Wauwatosa-based real estate firm Wangard is working on plans for a mixed-use development that would include a grocery store for a vacant 8-acre site northeast of South First Street and East Greenfield Avenue in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood.
Preliminary plans for the project include about 60,000 square feet of retail space, 60,000 square feet of office space and 60 residential apartments, said Wangard chairman and chief executive officer Stewart Wangard.
Wangard has the site under contract and is conducting due diligence for the project, formulating plans, and is working on city approvals and environmental cleanup planning, he said.
“We’re working on bringing (the project) forward,” Wangard said. “We’re not at the point where all of the details are flushed out. There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done.”
The site is a key location on busy First Street between the Rockwell Automation corporate headquarters and the 100,000-square-foot University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences, which is under construction at the UWM Great Lakes WATER Institute.
The project could add a parking structure, which would enable the addition of more building space, Wangard said.
Several neighborhood residents have been hoping that a grocery store will be developed in Walker’s Point and the site at First and Greenfield is often cited by residents as the logical location.
Wangard declined to name what grocery store operator would open a store in the development. However, one source said Aurora, Ill.-based Cermak Fresh Market, which built a 61,000-square-foot grocery store at 1541 Miller Park Way, is interested in the project.
Wangard said his firm is working with UWM and city officials in formulating the plans for the project. The apartments in the project could be used by UWM School of Freshwater Sciences students.
