms?
Bell: Ideally speaking, we can see two, possibly three hotels at Pabst Farms. We would like to get a suites product for the businessman that might have a short stay but is looking for something a little upscale. We would like to have a more medium, family-priced product, and we might look at an extended stay product for some of our corporate customers who might have someone to stay for a week or two weeks for some kind of a project or something like that.

SBT: Now, to play the devil’s advocate ….
Bell: No devils here!

SBT: The person who drives from Milwaukee to Madison, looks out from the freeway at the beautiful, natural Pabst Farms site and says, "Why can’t that just stay green?" You’ve had some opposition. Is that quieting down?
Bell: Not only is it quieting down, but when people have had the opportunity to see the plan and what we’re planning to do with the amount of open space …. If Pabst Farms had been developed by multiple developers, or if the Pabst family had not wanted to keep it intact, you would not have ended up with 300 acres of open space. You wouldn’t have had the symmetry of all these multiple developments fitting together.
My principles, my morals came from my dad. He taught me to be good stewards for the land, to build to the land, rather than on the land.

SBT: There was a $24 million TIF (tax incremental financing) district created for Pabst Farms. What do you say to critics who say the TIF law was created to encourage redevelopment of blighted, brownfield sites that otherwise wouldn’t have been developed? Pabst Farms certainly wouldn’t qualify as a blighted property. What do you say to people who believe there shouldn’t be any taxpayer support for this project, which is on the most valuable piece of real estate between Milwaukee and Madison?
Bell: Well I would first say that TIF doesn’t finance things. It gives opportunities to get better land planning done. It allows a developer to get a joint partnership with the city to do master land planning that would not otherwise be done.
Let’s just look at our five environments in Pabst Farms. If they were done by five different developers, you wouldn’t have had 300 acres of open space. You would have had 10% of that. Number two, they may or may not have had the same quality or architectural control. Three, you wouldn’t have had the symmetry or connectiveness of trying to build a city together.
And I think, when Pabst Farms is done, not only will it provide a tremendous tax base that you would not have otherwise gotten out there, but more important, you will have a land plan that really works within an exploding community in Waukesha County. I think that’s the real saving here. You get a master plan done on a very large parcel of land.
And $24 million is just a drop in the bucket to what we’re spending on Pabst Farms. This TIF has helped us to be able to do a better job. It will probably be three to five years before we see any economic returns from Pabst Farms to the ownership.
Our timetable is built off of patience and capital. My family has been doing this for over a century now, so we don’t think in terms of years, we think in terms of decades.

