Harley-Davidson museum draws attention to Milwaukee's Menomonee Valley: Focus shifts to east end

Jul 10, 2008 (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- HOG | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Consider it a $75 million billboard for development opportunities in Milwaukee's Menomonee Valley. That's one of the less obvious roles that Harley-Davidson Inc.'s new museum will play as it opens Saturday.

Harley expects the 130,000-square-foot museum to draw 350,000 visitors a year -- and a huge amount of media attention -- to its location at W. Canal and S. 6th streets. And that has already helped showcase other valley development sites, said Laura Bray, executive director of Menomonee Valley Partners Inc.

"Just the exposure for the valley, and for Milwaukee, has just been huge," said Bray, whose nonprofit group promotes the valley, which runs from east of Miller Park to the confluence of the Menomonee and Milwaukee rivers.

The Harley museum and the newly expanded Potawatomi Bingo Casino rank among the valley's best-known attractions.

But Bray's group focuses on attracting light industrial and office-based businesses to the valley.

At the Menomonee Valley Industrial Center, on a former rail yard between Falk Corp. and Miller Park's eastern parking lots, the group has helped draw new employers, including Charter Wire, frozen pizza maker Palermo Villa Inc. and Derse Inc., which makes trade show displays.

The city-owned business park recently hit the halfway point in selling its parcels. The Department of City Development's goal is to sell all of the park's 60 developable acres by 2011 and eventually bring about 1,300 full-time jobs to the industrial center.

Valley boosters have worked on other projects, including the new Canal Street Commerce Center, a light industrial and office building at 1301 W. Canal St., the former Milwaukee Stockyards site. Its businesses include commercial printing and direct mail firm Proven Direct Inc. and Prolitec Inc., which provides scents for use in office buildings, hotels and other commercial properties.

With the Menomonee Valley Industrial Center filling up on the valley's west end, the city's focus is shifting to the valley's east end near the Harley museum, said Mayor Tom Barrett.

The Department of City Development has started creating a detailed development plan for several parcels along Canal St., just west of the museum's western parking lots, Barrett said.

One five-acre parcel is owned by John Stollenwerk, former president of Allen-Edmonds Shoe Corp., which had once planned a factory at that site. Those plans were later dropped, but Stollenwerk retained the parcel after selling his company in 2006.

Other privately owned parcels house a former St. Marys Cement Inc. terminal as well as a terminal in use by Lone Star Cement. They total about 13 acres.

There also are some smaller lots owned by the state Department of Transportation.

City officials envision office and light industrial uses on those Canal St. parcels, along with some marine-related businesses because of access to the Menomonee River and South Menomonee Canal, Barrett said.

'An opportune location'

Another undeveloped tract near the museum is a 17.5-acre former railroad property between S. 3rd St., the South Menomonee Canal, W. Florida St. and S. 6th St. The land is north of the new Iron Horse Hotel, which developer Tim Dixon is creating within a former warehouse at 500 W. Florida St.

Developer Peter Moede has long-range plans to build a mix of offices, condominiums, apartments and retail space on the tract, which is just across the canal from the museum. Moede was out of town this week and couldn't be reached for comment.

Moede's property is in "an opportune location," Barrett said. But it lacks access to surrounding streets and has other challenges, he said.

Another potential development target is the U.S. Postal Service's mail processing facility, just north of the museum, on the other side of the Menomonee River.

In May, the Postal Service said it would move its operations out of that privately owned building to a more efficient facility that will be built in Oak Creek, possibly by 2011. That opens up redevelopment opportunities for the 940,000-square-foot building, 345 W. St. Paul Ave., and the nine acres that it occupies.

"We're still very much in the discussion stages internally as to what to do there," Barrett said. "It's a very, very interesting piece of land."

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