Loomis and Hwy. 100 Development

 

UPDATE

3/1/10

 

The 33 acres that encompass the north east corner of the crossroads are now up for sale.  This activity will effectively stop development possibilities until the land is transferred and the new owner develops a plan to develop the area.  In addition to the cost of the land (rumored to be approximately $6mil.) the new developer will be faced with the same challenges Mred Cummings had. 

 

Those challenges include:

In addition, the city worked with the residents to develop a site plan and design criteria for the area that has been incorporated into the city Comprehensive Master Plan which will dictate how the area is developed, building sizes and design as well as types of permitted land uses place pressure on the parcels.

 

Here's the approved and adopted plan. 

 

10/1/08

 

The city has received no new communication from the developer since the meeting in July of 2007.

 

UPDATE

7/27/07

 

MRed has produced yet another preliminary site plan for a possible development at the Crossroads.  Their process is to work with the DNR on some environmental issues then appear before the Environmental Commission for review of a Natural Resources Exception.  The timing for this process is unknown at this point.  I expect to have preliminary site plan drawings soon but the plans that I saw yesterday showed little changes to the original plan posted below.  I had some harsh words for the consultant who showed me the plans.  We'll see what changes soon.

 

There are bloggers in our community that may receive drawings through other channels.  Be aware that those drawings may not be official submittals.

 

UPDATE

6/12/07

 

Nothing new from MRED Development about their possible development of the Crossroads.  In the mean time, ground breaking for the Sendik's store at 51st and Rawson is Friday at noon.  Also, the City has provided necessary approvals for the Shops at Wyndam Ridge at Drexel and Hwy. 100 pending environmental approvals by the Wisconsin DNR.

 

UPDATE

11/4/06

 

MRED Development has postponed their concept review before the Plan Commission while they work on the comments and suggestions from me, city staff and the neighbors who attended the neighborhood meeting held October 5.

 

Along with city staff, I continue to support the plan that was enacted in 2004 and work toward this as the ultimate development on this valuable commercial corner.

 

A new commercial development nearby has been proposed by Franklin developer and resident Mark Carstensen.  The development is to be located at Sth. 100 and Drexel Avenue and will be anchored by a yet to be named department store in a 125,000 sq. ft. building along with additional restaurant and retail buildings.  Also announced was a Sendik's grocery store.  To read more about this proposal click here.

 

Brian Cummings, a partner in the Crossroads development spoke in favor of Carstensen's development.

 

UPDATE

9/29/06

 

The City of Franklin will receive a proposal for a retail development on the South East corner of Loomis Road and Sth. 100 shortly.  Preliminary plans have been in discussion with city staff for the past 8 months.  The proposed developer, Mred-Cummings anticipates a concept review before the City of Franklin Plan Commission early in November. 

 

At my insistence, there will be a "Neighborhood Meeting" open to the public on OCTOBER 5, 2006 in the Community Room (Inspection Department entrance) of City Hall, 9229 W. Loomis Road at 7:00pm.  The developer will have drawings, site plans and renderings on display and will give a short presentation at 7:00pm but will be available for questions between 6:30pm and 8:30pm.

 

Click on the drawing to download the full size PDF.

 

 

 

 

 

9/23/04

 

PDI presented the Crossroads regulating plan and takes comment from the Plan Commission.  Download the presentation by clicking here.

 

 

9/11/04

 

PDI continues to draft the "regulatory plan" for the Crossroads.  This plan will provide developers a clear idea of the criteria that will guide the city in evaluating proposals for development of the corridor.  Several meetings have been held with developers and investors by PDI to continually assess the marketability of the plan prior to its' adoption.

 

PDI will present the regulating plan to the Plan Commission on 9/23/04.

 

7/14/04

 

Last evening at the Common Council meeting, on my motion, the Common Council unanimously approved changes to the Unified Development Ordinance that limits the total size of individual retail buildings to a maximum of 125,000 square feet.  It appears that we're the first community in Milwaukee County to adopt such an ordinance.

 

Here's the article that appeared in the Milwaukee Jounal-Sentinel.

 

6/25/04

 

In an article published in this morning's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, landowners in the Crossroads Area indicate that the developers hired by Wal-Mart may have withdrawn their offers to purchase the land in that area.  The city has received no official notice of this.  At Tuesday evening's Common Council meeting, additional funds were authorized to allow additional changes to the Crossroads Development Plan to accommodate concerns of several of the land owners.

 

Click here to read the Journal-Sentinel article.

 

6/15/04

 

A public hearing was held before the Franklin Plan Commission on 6/17 before an overflow crowd in the Common Council Chambers.  After a presentation from the consultant, PDI, Inc. comments were taken from the Plan Commission as well as the general public. 