May 16, 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Personnel file

Julie Cooper has joined Landmark Credit Union as a business loan officer at its Hartland branch. She joins Landmark with 18 years of financial services experience from Bank One, US Bank and M&I. Michelle Polacheck also joined Landmark, in training and development. She has 14 years of financial services experience from The Equitable Bank, Wells Fargo and Securian Financial Services.
Graef, Anhalt, Schloemer & Associates Inc. (GASAI) has announced the election of six associates. William Fleming, Patrick Kressin, Jeffrey Orzech, Timothy Robinson, Brian Schneider and Patrick Skalecki were all nominated and elected at the firm’s annual principal’s meeting in March. Fleming is the Survey Department manager in the firm’s Chicago O’Hare office. He supervises the daily activities of the Field Services staff, including construction engineers and land surveyors. Kressin, a landscape architect in the Commercial Client Group, works from the Milwaukee office and takes a leadership in the GASAI Golf Course and Community Planning group, as well as on other firm projects. Orzech is a civil engineer in the Chicago O’Hare office. Robinson serves as the chief financial officer and is based out of the Milwaukee office. He brings nearly 25 years experience in financial management and his responsibilities include oversight of the Financial Services Department, company-wide and project-specific financial reporting, budgeting, and cash flow. Schneider is an environmental engineer with technical and administrative project management experience. Skalecki is a civil engineer in the Green Bay office.
J. Timothy Lovett has joined the Milwaukee office of DeWitt Ross & Stevens, a Madison-based law firm. Lovett served on the staff of former Milwaukee Mayor Henry Maier’s Lakefront Recreational Task Force. He also served on the academic staff with UW-Milwaukee’s Center for Architecture and Urban Planning where he was involved in a variety of projects concerning land use issues in Milwaukee County. Lovett was deputy executive director of the Milwaukee Urban League. Lovett is a graduate of the Future Milwaukee program.
Peter J. Schumacher and Robert A. Sisson have been promoted to vice presidents of commercial lending at the Grafton State Bank. Schumacher has more than 25 years of banking experience — the last 13 as the bank’s controller, and a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Lakeland College. Sisson has 15 years in the banking industry and a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Arkansas – Little Rock.
Robyn Calvey, a forest management graduate of UW-Stevens Point, has joined Keep Greater Milwaukee Beautiful as education coordinator. She has served with People for Trees, a San Diego-based organization. More recently, Calvey
was a program coordinator with Greening Milwaukee. Woody Dugan is KGMB’s new executive director. His background includes the Louisville Area Chamber of Commerce, vice president for development and marketing of Norton-Children’s Hospitals in Kentucky, and director of marketing communications, media and public relations with the United Way of New York City in addition to consulting work with non-profits in Connecticut and New York. He also lead the development of a national tire recycling coalition and served on the board of directors of the Washington (Conn.) Environmental Council, and is the lead developer for a proposed memorial for the World Trade Center.
Ashley Rhines accepted a position as a survey technician at Welch Hanson Associates in Delafield. She holds a bachelor’s degree in organizational communications from Concordia University in Wisconsin in Mequon and has a variety of engineering experiences.
Central States Mortgage, Wauwatosa, has hired John P. Haydin and Todd Rickun as mortgage consultants. The company also has promoted Charles Miller to production manager and Joel Pamperin to production coordinator.
Jim Mattiolo has joined Poblocki Paving Corp. as a project manager and sales representative. He is a 1991 UW-Whitewater graduate and has worked with paving and concrete contractors in Arizona and Wisconsin.
Matthew Waller has joined Zeppos & Associates in Milwaukee as an account coordinator. He holds a bachelor’s degree in public relations and advertising from UW-Milwaukee. Prior to joining Zeppos, he worked for a local marketing firm.
Allison Harwood has joined Brady Marketing Group, Menomonee Falls, as an account executive. She had been with TMP Worldwide, and holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communication from UW-Milwaukee.
Chris Bielfeld has joined MSI General in Oconomowoc as a structural engineer. Bielfeld received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1993 from Marquette University and a master’s in civil engineering in 2003, also from Marquette.
Chipper Express, Wauwatosa, has promoted Jeff "Jay" Kwiatkowski to the position of vice president of operations for the freight broker and logistics firm.
Steve Hoefs has joined Orbis Corp. in Oconomowoc as customer service director. He had been director of North American Customer Service for Ondeo Nalco in Napperville, Ill. He is a University of Iowa graduate with a degree in chemical engineering.
DBA Marketing in Delafield has hired Jill Hartzold Moino as an account executive. She has nine years of agency experience, most recently at the Chicago office of Ketchum.
April Ruther has joined CG Schmidt Inc. in Milwaukee as a human resources assistant. Prior to joining CG Schmidt, Ruther graduated from Port Washington High School and attended the Milwaukee Area Technical College.
Roy Ramquist has been named director of North American sales for Soredex North America in Milwaukee. Ramquist was formerly with Gendex as the manager of international marketing and sales.
Wauwatosa Savings Bank has named Susan Luling and Matt Jendrzejczyk as business development/community relations officers for the metropolitan area. They will be located at the bank’s new corporate center at 11200 W. Plank Ct., Wauwatosa.

May 16, 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Community Bank & Trust taps O’Callagahn for Glendale office
Patrick J. O’Callaghan has been named president of Community Bank & Trust’s office in Glendale, set to open in August. He will oversee all operations of the Glendale office, including commercial lending.
The Glendale office of the Sheboygan-based bank will be located at 5380 N. Port Washington Rd.
O’Callaghan has more than 20 years of banking experience. He previously held positions at Firstar, M&I, and Bank One, all located in Milwaukee. He graduated from St. Norbert College with his BBA and from Marquette University with his MBA.
O’Callaghan is an active member with St. Eugene’s Parish Endowment Fund Committee, the Northshore Fire Department AD HOC Committee, and as a board member on St. Catherine’s Residence.
O’Callagan resides in Bayside with his wife and their three children.
Community Bank & Trust was founded in 1989, and now has assets over $300 million with seven offices: four in Sheboygan and one each in Plymouth, Elkhart Lake, and Chilton.
May 16, 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Italian American Chamber starts Wisconsin group

