Wispark LLC, the commercial real estate subsidiary of Milwaukee-based Wisconsin Energy Corp., selected Milwaukee-based commercial real estate brokerage Cassidy Turley Barry to market a business park that it is developing in Oak Creek.
Called OakView Business Park, it is being developed by Wispark on a 220-acre site southwest of West Oakwood Road and South Howell Avenue. The business park has 165 buildable acres. It will also have 34 acres of parks and woodlands and five storm water ponds, which will handle all of the stormwater on the site. Businesses that build facilities in the business park will not need to use any of their property for stormwater detention.
James T. Barry III, Kevin Barry and David Buckley of Cassidy Turley Barry will market the OakView Business Park for Wispark. The business park will be marketed primarily for industrial space users, they said.
Site work on the business park began recently. The work to install roads and other infrastructure is expected to be complete in early 2014.
“There is tremendous work going on at the site,” said Wispark president Jerry Franke.
The metro Milwaukee industrial real estate market has performed well in recent years. The market absorbed 1.4 million square feet of space in the third quarter, and the vacancy rate is at 6.2 percent, according to Cassidy Turely. The time is right to develop a new business park for industrial space users, James T. Barry said.
“Demand is increasing and supply has been real stagnant,” Barry said. “It’s a good time to bring land to the market.”
The OakView Business Park’s location near I-94 between Milwaukee and Chicago and near Mitchell International Airport could be attractive to industrial space users.
The improvement of the industrial real estate market and lack of development in recent years has led to a shortage of sites for industrial development, especially in prime areas, Barry said.
“There’s just not a lot of places to go to find well-located business parks,” Barry said.
The marketing of the OakView Business Park development is in the early stages but “a couple of interested prospects have been identified,” Barry said. Pad sites in the business park are expected to be available in early to mid 2014, Franke said.
Lot sizes range from three to 25 acres with prices per acre ranging from $82,000 to $150,000.
“It’s really priced well,” Buckley said.
