A Grand Transformation

“I’m kind of in love with this place,” says Tracy Korpela, Marketing and Specialty Leasing Director at The Shops of Grand Avenue.

We love it, too. ThirdCoast Digest moved into The Shops of Grand Avenue last September, and we’ve been here to witness a transformation happening right outside our doors. The downtown mall had fallen on hard times in years past, but that began to change in 2011 with the implementation of the Creativity Works Here program, which brought TCD and others like Spreenkler, VETransfer and ART Milwaukee to take up low rent office space in the Plankinton Building.

Because of the efforts of Korpela, MiKE Program Manager Laurel Osman, Leah Fiasca of the Greater Milwaukee Committee and many others, the mall is now a much different place. The mall continues to evolve, and the newest effort, Pop-Up, is an innovative new way to reinvent retail space in the New Arcade on the mall’s west end. The first Pop-Up client, Flagship, a Chicago boutique, has already been signed.

I sat down to talk with Korpela, Osman and Fiasca about the Pop-Up program and the new direction the mall has taken over the past year.

Listen now:

[audio:https://urbanmilwaukeedial.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/TCDPodcastMarkMetcalfShopsOfGrandAve.mp3|titles=Backstage with Mark Metcalf – Tracy Korpela (The Shops of Grand Avenue), Laurel Osman (MiKE), Leah Fiasca (Greater Milwaukee Committee)]

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“Backstage with Mark Metcalf” is recorded at the ThirdCoast Digest office in the Shops of Grand Avenue.