The Italian American Chamber-Midwest has formed a Wisconsin chapter with Al Rolandi as president.
Rolandi was recently named business developer for the new Milwaukee office of Jabas, an Appleton-based benefits company.
"The Wisconsin Chapter of the IACC-Midwest has an ample Italian community to reach out to and excellent resources with the IACC-Midwest, located in Chicago since 1907," said Rolandi.
"The inception of this new office is an important step in international business relations for Wisconsin," he added. "Businesses and members of the Italian community in Wisconsin should be proud to be part of a market that increasingly supports trade with Italy, Italian products and businesses."
Rolandi has worked to foster relationships between the Italian and American communities for many years, including working with the Madison, Wis.-Mantova, Italy Sister City Committee; as the executive administrator of WisItalia Inc.; and as the Wisconsin state administrator for the National Italian American Foundation.
The Wisconsin chapter of the Italian American Chamber of Commerce will develop a network of professional contacts interested in Italian events, businesses, products and culture, Rolandi said. "It will promote and strengthen a modern and technologically advanced image of Italy, moving beyond stereotypes and projecting a perception of Italy as one of the leading industrial countries of the world," he added.
More information about the IACC-Wisconsin is available from Rolandi at 262-827-0400, or via e-mail at al.rolandi@jabasgroup.com, or from Giuseppe Pinna in Chicago at 312-553- 9137 ext. 12, or via e-mail at pinna.chicago@italchambers.net.

May 16, 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Hotel to be built next to Cudahy ice complex

By Steve Jagler, of SBT

Negotiations have begun for plans to build a hotel to accommodate patrons of the Powerade Iceport complex being constructed in Cudahy.
City officials and planners met with potential developers April 30 to discuss the preferred options for the hotel, which will be built near the sports complex, south of Layton Avenue and east of Nicholson Avenue.
The hotel will probably have about 200 rooms and will be designed to accommodate families that travel to the sports complex, rather than business travelers, sources said.
Sports Sites LLC, a real estate company formed to develop the sports complex, closed on its $2.85 million purchase of the site from Cudahy’s Gateway Real Estate LLC on April 29.
The $22 million Powerade Iceport complex, which will be operated by Iceport LLC, a company formed by Sports Sites, is targeted for a June 2004 opening.
The financing is in place to build the project, said Scott Branovan, president and chief executive officer of Iceport LLC.
"Yes, it really is going to happen," Branovan said at a groundbreaking ceremony April 30.
The complex will feature a concourse overlooking five indoor ice rinks, including a 2,500-seat arena rink.
"This project is huge for a city of the scale of Cudahy," noted Brian Vandewalle, president and owner of Vandewalle & Associates, a Madison company hired by the city to oversee the revitalization of downtown Cudahy.
The Powerade Iceport complex will be part of the LakePort Village development that will include mixed uses of retail and commercial business within Cudahy’s Lakeside Commons downtown revitalization district.
Cudahy’s new public library opened at a site west of Packard Avenue in Lakeside Commons earlier this year.
Lakeside Commons is being developed through a tax incremental financing (TIF) district in downtown Cudahy.
The Powerade Iceport complex also is receiving the support of the Coca-Cola Co., which produces the namesake Powerade sports drink.
The complex, which will provide "affordable" facilities for ice hockey, roller hockey, figure skating and synchronized skating, is being built
on the site of the former George J. Meyer Co. plant.
"This is like a Phoenix project, rising out of the ashes," Vandewalle said.
The 200,000-square-foot complex will be constructed by HOK Design+Build, a Kansas City, Mo.-based architectural firm that designed the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.
The complex also will be the home of Al’s Italian Beef and Nancy’s Pizzeria, two Chicago-based restaurants that will expand into the Wisconsin market.
"People said all of this wouldn’t happen, but it is going to happen," Cudahy Mayor Raymond Glowacki said. "I think the good Lord smiled on Cudahy a year ago and allowed all this to happen. He put all the right people in the right place at the right time."

