Some Oak Creek residents have expressed disappointment that the development plans for Drexel Town Square, which will create a new downtown for a community that has never had one, tentatively include a 193,000-square-foot Meijer store.
Big-box chain stores are commonly found on retail corridors in suburban communities such as Oak Creek. For some residents, that image does not fit in with their vision of a unique downtown area.
However, the Drexel Town Square developers say the Meijer store is critical to the success of the project. They say a big-box store is needed to convince other retailers to come to the project, and to drive shopper traffic to the site.
In addition, at 85 acres, the Drexel Town Square site is slightly larger than the Mayfair Mall site in Wauwatosa and needs a store that will absorb a large amount of the site.
“We really need a traffic generator that will use a good portion of the property,” said Jerry Franke, president of Wispark LLC, the master developer for the project.
If the Drexel Town Square project needs a big-box store, some residents say they would prefer a unique destination store, such as Ikea.
But the project developers say they have to work with retailers that are actually in the market and want to locate at the Drexel Town Square site, located southwest of Drexel and Howell avenues.
“We looked at everybody (in the big-box retail industry),” said John Melaniphy, president of Chicago-based Melaniphy & Associates Inc., a retail real estate consulting firm hired by Wispark.
Despite the recent addition of an interchange at Drexel Avenue and Interstate 94, the site is still about a mile from the freeway, and many retailers prefer to be much closer, Franke said. Also Oak Creek’s average annual household income of $74,666 ranks lower than most other suburban communities in the region that have had more success attracting national retail chains.
“When somebody is looking to locate a retail outlet, the first thing they look at is household income,” Franke said.
Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Meijer Inc. plans to build several stores in the Milwaukee area. Meijer stores include large grocery departments and general merchandise offerings. As a pioneer of the “one-stop shopping” concept, Meijer stores have evolved through the years to include expanded fresh produce and meat departments, as well as pharmacies, comprehensive electronics departments, garden centers and apparel offerings. Last year, the company began transforming its meat departments to be more like traditional butcher shops.
The company operates 199 stores throughout Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky.
Meijer is a great fit for the Drexel Town Square project because it will draw shoppers into the community on a regular basis, which will help drive frequent trips to the rest of the development, said Blair Williams, president of WiRED Properties, who is developing the Main Street part of the project.
“I believe that Meijer is arguably as strong a type of user as we could hope for,” Williams said. “Because the type of trips that occur to a Meijer are regular in nature and character and they are part of a habitual traffic pattern for the folks that shop there. If we can get the people that are using that type of anchor regularly to psychologically adopt the downtown as part of that regular trip, they may well go to Meijer and also get a cup of coffee on Main Street. My belief is it’s a much stronger anchor than a specialty type anchor that we could point to, that are really one-off trips. I would rather get this to be part of the everyday experience.”
Meijer is a high-quality retail operation, Melaniphy said.
“They do well in the food business and general merchandise, because they attract the high-frequent visitor,” he said. “Their customers come often, and they buy.”
Last year, Wispark originally planned to have a cluster of “junior box” stores at Drexel Town Square. That concept was shopped at the annual International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) conference in Las Vegas, but it fell flat, Franke said. Junior anchor retailers did not want to commit to a project that lacked a big-box anchor, he said. In addition, the increased popularity of Internet shopping is dramatically changing the retail industry, and many junior box retailers are shrinking their store sizes, closing stores or going out of business. Examples include Best Buy, Border’s, Circuit City and Linens ‘n Things.
As the retail industry continues to go through major changes, perhaps the unique Drexel Town Square project, which combines a typical suburban big-box store, a traditional Main Street, civic buildings and urban-style apartments, will become a model for future mixed-use developments.
“What we’re going to end up with when we get done is what I call a hybrid shopping center,” Melaniphy said. “And today, that’s what’s going to be built around the country. Not malls, not a lifestyle center, but a hybrid, which means a mix of all of these things. That will work here (in Oak Creek).”
“We do think the town center hybrid project is emerging,” Franke said. “We think this project will be a pioneer.”
If the Oak Creek Common Council rejects the addition of a Meijer store to the Drexel Town Square project, the community could wait and hope for something else to come along, but that will delay the development for several years, according to Oak Creek Mayor Steve Scaffidi.
“You will sit here and wait for years,” he said. “Or you make a smart economic development decision and go with a partner that’s ready to invest in your community. We’re faced with that retail market reality. We can’t do it another way.”
A major challenge for the Drexel Town Square project will be how to combine the Meijer store area with the urban-styled areas of the project.
“That’s the challenge our design team is working on,” Franke said. “The area where the two pieces come together has to be seamless. We will not allow the presence of one use to denigrate the ability to achieve the maximum use of the town center.”
