Hibbett Sports store. Thomson200, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Hibbett Inc., a national retailer of “athletic-inspired fashion,” is working to open two stores in the city of Milwaukee in time for the holiday shopping blitz.

The Alabama-based company is opening stores at 370 E. Capitol Dr. and 3547 S. 27th St. on the city’s north and south sides.

The company’s merchandise and business model focuses on its trademarked “toe-to-head” approach of selling everything from shoes to hats. It typically operates stores in “underserved communities” and offers products from a range of brands, including Nike and Addidas.

Hibbett, according to its latest 10-K quarterly filing, operates 1,148 stores in 36 states under its Hibbett, City Gear and Sports Additions brands. According to its website, its other Wisconsin stores are in Janesville and Platteville.

“We identify markets for our stores under a clustered expansion program. This approach primarily focuses on opening new stores within close proximity of existing locations, allowing us to take advantage of efficiencies in logistics, marketing and regional management. It also aids us in building a better understanding of appropriate merchandise selection for the local market,” says the company’s annual report.

The Capitol Drive location was last occupied by a Walgreens store and pharmacy. Other tenants in the building include Rainbow and Dollar Tree. Office Depot and Ross Dress For Less are located in another building in the retail complex, 320-380 E. Capitol Dr. An occupancy permit describes the store as an 11,300-square-foot retail space with a 4,275-square-foot sales floor.

The 27th Street location, just south of W. Morgan Avenue, is in a large, multi-building shopping center. The store would fill a portion of the former HOBO home improvement store, which was part of the retail chain that went out of business in 2018.

In 2022, craft store Michaels and retailer dd’s Discounts were approved to fill the majority of the space. Ross Dress For Less also opened in the complex in recent years, replacing a former Kmart store. Discount retailers Five Below and Marshalls as well as judgment-free-gym Planet Fitness are also located in the shopping center. Mirroring the northside site, an Office Depot store is also present at the complex in a separate building.

An occupancy permit describes the new southside store as a 5,000-square-foot retail space with a 3,829-square-foot sales floor.

The southside location required approval from the City Plan Commission because it is within the Loomis Centre development incentive zone. The commission quickly, and unanimously, approved the proposal at its Sept. 25 meeting.

More change is coming to the Loomis Centre complex. Chick-fil-A will replace Zebb’s Family Restaurant, with an affiliate of the company approved earlier this year to demolish the Zebb’s building, 2701 W. Morgan Ave., and build a new standalone restaurant building. Zebb’s leases its location from Northbrook, Illinois-based Loomis Centre LLC.

Construction Starts on Zillman Park

After years of waiting, construction is underway on the reimagining of Zillman Park in Bay View.

The current 0.7-acre park, 2168 S. Kinnickinnic Ave., is largely a green space. It’s one of 52 city-owned parks in the MKE Plays program.

The city first approved a $500,000 financing plan in 2019 to rehabilitate and improve the park with funding from property tax revenue from the adjacent KinetiK apartment building. The project costs grew to $930,000 earlier this year, with the city extending the capture period on the KinetiK development to 2024.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held Sept. 21.

“I’m thrilled that the full redesign of Zillman Park is one step closer after today’s groundbreaking. Zillman Park serves as a gateway to Bay View, and this new space will provide a flexible environment for all types of programming and fully represents the desires of the neighborhood,” said area Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic in a statement. “I want to thank the Bay View Neighborhood Association, the residents, and all the city staff and project partners who have helped us get to this point. I can’t wait for the full opening later this year.”

The resulting park, with an emphasis on maintaining the mature trees at the site, will include 22,960 square feet of lawn area, 9,235 square feet of plaza space and 1,525 square feet of native garden area. New features include LED lighting, modular seating and gathering furniture, community programming space and “playful elements.”

“I would describe it as playful without being a playground,” said MKE Plays director Joe Kaltenberg in May. The initial plan for the park called for a traditional playground. But the revised plan, first revealed in 2022, calls for more imaginative and flexible space, unlike the several other parks the dot the southside neighborhood.