May 16, 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

For Irina Yundov, Simma’s excellence is a tribute to her immigrant mother

By Heather Stur, of SBT

It began in the kitchen of the Milwaukee Hilton in the early 1980s, where a middle-aged Russian woman was employed as a dishwasher. After her shift, she would go to the kitchen and experiment baking and decorating cakes.
Her father had been a baker in Russia, so baking was in her blood.
The woman had been an engineer back home, but when she moved with her husband and two children to the United States in 1979, she feared she didn’t have the English skills to get an engineering job. So she took the job at the hotel and began building a new career.
The woman’s name was Simma Yundov. And what began after hours in the kitchen of the Milwaukee Hilton has become a Milwaukee-area institution. Say the name “Simma’s,” and people just know.
They know the chocolate covered cheesecakes.
Just like other online bakeries like Anges de Sucre, they can get custom-made wedding cakes so ornate and detailed.
They know the holiday pastries.
Most important, they know the service.

Quality and service
Simma Yundov based her business on excellent quality and service, and now that the business is in the hands of her daughter, Irina, those values have caused Simma’s to thrive and grow despite chain-store competition and tough economic times, the daughter says.
“My mom believed in providing customers with exceptional quality, a consistent product and the best service possible,” Irina Yundov said. “Put that in place, and success will follow. It’s why our customers remain loyal to us.”
Simma’s opened in 1982 on 68th Street just north of Wells Street in Wauwatosa. Simma Yundov had no business experience and relied solely on word-of-mouth to advertise. At some point, she decided that cheesecake would be Simma’s signature item, and she set out to perfect the art of making cheesecakes.
Her daughter, Irina, was 10 when the Yundov family immigrated to the United States, and Irina grew up in the bakery, topping cheesecakes with strawberries. She did not expect that it would lead to a career. Irina Yundov thought she would grow up to be an attorney.
She was 21 years old and a student of international relations at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee when her mother got sick. In 1993, Simma Yundov passed away, and Irina decided she would take over the business.
“She had put everything into this business; it was her legacy,” said Yundov, now 33. “I wanted to carry this on for her.”
So at 22 years old, Irina Yundov assembled Simma’s employees and told them that she was now the owner – an unusual transition of business ownership from mother to daughter in a world of “John Jones & Son” entities.
She accepted the fact that most of her employees were older than she. And she quickly learned to deal with vendors’ attempts to take advantage of a young businesswoman.
“I surround myself with qualified and talented people,” Yundov said. “The business is a team effort. It’s not just me.”
Simma’s employs 30 to 35 workers, depending on the season. Some of those employees have worked for the business longer than Yundov has. Yundov attributes that loyalty to the respect her mother gave — and she now gives — her employees.
“My mom expected a lot, but she was very generous in return,” Yundov said. “She understood the importance of recognizing and appreciating good workers.”
The proof of Simma’s success is in the awards it has won. Simma’s products have received Milwaukee Magazine’s “Best of Issue” award five times, Shepherd Express’s “Best Bakery and Desserts” award twice, and Modern Baking Magazine’s “Leadership Award in Quality.”
Most significant of all the awards, however, is the International Restaurant and Hospitality Rating Bureau’s “International Award of Excellence,” which Simma’s has received five times, every year since 1998.
The bakery continues to thrive despite a weak economy and competition from supermarket bakeries.

Plans for new store
And now, she plans to expand beyond the bakery’s Wauwatosa roots. Yundov is planning to open a Simma’s store on Milwaukee’s North Shore within a year.
“Part of the reason we’re still doing well despite the times is the nature of our business,” Yundov said. “People still celebrate occasions in poor economic times. You still want a fantastic birthday cake or wedding cake.
“But customers are also loyal to us because of our values. Our values are very Old World and family-oriented, and our customers feel that.”
Simma’s sells a full line of bakery — including muffins, bars and pastries — made fresh every morning. All wedding cakes are custom-made. A bride-to-be could bring in a sketch of her dream wedding cake and Simma’s bakers and decorators will try to make the dream come true, Irina says.
Simma’s customized cakes include chocolate mousse cakes and a Genoise cake, which features at least five layers of yellow cake filled with vanilla mousse and fresh strawberries or other fruit. But the classic Simma’s cheesecake remains the bakery’s best seller.
“It’s important for a business to remember that you can’t do everything well. You have to specialize in something and do it exceptionally well,” Yundov said.
Furthermore, Yundov advises business owners to be careful — especially during slower economic times — to not grow too quickly, lest quality be compromised.
“Value your customers, stay true to your business philosophy, maintain quality,” she said. “Don’t make any dramatic changes to your product right now. Just ride out the wave of recession, and you’ll come through.”
Simma Yundov’s commitment to customer service carried over to public service in the form of supporting local charities and fundraisers. Today, Simma’s participates in a wide variety of fundraisers for churches, schools and organizations such as Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, Hunger Task Force, the Jewish Community Center, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and United Cerebral Palsy.
Among the framed awards on a wall in Simma’s is a photograph of Simma Yundov and Julia Child. Child had visited Milwaukee and toured some of its restaurants and bakeries. After meeting Child, Yundov sent a basket of Simma’s goods to Child at the Pfister. Child’s handwritten note of thanks, penned on Pfister stationary, is in a frame next to the photo of Simma Yundov and Julia Child.
“Mom was always serving customers, no matter who they were, and she loved doing it,” Irina Yundov said. “She had a real passion for her business, and that more than anything is vital in order for a business to be successful.”

