Plans for the 85-acre Ryan Business Park continue to move forward in Oak Creek with developers hoping to break ground within the next six to nine months.
The project, located at South 13th Street and West Ryan Road, just east of I-94, can accommodate up to 10 100,000 to 200,000-square-foot industrial buildings or one or two large users, said Mike Faber, founder of Pewaukee-based Capstone Quadrangle, which is co-developing the project with Fox Point-based General Capital Group.
General Capital Group purchased 34 acres for the park in October 2017 from Dennis Tischendorf for $1.7 million, according to state records.
In March, the Milwaukee County Board approved a land swap for the remaining portion of the land.
The property is vacant farmland just south of West Ryan Road, across the street from Colder’s Furniture Appliances and Mattresses at 9725 S. 13th St.
The project will still require rezoning and an amendment to the city’s 2020 comprehensive plan, which will be voted on June 26 by the plan commission.
“We’re making really good progress,” Faber said. “We’re having conversations with the city and eight or 10 things need to happen simultaneously to make the park become a reality.”
Faber has eyed the site for an industrial park for 15 years.
One of Faber’s first developments was on 30 acres in Oak Creek’s Creekside Corporate Park. Faber said the project, which housed a 102,000-square-foot industrial building and was home to FedEx for several years and later Germantown-based MGS Mfg. Group, Inc.’s distribution center, introduced him to Oak Creek.
“The city is very easy to deal with,” he said. “They protect their residents but also do a good job of being forward thinking and understanding the balance of needing to expand the tax base. Also, having a business park that has this proximity to I-94 and Ryan Road and the simplicity of being able to tell customers where your business is located is a powerful thing.”
Faber and his partners envision companies locating in the business park that are already in the metropolitan Milwaukee area and are outgrowing their existing facilities or want a more modern building.
“I just completed a built-to-suit in Minnesota where we combined three different buildings into a 110,000-square-foot corporate headquarters that also had production and a small warehouse,” Faber said.
It is also possible that out of state businesses could also move into the park, which is only 20 miles from Milwaukee where there is a large talent pool, Faber said.
Plus, the site is along the I-94, not far from the Foxconn site in Racine County, which is south of Oak Creek.
“We’ve been asked a lot about Foxconn, which was not a direct motivation,” Faber said. “But it will surprise me if there isn’t some kind of business that chooses this location because of some kind of connection to Foxconn.”