Quorum Architects is leading the design of the park. Construction is expected to be completed in the spring.

Weekly Recap

After IKON Hotel Issues, Council Wants More Control of TIF Districts

The repeated delays on Kalan Haywood‘s proposal to redevelop the former Sears department store at the intersection of W. Fond du Lac and W. North avenues, and the resulting loan modifications are causing some heartburn at Milwaukee City Hall.

The Redevelopment Authority of the City of Milwaukee (RACM), effectively an arm of the Department of the City Development (DCD), has granted loan deferrals in three successive years on a $4 million pre-development loan the city issued the project. Comptroller Aycha Sawa reported that the city will have foregone $540,000 in interest payments as a result of the deferrals.

As a result, Alderman Michael Murphy, one of three council members to vote against the initial loan in 2019, has now introduced legislation that would require the administration to secure council approval on modifying terms of a tax incremental financing (TIF) agreement that results in a fiscal impact on the city.

“This has become basically an interest-free loan,” said Murphy at a Tuesday meeting of the Zoning, Neighborhoods & Development Committee. “We will get that bill.” He said ultimately the city would need to make up the interest loss by transferring money from overperforming TIF districts.

Read the full article

Join The Parade of Garden Homes

You’ll be able to get an up-close look at a historic housing development, and possibly find your next home, during the Parade of Homes in Garden Homes tour scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 14.

During the tour, the nonprofit 30th Street Industrial Corridor Corporation (The Corridor) and other project partners will show off the recently renovated homes.

Garden Homes was the country’s first municipally-sponsored housing cooperative when it opened in the 1920s. Ninety-three homes were built around a central greenspace and served World War I veterans and other middle-class families that found employment at the many industrial employers in the nearby 30th Street Corridor.

But the neighborhood’s middle-class base was devasted by deindustrialization. The Great Recession brought with it a wave of foreclosures and abandoned properties.

Read the full article

New Operator Takes Over Shuttered Downtown Hotel

A downtown hotel that has repeatedly encountered financial issues in the past four years is set to reopen.

The 138-room Hampton Inn and Suites, 176 W. Wisconsin Ave., closed in May and, in July, it was transferred to an affiliate of lender Evergreen Bank Group in lieu of foreclosure.

Now, a new operator has applied to reactivate the property. Illinois-based E.M.A. Hospitality filed a license request Thursday with the city to reopen the first floor dining area. A plan of operation includes details for reopening the entire hotel, including purchasing and renovating the property.

E.M.A. also operates the La Quinta Inn by Wyndham Milwaukee Airport hotel, 7141 S. 13th St., in Oak Creek.

Read the full article

State’s Biggest Battery Energy Storage System Planned

An unusual energy facility is proposed for an undeveloped site near N. 84th Street and W. Mill Road.

Black Mountain Energy Storage intends to build a $450 million battery energy storage system to draw energy from the electrical grid and release it back into the grid during supply shortages or peak demand periods.

It would be Wisconsin’s biggest battery energy storage system (BESS). The systems are designed to enable a bigger shift to renewable energy sources, for which power generation can be variable, by providing an alternative energy source that can smooth out supply-and-demand mismatches. BESS facilities are also intended to improve the electrical grid’s reliability and resolve transmission bottlenecks.

“We didn’t pick this site just because we happened to like it. We need to be in proximity to a substation,” said Brian Randall, an attorney with Amundsen Davis, to the City Plan Commission on Sept. 25.

Read the full article

Historic Frank Lloyd Wright House For Sale

In 1916, before Frank Lloyd Wright traveled to Japan to oversee construction of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, he designed a home in Milwaukee for an alderman and his family.

Now, more than 100 years later, that home is for sale for only the second time in its history, complete with many of its original architectural elements — including leaded glass windows, a central fireplace and built-in cabinetry.