May 16., 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Make a commitment to your community

By Robert Grede, for SBT

Get active in your community. Whether you’re a small business owner or an employee of a big organization, there are many benefits to community involvement:
–You enhance your image in the community.
–You achieve greater visibility for yourself and your company.
–You enlarge your network of business contacts.
–You can have a significant impact on your company’s sales.

There are many ways to get involved in the community. Most charitable and nonprofit organizations have a crying need for volunteers.
Start with local affiliates of the national health-related education and research organizations (American Heart Association, United Cerebral Palsy, Muscular Dystrophy, etc.).
Or try contacting local nonprofit hospitals, educational facilities, your Chamber of Commerce, Scouting, the YMCA, Rotary, AIDS Resource Center, Ronald McDonald House, etc. The list is long and can only be culled by your interests and those of your company.
Once you have chosen the organization that best fits your company profile, following are ways you can work with the organization (and make the group work for you, too).

Donate a percentage of the profits – This could be a one-day-a-year event or a whole month. For your company, promote it as "We Care Day" or "(name of the charity) Month."
Ask the charity do a mailing to its list of contributors and friends, inviting them to do business with you. Include a coupon or certificate for a discount in the mailing. It’s an excellent way to raise money for the charity and alert a new set of prospects to your business.
If the charity has access to any celebrities, ask if they can arrange an appearance at your next function as a part of the fund-raising program. You might want to set up an autograph table or have a photographer take instant pictures in exchange for a donation.

Key customer contribution – Once a year, send a handwritten note to several of your key customers thanking them for their support. In the note, tell them that, in appreciation, you are making a cash contribution in their name to a charitable organization.
Or you can ask the customer to pick the organization (from among four or five on your list) to which the contribution should be sent.
You receive the appreciation of your customers, and the charity receives your support.

Sponsor a scholarship – Scholarships at the high school or college level make good sense.
Forrer Business Interiors, for example, provides a $1,000 scholarship each year to a deserving student in the design department at Mount Mary College. In addition, the student is offered a summer internship at Forrer. The school chooses the recipient from among several worthy candidates.
The scholarship program provides the student with much needed funds while Forrer gets recognition at a prestigious school of design and a topnotch employee for the summer.
Another client of mine, a dry-cleaning service, provides scholarships to worthy high school students in its community. The visibility and good-guy image helps when it comes time to recruit employees.

The cook-off – Cook-offs are fun and an easy way to raise money for a charity. For example, a restaurant in a small town held a pancake breakfast for charity. A local pastor did the cooking, and his parishioners attended breakfast after church service. All the proceeds during the hour that he cooked went to the church.
While such a promotion is best suited to a restaurant, any sponsor can get good exposure in the community.
For instance, hold a barbecue competition in your parking lot. Invite local newspaper food writers and a few restaurant chefs as judges. After judges have announced a winner, spectators can sample the food. Competitor entry fees and spectators’ fees (which include lunch) go to the charity. You, as sponsor, pay only for prizes and promotional expenses.
Be sure all contestants have hats and aprons with your logo prominently displayed. Provide the winning recipes to local food writers. And invite the media to the event. This is a natural for television.
Whether you’re a business owner or an employee, community involvement enhances your image, creates name recognition and enlarges your network of contacts.
Besides, it’s a great way to meet some nice people.

Robert Grede, president of The Grede Co., consultants in marketing and strategic planning, teaches at Marquette University; He can be reached via e-mail at rg@thegredecompany.com.

May 2, 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Brookfield-based Merchants & Manufacturers Bancorp. will acquire Reedsburg Bancorporation Inc. and Random Lake Bancorp Limited.

