Drexel Town Square Plans Marching Forward

The ambitious plans for the corner of Drexel and Howell continue to move ahead, with work under way at the site now and a public hearing coming up in June.

Drexel Town Square Plans Marching Forward

The ambitious plans for the corner of Drexel and Howell continue to move ahead, with work under way at the site now and a public hearing coming up in June.

Progress on Oak Creek's much-publicized Drexel Town Square development comes in both visible and invisible ways. Visible work is happening now at the corner of Drexel and Howell avenues, where several trucks and workers are digging up concrete at the 85-acre site. That work will continue until the end of July, and the concrete will be re-used within the development. The invisible: the Drexel Town Square site plan has begun moving through the city government review process, with a public hearing set for June 18 and a final Oak Creek Common Council vote sometime soon after that. "Given the complexities of the commercial real estate market, the financing market and everything else that's been going on since the crash of 2008, I feel we're …

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Meijer Planned to Anchor Drexel Town Square

Developers have scrapped plans for junior box stores on the eastern third of the former Delphi property, saying a strong anchor store is needed to attract other tenants.

When plans for a town center on the former Delphi property were first presented, "junior box" stores were proposed for the eastern third of the 85-acre site, with some city officials and residents skewering the idea of a big box on the site. Things have changed. As the team leading the project began shopping the plan, centered on a new downtown for Oak Creek with high-end apartments on the west, one of the first questions often asked by prospective companies was, "who is anchoring the site?" It became clear to developers they may need a big box store if they want to draw tenants to the downtown, where planners envision shops leading to a town square. The collection of junior box stores, as first planned, wasn't going to be enough to draw …

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Esme Grichologiza

2:06 pm on Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Really, people--IKEA? IKEA being supporting by Franklin and OC? There are less than 40 IKEA stores in the U.S. with 2 already in the Chicago metro area. There isn't a chance that the Milwaukee metro area shoppers would fit in with the IKEA concept, let along Franklin/OC.   more ›

Drexel Town Square Update Coming Tuesday

A few weeks after reports of a big box store surfaced, officials will give a presentation at Tuesday's Oak Creek Common Council meeting.

An official update on the Drexel Town Square development plan is scheduled for Tuesday's Oak Creek Common Council meeting. Wispark President Jerry Franke will be joined by several development partners at a presentation that will include a history of research and actions leading up to the development plan, according to a report to council members. City officials say residents will be able to provide input at a separate presentation on Feb. 11. Tuesday's council meeting begins at 7 p.m. at Oak Creek City Hall, 8640 S. Howell Ave. Plans for the Drexel Town Square have drawn criticism in recent weeks after a report that developers were negotiating with Meijer Inc. to open a 192,000-square-foot store that would anchor the development, near the …

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Brian

2:19 pm on Wednesday, February 13, 2013

I would LOVE to see an Ikea store in OC as well. Look at what it has done for the western part of Chicago. It would bring people from all over the Milwaukee Area to OC...not just the near South Side. Also....The City of OC sold its residents that unique, upscale shops/stores will be what makes this place special. What's unique or special at Meijer to what we already have in the area. Have …   more ›

Editor's Notebook

A Closer Look at the Drexel Town Square Plans

Wispark President Jerry Franke presented the plan to the Oak Creek Plan Commission Tuesday and provided some more details about the updated Delphi redevelopment plans, now called Drexel Town Square.

The Oak Creek Plan Commission on Tuesday night got its first extensive look at the updated plans for the former Delphi site -- now called Drexel Town Square. I wrote about the plans over the weekend, but Wispark President Jerry Franke provided some more detail and some of the thinking behind it. Here's a look at some things I found interesting from Franke's presentation. And there were many. Why 'Drexel Town Square'? The new Drexel Interchange that will be in place by the end of the year will become one of the main entrances to the community, Franke said. After 2012, the Ryan Road and Rawson Avenue interchanges will be reconstructed, so for some time motorists on Interstate 94 will have to enter Oak Creek through Drexel Avenue by default. …

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Town Center Proposal Creates a Downtown For Oak Creek

Plan is met with mixed reaction from residents at public meeting Monday.

By creating a town center at the Delphi site in Oak Creek, city planners and consultants would basically be building a downtown from scratch. That’s how Mayor Dick Bolender and others described it at a public meeting Monday on the project, attended by more than 100 people at the Oak Creek Community Center. The centerpiece of the town center? A new City Hall and public library, an idea that has been bandied about for months and is now part of the recommended plan for Delphi.  But it’s far from official. The Common Council has the final say – despite several requests for a referendum – and aldermen have been mixed on keeping those buildings at Puetz and Howell or moving them to the former Delphi property, near the intersection of Drexel and …

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CANDY STEIN

7:40 am on Friday, May 4, 2012

YOU ARE CORRECT, WHY DO WE NEED A NEW CITY HALL? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE OLD ONE?   more ›