The last two remaining parcels in the city of Milwaukee’s Menomonee Valley Industrial Center will be purchased and developed by expanding manufacturers.
Badger Railing, one of the first companies to locate in the industrial center, plans to expand its 27,000-square-foot facility located at 3880 W. Milwaukee Road by 15,000 square feet.
The company is purchasing a 1.8-acre site to the north of its existing building.
Badger Railing owner Tom Mulhaney said the expansion will allow the company to add about 10 employees. Currently Badger Railing has approximately 50 employees.
Badger Railing is a steel fabricator that builds stairs, ladders and railings, including all of the railings at Summerfest and Miller Park. Mulhaney said the economy and building boom has attributed to the company’s growth.
“I can’t drive to Fond du Lac, Madison or Kenosha without seeing work we’ve done within five minutes,” said Mulhaney, who joined the company in 1983 and purchased it in 2001. “It’s really neat to see.”
Splat! Digital Printing, Inc., a large-format digital printer that started with a small office in the Mackie Building in 1997, has out grown its current space at 254 N. Emmber Lane, which on the east end of the Menomonee Valley, but not in the MVIC, which is on the west end of the valley.
Splat! will buy 2 acres on West Wheelhouse Road for a new building to house its commercial printing operation.
The move will allow the company to house large pieces of equipment in a new building in the north portion of the MVIC, a business park created by the city just east of the Miller Park parking lots.
Jeff Gregg, owner of Splat!, said the move will also enable the company to add employees to its nine-person team.
The land purchases will end a 15-year effort to redevelop the site of the old Milwaukee Road Shops.
Eleven businesses operate in the MVIC with more than 1,400 employees. Corey Zetts, executive director of Menomonee Valley Partners Inc., said it is amazing to see the progress the Menomonee Valley has made over the last 15 years.
“(Years ago the Menomonee Valley) was not a place anyone would come to, at least for anything legal,” Zetts said. “There has been an incredible rebirth of the Valley. And now that the Industrial Center is built out, we can focus on the east end of the Valley, which still has 40 acres of vacant land.
Both land sales require approval from the Redevelopment Authority and the Common Council.
Site to be purchased by Badger Railing:
Site to be purchased by Splat! Digital Printing:
