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The proposed $3.5 million purchase offer will be considered at Tuesday's meeting of the Redevelopment Authority, Mayor Tom Barrett announced Wednesday. Those funds already have been budgeted.
The authority and Common Council also will consider a proposed $15 million tax incremental financing district to help pay for the property's environmental cleanup and other redevelopment expenses. The city would borrow that money, which would be repaid through property taxes generated by new development at the site.
Also, announcements of federal and state cleanup grants are expected in the near future, Barrett said.
Development Commissioner Rocky Marcoux said the cleanup work would take at least two years.
The property's purchase needs approval from the Redevelopment Authority and council. The property is bordered roughly by W. Capitol Drive, the Soo Line railroad tracks, W. Townsend St. and N. 27th St.
The site will need public improvements, such as new sewers and water mains, before it can attract businesses. It could eventually attract firms totaling 700 to 1,000 jobs, according to Department of City Development estimates.
The business park would be similar to the Menomonee Valley Industrial Center, which the city is developing on a former railroad repair shop between Miller Park and Falk Corp.
That park has attracted several businesses, including Charter Wire, Derse Inc. and Palermo Villa Inc. The industrial center companies expect to have around 700 full-time employees by 2011, according to the department, with a goal of eventually hosting around 1,300 jobs at the business park.
Owners had been opposed
The Tower site is in the N. 30th St. industrial corridor, an area marked by poverty, a lack of jobs and crime. Barrett and council members have said redevelopment of the corridor is a top priority.
The Tower site's owners, led by local demolition contractor Jerry Blomberg, initially opposed the city's plans to buy the land. Blomberg wanted to keep many of the former Tower buildings and develop distribution centers that would tie in with the site's railroad tracks.
Marcoux, however, said the site would draw more jobs if most of the buildings were torn down and new distribution centers, light manufacturing buildings and other structures were built.
City officials began negotiating a possible purchase with Blomberg and his partners after a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge ruled last fall that the city could conduct environmental tests on the land. Those tests were needed to help develop a cleanup plan and to help determine the land's value.
The Department of City Development is planning a job training program tied to the site's cleanup work, Marcoux said.
The public will be involved in the planning process for the site's future, Barrett said. He said that process will include strengthening the immediate neighborhood, such as by offering forgivable loans to area homeowners for needed repairs.
"The city is taking on a significant challenge with the acquisition of this site," Barrett said in a statement. "In the long run, cleaning up this site will put us in a better position to attract and grow a variety of businesses at one of the largest former industrial properties in Milwaukee. The longer we wait to take this on, the more expensive the cleanup will be."
Aldermen Ashanti Hamilton and Willie Wade, whose districts include portions of the site, said the city should buy and redevelop the land to help create jobs.
"Industrial land in a populated area is at a premium, especially when it is located near its workforce and on major transportation routes," Wade said in a statement.
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