Racine, Mequon developments noted
Racine
The City of Racine plans to begin demolition of the buildings at the former Jacobsen/Textron Turf Care plant at 1721 Packard Ave. on the city’s south side later this year.
The city was expected to issue requests for proposals by the end of January for a phase II environmental assessment at the site.
A phase I assessment had been ordered prior to the proposed sale of the 480,000-square-foot facility to C. Coakley Relocation Systems, a Milwaukee-based moving company, in December 2001.
However, rather than allow the company to use the site for storage and lease space, the city opted instead in August 2002 to acquire and redevelop the 14-acre site.
According to Brian O’Connell, city planning director, the city expects to divide the site into lots and will require the new occupants to be engaged in job-producing industries.
Demolition of the existing buildings on the site should take place this year, and sites could be back on the market in early 2004, according to O’Connell.
“We are thinking that could be three or four sites,” O’Connell said. “Distribution and warehousing is not what we are interested in. A number of other manufacturing sites in the city have been turned into dead storage. We are interested in this being a real workplace. Some distribution and assembly is pretty well-paying these days. The main thing is that there would have to be some active component or job creation.
“There is flexibility,” O’Connell said. “One of the things we have not decided on is whether we will partner with an industrial developer.”
In the meantime, the city is concentrating on determining how much the redevelopment process will cost at the site, which has been used for manufacturing purposes for more than 100 years.
“Our biggest challenge in this first year has been to get control of the property and satisfy environmental requirements,” O’Connell said. “We have a phase I assessment, and we expect we will have to do some remediation. The site is almost entirely under roof or under pavement. We will have to get some holes in the pavement in order to find out what we are dealing with.”
A long-awaited sewer service agreement between the city and neighboring community will deliver funds to help pay for the project. The agreement will end a longstanding sewer moratorium in Racine County east of Interstate 94 by allowing the city to expand its wastewater treatment plant.
A provision of the agreement requires that some of the revenue paid to the city be targeted for tax base-enhancing redevelopment efforts.
While sewer funds may pay a portion of the tab, the city also plans to create a tax incremental financing district to pay for some required infrastructure improvements.
“We are in the process of creating a TIF,” O’Connell said. “The revenue-sharing helps, but it isn’t able to do everything. There may be some upgrades to the existing infrastructure – sewer, water, storm sewer, power and good street access.”
Mequon poised to grow when economy turns
Instead of waiting for the economy to improve, the City of Mequon is proactively laying the groundwork for two significant commercial real estate development projects.
The city is continuing with its ambitious plan to create what essentially will be a new downtown with its neighbor, the Village of Thiensville.
The two municipalities plan to form a joint committee to advance the project, which is tentatively known as the City of Mequon and Village of Thiensville Town Center.
“Things are moving along, but when you’re hit square in the face with recessionary times and a down stock market, they take some time,” said Brad Steinke, Mequon’s director of community development.
The Mequon/Thiensville project is intended to attract as much as $37 million in private development, including mixed uses, a riverwalk, upscale townhouses, new streetscaping, small retail shops, office buildings, a brew pub, an amphitheater, a farmer’s market and a botanical garden.
The targeted 200-acre downtown area would span Cedarburg Road and the Milwaukee River in downtown Mequon, and head north along Green Bay Road into Thiensville.
The location will be key to attracting developers and tenants for the project, which will take advantage of the scenic banks of the Milwaukee River as it meanders through the two Ozaukee County communities.
The entire project could take up to a decade to complete, Steinke said.
However, the city has more immediate goals for its expansion of the Mequon Business Park.
The city has created a tax incremental financing district to finance the development of 100 acres to expand the park, located northeast of Wauwatosa Road and Donges Bay Road.
The expansion would be west of the park’s existing 130 acres.
The expansion could attract $26 million in new development, including high-quality office, research and development and light industrial buildings, Steinke said.
The city is partnering with NAI MLG Commercial of Brookfield to market and develop the expansion at a cost of about $3 million to $4 million, he said.
“You go out there today, and all you’re going to see is corn,” Steinke said. “But we hope that we’ve hit the basement of the economic cycle and that as we develop the business park, everything will come together. That would be nice.”
The engineering work is nearly complete at the expansion site.
Already, one business is under contract to locate in an office and light industrial building to be constructed on about four acres of the site, according to Andy Bruce of NAI MLG. He declined to identify the prospective tenant.
