Pete’s Fruit Market
New grocery store will be the community hub of Bronzeville
Pete’s Fruit Market Construction. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
A prominent Milwaukee intersection is getting a substantial upgrade. A contracting crew is hard at work building a Pete’s Fruit Market grocery store at the northwest corner of W. North Ave. and N. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. The new grocery will be a welcome addition for area residents and a significant boost to the city’s efforts to turn Bronzeville into a flourishing neighborhood.
Vangard Group is the developer for the project. The general contractor is JCP Construction, with Engberg Anderson serving as the project architect. The city-controlled Milwaukee Economic Development Corporation is helping finance the development. One Source Construction is also providing consulting and contracting services for the project.
As Mark Doremus reported when the project was announced, “The Walgreens site was owned previously by Anup “Andy” Khullar, who had promised to bring a grocery to the corner in exchange for financial support from the Milwaukee Economic Development Corporation. Khullar received a $325,000 loan to support the project but later decided to lease the space to Dollar Tree instead of developing a locally owned and operated grocery store. Dollar Tree got as far as furnishing the store interior and putting up signs outside before it gave up on the Bronzeville location in the face of intense community opposition.”
When complete, the store will total 13,700 square-feet. Crews are working to redevelop the building at the site that formerly housed a Walgreen’s and Time Warner Cable outlet.
Pete’s is a known brand to south siders, who frequent the firm’s flagship store at 1400 S. Union St. Pete’s is owned by the Tsitiridis family.
Photos
Original Building
Rendering
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It’s really cool to see how disposable contemporary building / architecture is — when was that site developed by WE-Energies parent corp. … in the 1990s?
The multi-use building that stood on this corner from the 1910s may not have been appropriate today with its Prussian-helmeted tower (similar to the Brumder bldg. and the Grohmann Museum – oldmilwaukee.net may have a photo posted in their archive).
That’s not a criticism, even by inference, but it makes me wonder about the real costs of things that can go up and come down so easily (a bogus news story in early summer on WUWM about the obsolescence of the Bradley Center in comparison to the Arena notwithstanding).
Speaking of grocery stores in that area, when I was a footsore meter man for the ‘Lectric Co., once a month I visited the family owned Lena’s Grocery Store a block or two west on North Ave. They were on my serpentine route through that neighborhood. I remember a very friendly staff.
Pete’s Fruit Market will be a great addition to the 6th Ward with a full service deli and wide selection of fresh foods. Dollar Tree was denied a food license, not a liquor license, which made their plans to open a store not financially feasible.
@Paul – Thanks for commenting. You are correct on the license type.
What happened to the $325,000 loan to Khullar? Paid back I suppose.