Reedsburg Bancorporation serves as a one-bank holding company for The Reedsburg Bank, which has total assets of $137 million with four locations in central Wisconsin.
The purchase price is $36 million and will be payable in a combination of approximately 85% cash and notes and 15% Merchants’ common stock. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2003.
Random Lake Bancorp serves as a one-bank holding company for Wisconsin State Bank, which has total assets of $93.9 million with four locations in Wisconsin. The bank’s main office is in Random Lake, 35 miles northwest of Milwaukee. The bank also has a branch location just a few miles east of Random Lake in Belgium. In addition, Wisconsin State Bank has a significant presence along the Mississippi River, with two locations in Prairie Du Chien.
For each share they own, shareholders of Random Lake Bancorp will receive 90 shares of Merchants common stock and $300 in cash. Based on Merchants recent closing price of $30.40, the approximate purchase price would be $13 million. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2003.
Merchants & Manufacturers operates five banks in Wisconsin: Lincoln State Bank, Grafton State Bank, Franklin State Bank, Community Bank of Oconto County and Fortress Bank of Westby, and one each bank in Minnesota and Iowa.
It offers residential mortgage services through CBG Mortgage Inc. and investment and insurance products through Link Community Financial Services.

May 2, 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

The ‘look’ of your facilities can support your brand

It’s becoming increasingly common for corporate culture and branding to influence the interior design process.
Many companies want to impart a certain type of culture and corporate identity into the design of their office spaces and businesses. As a result, the look and function of office, retail, medical and education facilities are increasingly impacted by image-positioning strategies.
Regardless of size, companies are using the interior design of their offices, meeting facilities and businesses to convey images that will have a positive impact on employees, customers and others.
The use of signage and the repetition of logos are established practices in large restaurant chains and retail outlets. That aesthetic sameness approach to interior design means one facility will look like sister facilities.
Although a customer might never have been to a particular location of a restaurant or retail business before, the familiar design elements help to facilitate immediate trust in the quality of products or services offered.
That feeling of trust can also be generated in employees and customers who visit corporate offices in multiple locations that share common interior design standards.
Design-conscious image building can help support a company’s overall branding strategies. For instance, technology-based companies typically want the interior design of their offices to convey a cutting-edge mentality and image, often through a modern, deconstructionist style that incorporates metals and bright colors. Financial service firms, on the other hand, strive to create an image of stability and success through more traditional interior design, utilizing darker woods and heavy brass fixtures.
Law firms may design office space to convey a feeling of power and control. That can actually become an influential component to negotiations that take place within the facilities.
CJ & Associates has helped develop corporate design and furniture standards for medical and educational entities that have multiple locations and facilities. That standardized approach to interior design can provide many benefits to the comfort and reassurance of employees and customers. It can also result in cost savings to companies with multiple facilities that can share common furniture elements from one facility to the next.
Using corporate culture and image in the interior design of facilities can play an important role in positioning companies in the marketplace.
If you operate more than one facility, it may be worth the time and effort to evaluate the benefits of standardizing interior designs based on the type of business or service identity that you want to strengthen or establish.

Kim Hastings is vice president for operations at CJ & Associates, a contract office furniture distributor in New Berlin and Madison.

May 2, 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Here’s how to get managers to effectively communicate with employees

By Daniel Schroeder, for SBT

Question: Recently, we’ve observed that our managers aren’t as skilled as they should be in the areas of presentation, feedback and negotiation. We did a 360º-survey and one common finding was that our managers don’t communicate effectively, at least as far as the employees are concerned. What suggestions can you offer for addressing this situation?