 

The generally supportive comments centered around traffic flow and control, building sizes and architectures as well as minimizing potential impacts to surrounding areas.  Several land owners questioned the financial viability of the plan and stressed the need to keep all of the parcels together.  Comments were heard about road connections to neighboring parcels as well as the need to consider street access to existing businesses.  PDI will review these comments, meet again with the DOT as well as several concerned landowners and return with a final recommendation for the Plan Commission on 7/8/04.

 

Update 6/14/04

 

PDI Inc. will present their final recommendation for future development at the Crossroads area at the regular meeting of the Franklin Plan Commission on Thursday, June 17 at 7:00pm.

 

After a short presentation, the Plan Commission will accept public comment on the proposal.

 

Please plan on attending and offering your input.

 

 

 

 

5/12/04

 

OPEN HOUSE ON CROSSROADS PLAN

 

Two alternate plans will be presented to the community at an "open house" meeting.

 

Thursday, May 20

City Hall

9229 W. Loomis Road

Hearing Room

3:00pm through 7:00pm

 

The consultant, PDI and city staff will be on hand to discuss methods used to arrive at the recommendations and the specific features of each alternate.  The community will be offered an opportunity to provide written comment that will be used to modify the plan prior to its' submission to the Plan Commission and Common Council in June.

 

Following the open house, PDI will present the two alternatives to the Plan Commission as a concept review and receive their comments.

 

Plan on attending the open house some time during the afternoon and offer your input.

 

3/21/04

 

A new "coalition" has been formed to fight the "proposed" Wal-Mart Super Center.  This coalition will be holding a public meeting at the Franklin Public Library at 6:00pm on Monday, March 22.

 

In an article to appear in the 3/22/04 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Mayor Klimetz finally comes to his senses and repeats the admonishment given by the City attorney more than a month ago.  That admonishment is to elected (and soon to be elected) officials to not comment on this proposal publicly.  I HAVE TAKEN CRITICISM FROM THE GRANDSTANDING DON DORSAN for not publicly taking a position.  It's because of his lack of understanding of who he's encouraged into our city that has caused this problem.

 

Attend the meeting.  Get facts and make your feelings known.  Then I urge you to think about what's happened thus far in this "process" and come to a decision on who has behaved in a manner that would protect the interests of the residents of the city and who has not.

 

Here's the link to the Journal-Sentinel article. 

 

 

(3/14/04)

 

The Franklin Common Council will take up the hiring of a "public involvement" professional and a Planning and design consultant to develop a plan for the Crossroads area. 

 

The contracts include $7,000 "for professional planning consulting services by Beth Foy and Associates to coordinate newsletters, a visual preference survey and two meetings.  (A visual preference survey was done by the Franklin Plan Commission in 1999.  Public input on various areas was solicited in several public meetings in preparation of the Ticknor Report through 2001.)  The contract is targeting "neighbors within 1000 feet."

 

A second contract at $25,900 is being requested for the firm "Planning and Design Institute" who's responsibilities and tasks (scope of work) were not attached to the Common Council Agenda package distributed on Friday afternoon.

 

These contracts will be taken up at a Common Council meeting

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

5:30pm

Common Council Chambers

 

 

 

posted 3/5/04

 

The fallout from the monumental mis-handling of this proposed development has begun.  The City of Franklin was notified on Friday, 3/5/04 that two property owners in the subject area has filed a suit against the city alleging that the moratorium is a illegal and "aimed specifically at the property with one goal in mind: to stop the development of a Wal-Mart Store." 

 

The case number is 04CV001685 and will be assigned to Judge Daniel Noonan.

 

I've taken criticism from my opponent for not taking a public stand on this possible proposal. 

 

I will NOT jeopardize the city's position in this matter for political expediency as is my opponent.  Your rights to representation are very important to me and I'll not put them at risk by denying the applicant and land owners (also constituents of the 1st District) their constitutional rights of due process.

 

I've visited a lot of the residents in the district over the last couple of months.  I've listened carefully to the comments and concerns and understand the desires of the district and will represent you.

 

Mr. Dorsan has placed himself and the city in a very poor situation with his actions.  You can be assured that I will take every effort to be in a position to represent the district when the time for voting comes.

 

This is the SECOND potential case of "denial of due process" charged against actions led by Mr. Dorsan.  The city (you and me) are facing another federal lawsuit for the denial of DeMattia's proposal to build a $10million food distribution facility for McLane Foodservice in the business park.  That lawsuit alleges $3.9million in damages.

 

Can we afford to keep Mr. Dorsan making decisions for the city?  First he supports a project in private (meetings in September where he asks for protection of the wetlands and a change in architecture, then again in January where he proudly told other aldermen that this is a "different" Wal-Mart), then discovers he's not in touch with his constituents, then prejudices the rights of the landowners and developers.

 

There are ways to legally and ethically control our destiny.  Mr. Dorsan does not practice them and should not be kept in office.  He just causes too much expense and controversy.

 

I've said this a thousand times... "It didn't have to happen this way."

