Van Buren seeks re-zoning for properties near King Drive

Milwaukee-based commercial real estate firm Van Buren Management Inc. is asking city officials to rezone the building that it owns at 1319 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr., which is partially occupied by Mandel Graphic Solutions, and a nearby parking lot that it owns northeast of North 4th Street and Vliet Street.
The properties are located just north of the Park East corridor and are in the city’s Haymarket Square neighborhood.
Van Buren Management wants the city to re-zone both properties from “industrial light” to “industrial mixed.”
The re-zoning would allow for office, residential or retail use on the properties, in addition to light industrial, said Van Buren Management vice president Dan Lee.
Van Buren Management wants to have the properties re-zoned to give it more flexibility in attracting tenants, Lee said. Office, residential and retail users are a better fit for the area now that Manpower Inc.’s corporate headquarters and the Aloft hotel have been built in recent years.
“We’re looking to have flexibility to create some future development that is more in line with the surrounding area,” Lee said. “We need flexibility to attract prospects for a number of potential different uses. A lot of prospects aren’t interested if you don’t have zoning that fits their intended use.”
Van Buren Management is talking to “prospects” about the properties, but has no firm development plans for the sites, Lee said.
Mandel Graphic Solutions occupies the top floor of the 5-story, 101-year-old 93,750-square-foot building. The rest of the building is vacant.
The company could remain in the building under the “industrial mixed” zoning, Lee said.
“It is not our intention to zone them out,” he said.
Mandel Graphic Solutions is on a month-to-month lease in the building said president Rick Mandel. The company plans to re-locate eventually, but nothing is imminent, he said.
“We do want to stay in the city,” Mandel said. “I’d really like to stay in this area.”
The company has occupied the King Drive building since the 1940s, Mandel said, and it was founded by Mandel’s great grandfather in 1892.
The Milwaukee City Plan Commission will review Van Buren’s rezoning request at its meeting on Monday, Jan. 31.