Answer: If I had a dime for every time within my consulting practice I address an issue such as the one you raise in your question, I would be the proverbial millionaire. In my experience, this is a very common occurrence. In fact, my sense is that this is a reflection of the Information Age and its related emphasis on technical and subject matter expertise; soft-skills and interpersonal capabilities tend to be viewed as "nice but not necessary."
For what it’s worth, you can take solace in knowing that your company is not the only one that must confront this issue.
For instance, the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) has documented that in terms of individuals with whom its has worked, 80% of "rising star" managers who have "failed" have failed due to what CCL calls an "interpersonal deficit."
In practical terms, that means that these former "fair-haired" men and women are no longer viewed as such because, put simply, they "rub people the wrong way." Clearly, this is a pervasive problem in many organizations.
Think about it. When we hire someone, we tend to emphasize what he/she knows about a given subject matter (i.e., engineering, accounting, etc.). Perhaps secondarily (if we consider it all), we look at broader issues having to do with the ability to lead, get along, facilitate, etc.
Yet, as I observed in my last article on succession planning, in some cases, the day comes when the subject matter expert is promoted to the role of supervisor or manager.
At that point, a number of questions emerge. What skills does this person bring to this role in the interpersonal relations and strategic domains? How prepared is he/she to work effectively through and with others? What formal training/development has been offered in speaking, writing, listening, providing feedback, etc.?
Obviously, we often promote people to managerial positions without adequately preparing them.
Given the increased visibility of most managerial assignments, it’s important that individuals present themselves well. Managers must advance their ideas and those of the organization.
In short, the ability to speak well is foundational for managerial success. But what are some basic guidelines for effective speaking? What must a manager do to get his/her point across?
Basically, there are three considerations that must be taken into account when you, as a manager, offer an oral presentation. They are:
–You must effectively and accurately present your message;
— You must ensure that your receivers understand your message;
–You must manage your message effectively.

Implicit in those considerations is the recognition that to be an effective speaker, you must be an effective listener. After all, researchers who study such things point out that we spend up to 70% or 80% of our work lives receiving messages. Thus, if we are ineffective at listening, we are doomed to be ineffective at presenting.
In any event, when it comes to effectively communicating a managerial message, here are some basic considerations:
Avoid ambiguity – Effective presenters and speakers minimize the use of "fuzzy" words. They speak simply and clearly to minimize the chance that they will be misunderstood.
Consider your listeners when you are speaking. What are they hearing? If you asked them to repeat what you just said, could they do so? With what degree of accuracy? You can go a long way toward making an effective presentation simply by taking your receivers more seriously by attending to their needs and concerns.
Speak practically – Any effective speaker knows that he/she must have an agenda in mind prior to getting started.
When you speak, you are asking people to listen to you and offer their time and attention. This is a serious request and care should be taken to ensure that no one walks away feeling cheated or used. The best way to score on this point is to have a plan and to deliver on it.
A few simple suggestions in this regard include the need to speak assertively, to speak concisely and to offer relevant information.
Prepare for meetings – Managers conduct and attend a lot of meetings. Meetings are a vital part of the organization and workflow. How many of them, though, are really effective?
And within the context of this article, how many of them are effective conversations? After all, meetings are simply a more formal type of interpersonal communication. Accordingly, to be an effective communicator, a manager must be an effective meetings manager. Principally, that involves preparing and planning for the meeting.
Rule No. 1, by the way, in effective meetings management is, "Should the meeting be held?" Time is money, and when you ask a number of people to attend a meeting, it should be worth their time. Other meetings management considerations include: Who should attend? How long should the meeting be? And what is the agenda?
Develop facilitation skills – Once a meeting has been called, the manager must step forward as a skilled facilitator. That involves focusing on the agenda and the stated goals; clarifying issues, rules, concerns, etc.; and summarizing each stage of the proceedings.
An effective facilitator does not dominate. He/she lets others speak and manages and orchestrates the flow of information. He/she enforces the ground rules that have been established. He/she acts as a role model of effective interpersonal communication by adopting a task-oriented, problem solving approach.
Provide feedback and seek to have feedback provided to you – Ultimately, from my perspective, to be an effective communicator you must be mindful of two basic questions: "How am I doing?" And, "How are we doing?"
Feedback in response to each of those questions is critical. The skilled managerial communicator offers it and seeks it. He/she is concerned with both achieving a given task and using the best communication process to achieve that end.
Effective managerial communicators, then, de-brief their meetings and conversations, asking questions such as, "Did this go as you had expected it to?" "What worked well?" "What didn’t work so well?" "How can I help you to be a more full and active participant?" And so on.
It has been written that the Tower of Babel collapsed because people could no longer communicate – their speech had become so different that people could not understand each other. Follow the advice that I offer in this article to avoid having your organization’s "tower of communication" come crashing down. Task your managers with being both technically proficient and interpersonally adroit.

Daniel Schroeder, Ph.D., of Organization Development Consultants Inc. (ODC) in Brookfield, provides this column. Small Business Times readers who would like to see an issue addressed may reach him at 262-827-1901, via fax at 262-827-8383, via e-mail at schroeder@odcons.com or via the Internet at www.odcons.com.

May 2, 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee