The owners of a former steakhouse building on Milwaukee’s south side that has been vacant for about eight years say a plan to improve the neighborhood is keeping them from selling their property.
Jerry and Marie Arenas had an offer from James Griffin, owner of Griffin Ford in Waukesha, to purchase the property at 800 W. Layton Ave. in February for $825,000.
Griffin walked away from the deal after the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals denied his request to turn the property into a motor vehicle outdoor storage facility and body shop.
Alderman Terry Witkowski, who represents the district, said he was opposed to both the use of the site and the 9-foot fence that was going to be erected on the east side of the property.
But Arenas, who pays the city $24,000 per year in property taxes on the parcel, feels he has been railroaded.
“I have a trailer park to the east of me, a lock and storage to the west, and my building has been empty for (almost) 10 years; How much more depressed can that area be?” Jerry Arenas said. “A solid guy who wants to create jobs and put up a building comes along and they deny him?”
Jerry and Marie also own Palmer’s Steakhouse in Hartland. After almost 20 years, they decided to walk away from the Layton Avenue location and sold the business to the restaurant manager and a group of investors, who changed the name to J. Roberts Porterhouse.
After an unsuccessful run, the group closed the restaurant and gave the keys back to the Arenas in 2009. They held onto the property until 2012, when they sold it on a land contract to a group who planned to turn it into the Grillside Steakhouse.
But that restaurant never opened and Jerry and Marie got the keys back again in March 2016.
Arenas said he thought he would finally be rid of the property when Griffin came along in August 2016 with plans to open Griffin Hub Collision Center.
The deal originally was supposed to close in December, but was pushed back to February. The Board of Zoning Appeals denied the request at its February meeting.
Griffin said from the beginning, the city made him and Arenas jump through hoops and spend a lot of money on the project.
“We were working with the alderman and there were delays, but we were willing to give up some things and I thought it would get approved,” Griffin said. “Then we got to the meeting and it took a turn. We could have probably gone back and fought a little more, but I didn’t want to spend any more money chasing something they didn’t want in the first place.”
Arenas blames Witkowski and also Aerotropolis Milwaukee, a 21-member public-private partnership to improve and attract development to the airport area.
The group has been working with the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission to create a development plan to identify where future growth and economic development should be occurring around the airport.
During an interview with BizTimes in April, Witkowski used the denial of Griffin’s collision center as an example of the type of businesses Aerotropolis is trying to keep away from the neighborhoods closest to the airport.
“I think we’ll have several small wins,” Witkowski said at the time. “And because we are all separate communities, we won’t know we have a win because it will be an Aerotropolis win, but it will be for the good of everyone.”
But Witkowski said even without Aerotropolis, he would have opposed the collision center, which would have included 240 vehicle storage spaces.
“It doesn’t fit in the area, and Griffin made no effort to educate us what he wanted to do there,” Witkowski said, adding that Griffin did not attend the BOZA meeting, but was in his office afterward upset about the outcome.
Thomas Schelonka, Griffin’s fixed operations director, did attend the meeting, according to the minutes. So did Thomas Gartner, a real estate attorney with Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, who represented the owner of the strip mall immediately across the street who opposed Griffin’s proposal.
Witkowski said he would like to see something related to hospitality at the site.
He pointed to the recently-approved Golden Corral restaurant and strip mall planned at 306 W. Layton Ave., in front of the existing Courtyard by Marriott hotel, as an example of the type of development he would like to see along Layton Avenue.
“Anything in the hospitality industry could go there,” Witkowski said. “And Jerry is welcome to reopen his restaurant.”
Arenas has no plans to do that.
He is currently interviewing real estate brokers about selling the property and is hearing from them that Witkowski wants a hotel, restaurant or retail on the site.
“Who is he to tell me what I can do with my property?” Arenas said.
