The Drexel Town Square developers are negotiating with Grand Rapids, Mich.-based retailer Meijer Inc. to open a 192,000-square-foot store that would anchor the Oak Creek development, according to numerous sources.
Drexel Town Square is a mixed use development planned for the 85-acre former Delphi plant site southwest of Howell and Drexel avenues in Oak Creek. The Delphi plant closed in 2008 and was demolished in 2010. The development project will consist of retail space along Howell Avenue, a mixed-use “Main Street” area in the middle with retail and residential space plus a new City Hall and library, and loft apartments on the western portion of the site. A major goal of the project is to create a downtown for Oak Creek, which has never had one.
Wispark LLC, the real estate development division of Milwaukee-based Wisconsin Energy Corp., is the master developer for the project. Wispark hired Mid-America Real Estate to market the project to retailers. A site plan posted online by Mid-America shows a 192,000-square-foot big box store in the plans.
However, no site plan for the project has been finalized and any discussion about potential retail tenants is “premature,” said Wispark president Jerry Franke.
“There are no signed agreements,” he said. “There are no commitments. At this point there is nothing there.”
Meijer stores offer grocery and general merchandise. The chain has about 200 stores in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky and is planning to add several locations in the Milwaukee area.
So far Meijer has announced plans for stores in Franklin, Wauwatosa, Grafton and Sussex. The plans submitted for the Franklin, Grafton and Sussex stores are all for about 192,000 square feet, the same size as the big box store shown in the Drexel Town Square site plan that was posted online by Mid-America Real Estate.
The site plan that Mid-America posted online to market the project has been changed, but plans still call for a 192,000-square-foot big box store, some sources said.
A conceptual site plan for the project released earlier this year by Wispark to the public did not include a big box store. However several involved in the project believe a big box store is necessary to provide an anchor that will drive retail traffic to the site, according to sources. A commitment from a big box anchor tenant will be critical to attracting other retailers to the project, one source said.
“The big box is the heart of the story,” that source said. “The big box is everything to get it going. The big box will drive the deal.”
But a big box store might not be in the final plans for the project, which are subject to approval by city officials.
“There is a version of the plan that has a big box,” Franke said. “We are looking at multiple alternatives.”
Several other big box retailers already have a presence on Howell Avenue in Oak Creek including Target, Kohl’s and Woodman’s Food Market. The Meijer store at Drexel Town Square would be located just north of the Woodman’s store.
The Mid-America marketing site plan for the project also shows a five-story, 87-room hotel at the northwest corner of the property and a 15,000-square-foot medical office building. Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare is considering plans to open a clinic in the development, according to a source.