 

I've also been asked what was to be written for covenants and zoning in these retail areas.  Those of us in Economic Development use the term "lifestyle concept."  Here's a discussion on this concept given at an "anti-Wal-Mart" seminar in Madison.  Please pay particular attention to the discussion of life style concept shopping discussed on the bottom of page two. 

 

Remember that the Don Dorsan led common council two years ago refused to support the Economic Development Commission in the effort to plan and re-zone these areas.

 

 

425-9060

 

 

 

 

A resolution was introduced at the 2/3/04 Common Council meeting to place a moratorium on "non-residential" development in the area along Loomis Road.

The resolution was passed by a vote of 5-1 with Ald. Kosovich voting against.

 

Don Dorsan read a letter from the developer that first stated that they would not submit any plans for 90 to 120 days.  Here's that letter.  Then Dorsan read a paragraph from an attorney for Wal-Mart that demanded that he (Dorsan) be required to recuse (not vote) on any proposal brought by the developer because of the public stance that he has taken. 

 

Here's the letter that starts to build Wal-Mart's case for a lawsuit.

 

After a bit of grandstanding to the audience by Dorsan and the mayor, the city attorney admonished both from making public statements adverse to the applicant.  The city attorney cited several cases where decisions were affected by the statements of public officials. 

 

I received my copy of Governing magazine recently.  You may be interested in an article from their Economic Development area about Wal-Mart and their affect on local sales tax revenue (we don't collect a local sales tax) and wages.  Click here.

 

My original posts.  Posting on Wal-Mart began on 12/23/03.

 

After being a pretty poorly kept secret since June, Wal-Mart's interest in the "Illusions" corner is now public.

 

At the insistence of some constituents I urged the Economic Development Commission to review the plans for this area and discuss potential impact of a store similar to Wal-Mart.  This discussion was originally scheduled for December 20th when the meeting was cancelled due to lack of quorum.  That meeting was held to a small but passionate audience on January 6.  It wasn't until mid way through the meeting that a site plan was presented and by that time most had left the meeting.  No specifics were presented by Dorsan or the city planner.

 

Given substantial pressure by constituents, Dorsan has finally decided to put together a "neighborhood" meeting. Scheduled for the Hearing Room, Don obviously wasn't in touch with what was going on.  The crowd was so big that the Fadrow Room at the Library needed to be used.  This forced a couple hundred people and a lot of seniors to walk through the snow to get there. 

 

Reports vary, but a 350 person capacity room was full.

 

No Wal-Mart executive appeared at the meeting, or at least made themselves known.  An architect from Toldt Development presented the site plan and preliminary elevations of the building and answered basic questions about the building, proposed traffic flow, parking, etc. but could not answer questions about operations, employment etc.

 

The architect said that the development would provide the city $200,000 in taxes.  This number was not defined as to what it really meant.

 

As is typical in developments such as this, an overwhelming number of speakers spoke against the project.  A couple spoke for it, mostly citing the need for tax relief and shopping convenience in the neighborhood.

 

Franklin Police Chief Ken Bohn provided the 2003 police activity for the sector that Wal-Mart is in.  His report is available by clicking here.

 

An opposition group has been formed and has posted a web site at:  www.geocities.com/futurefranklin.

 

I have heard that those who support the store are as well forming a group and further information will be posted here as soon as it becomes available.

 

This development is another example of the failure of the common council over the past three years to plan for development and protect its' citizens.  The Economic Development Commission (which I was chairman), the Community Development Authority and most of the members of the Plan Commission urged the council to move forward with the "next step" of the Ticknor/Franklin First plan and put new zoning and covenants in place in these areas to provide clear guidelines for development.  The council through their actions and in-actions told these commissions that their services were not required.

 

It's development such as this that show who's really interested in involvement from the community.  As alderman, it was, and will continue to be my policy to have community involvement in all projects in the district before they appear before any city body.  I'll let everyone in the district know about it by literature drops and e-mails.  I'll even make sure that Dorsan gets one!

 

Wednesday 1/10 Milwaukee Journal article provided much more information than anyone at City Hall to that point.  Take a look.

 

Here's the Thursday 1/11 Hub Article and the Sunday, 1/18 Journal-Sentinel article.

 

And a piece that ran in the 1/21/04 Journal Sentinel on the opening of the Burlington Super Wal Mart.

 

And two pieces about Wal-Mart in the 1/24/04 Journal Sentinel.  One on an inquiry into Beaver Dam's elected officials activity surrounding the construction of a Wal-Mart Warehouse and distribution facility in that town and their concessions to Wal-Mart.  The other describes Mukwonago's potential development of a Super Center.

 

And here's the follow-up article on the Beaver Dam dealings with Wal-Mart.

 

Here's the article that appeared in the 2/5/04 Journal-Sentinel about the Moratorium.  Click Here.

 

So, if you oppose the development, get involved.  If you support the development get involved.

 

Take a look at my record on economic development.