The Frederick C. Bogk House, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, is believed to be the only single-family residential project Wright designed for a family in the city of Milwaukee. The home’s listing agent Melissa LeGrand of @properties-elleven | Christie’s International Real Estate said it’s one of Wright’s “architectural masterpieces.”

“It’s a wonderful facade and pure art from the exterior,” she said.

Read the full article

Plan Commission Rejects Midtown Walmart Redevelopment Plan

The City Plan Commission shot down a self-storage-driven redevelopment of the former Walmart store at the Midtown Center shopping complex.

The unanimous vote followed the recommendations of the Department of City Development (DCD) and area Alderman Mark Chambers, Jr.

An affiliate of Iowa-based Affordable Family Storage (AFS) acquired the 15.24-acre property, 5825 W. Hope Ave., in 2022 for $3.28 million. In early 2023, Urban Milwaukee reported that the company had plans to use the rear of the building for an indoor self-storage facility and would create four commercial storefronts for other tenants at the front of the building. A portion of the parking lot was to become a dog park and food truck park.

“We really need the big picture embrace of what this could be rather than a 150,000-square-foot, empty box,” said attorney Brian Randall of Amundsen Davis to the plan commission on Sept. 25. Walmart shuttered the store in 2016. “It won’t become a big box retail site ever again. If it was going to happen, it would have happened by now.”

Read the full article

Northwestern Mutual Makes ‘Skyline-Defining’ Bet On Downtown

A drumline. Pyrotechnics. Golden sledge hammers.

Northwestern Mutual is fired up and ready to get to work overhauling its 19-story North Building as part of a $500 million plan to improve and expand its downtown campus.

“The project that we’re embarking on today marks a new chapter for our company and, I think, for downtown Milwaukee,” said chairman and CEO John Schlifske at a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday morning in the middle of E. Mason Street. “The growth that we have achieved over the past decade is amazing and the manifestation of that growth is what you see happening to my left today.”

The insurance company will completely overhaul its 18-story, 540,000-square-foot North Building, turning the granite-clad structure into a peer for its signature glassy 32-story tower to the south. The company’s suburban Franklin campus will be shuttered, with the 2,000 employees relocated to Downtown.

Read the full article

Groundbreaking For Coggs Center a History Lesson

Construction is underway on a new home for Milwaukee County’s health and human services programs.

The facility is designed to embody the county’s “No Wrong Door” model which intends to connect residents with the services they need regardless of how they first connect to any county program or facility. “This new building definitely represents the right door,” said Department of Health and Human Services Director Shakita LaGrant-McClain at a ceremony Monday. “The new Coggs Center will be a welcoming space for families to access services with dignity across the human services continuum of care.”

“For the first time, Milwaukee County will have a building designed specifically to deliver health and human services to the people we serve,” said County Executive David Crowley. The first floor will house service offerings and the Friedens Food Pantry, while the upper floors will house administrative offices.

The four-story, 60,000-square-foot building will rise at the corner of N. 13th and W. Cherry streets, filling a parking lot behind the current facility, a converted department store known as Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Center. The new building will keep the same name, a source of pride for more than a dozen Coggs family members who attended Monday’s groundbreaking and a way of recognizing a “trailblazer for healthier families,” said Crowley.

Read the full article

Legislature’s Rules Committee Kills Updated Building Standards

On a party-line vote, members of the Legislature’s administrative rules committee have blocked a proposed Wisconsin commercial building code update that advocates said would save energy, improve safety and lower insurance costs.

The update would have brought Wisconsin commercial building standards in line with the 2021 standards of the International Code Council, including the International Energy Conservation Code. The state Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS), the agency responsible for maintaining and enforcing state building codes, had recommended its adoption.

With Friday’s 6-4 vote to block the code update in the Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules, the state will continue with its current building code, based on standards set in 2015.

The committee’s vote was foreshadowed in August, when the Senate housing committee recommended rejecting the new code, also on a party-line vote.

Read the full article