Volume 2 - Issue 19 - Circulation 3,500 Week of 5.07.09 to 5.14.09

Madison - May 11, 2009- A run-down but historic hospital building on the Mendota Mental Health Institute campus has been spared from demolition while the state reconsiders plans to rehabilitate it. Gov. Jim Doyle has asked the state Department of Health Services to look at the project again, and the $541,000 demolition contract to tear down the old Wisconsin Memorial Hospital has been canceled, Doyle spokeswoman Carla Vigue said Tuesday. In January 2008, the state Building Commission, with approval from the Wisconsin Historical Society, approved razing the building, which last housed a veterans' hospital. The hospital was built in 1922 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places...

Ken Notes: I'm still in the Gorman camp on this one because I have seen the Oregon office and the Pabst conversions in Milwaukee. Very cool spaces...

Madison - May 8, 2009 - Three area companies and a local shopping plaza are among 2009 recipients of the sixth annual Wisconsin Family Business of the Year awards. Madison winners include the Gialamas Co., 8020 Excelsior Drive, which received the small company grand prize, as well as Vogel Brothers Building Co., 2701 Packers Ave., and Sherman Plaza Shopping Center at Northport Drive and North Sherman Avenue, which both received special awards...

Madison - May 11, 2009 - Once you get past the dirt and dung spattered against the outside of the windows, the view from high above downtown Madison in the three-year-old Dane County Courthouse is still tremendous. But in the three years and four months the building has been open, the curved windows, which are the architectural centerpiece of the $44 million triangle-shaped building, have not been washed -- at least not the upper three floors...

Ken Notes: I love unique solutions. Each year the fire departments must train on their aerial ladder equipment. As Mayor of Neenah (past life), I turned one of these equipment tests into a wreath hanging event on a clock tower to kick off the Christmas season. Just a thought.

VIENNA - 5/12/2009 - Investor hopes that the U.S. recession may have bottomed out propelled oil prices well above $59 a barrel on Tuesday. Prices rose despite continued lack of demand, evidenced by U.S. crude stocks that are near 19-year highs and expected to climb further. Benchmark crude for June delivery was up $1.02 to $59.52 a barrel by noon in European electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange...

Ken Notes: Isn't that just what we were all hoping for - higher gas prices to ease our recession worries. Wasn't the line "Greed is good".

Madison - May 13, 2009 - Madison is known for its lakes but not so much for its lakeside dining. A new casual restaurant on the rooftop garden at the Monona Terrace Convention Center will help fill the void in the city's dining scene beginning in June...

Ken Notes: A great venue and a very good idea. I hope my wife and I can still bring our picnic basket and bottle of champagne to celebrate our anniversary.

Madison - MAY 14, 2009 - Mansion Hill Inn is back. The luxurious inn at 424 Pinckney St. reopened in March after it was closed for a year for renovation. Interior upgrades are complete, but wrought-iron porches still need to be hung and landscaping needs to be done. The circular staircase leads to a fifth-floor view of the Capitol. Gone are the Turkish Nook and other theme rooms, replaced by simpler yet elegant room designs...

Ken Notes: This was a great place before the renovation can not imagine what it looks like now.

Madison Region - 5/13/2009 - Foreclosure filings across the country hit another record in April, but foreclosures actually went down in the Madison market from the previous month. RealtyTrac, an online foreclosure tracking firm, said 342,038 housing units had foreclosure filings in April in the U.S., up less than a percentage point from March, but 32 percent higher than in April 2008...

Madison - 5/08/2009 - If the city of Madison is serious about preserving its older housing stock, it needs to find more urban pioneers like Joe Lusson. Lusson and his wife Aleen Tierney in 2007 bought a place at 627 E. Gorham St. facing James Madison Park. Since then, the couple has been fixing up the circa 1884 home, along with an older two-flat next door they are renting out in the Fourth Lake Ridge national historic district...

Ken Notes: This is a market driven phenomenon and to suggest the government can go it on their own is unrealistic. Partnerships to revitalize an area can and do work but value not mandate is the main factor. Third Ward in Milwaukee is a great model.

Madison - 5/13/2009 - More bad news may be on the way for the 4,000 employees of CUNA Mutual Group, as management looks to cut expenses by $50 million before the end of the year. Employees learned Friday in a meeting with company leaders that a number of benefits could be on the chopping block to help meet that goal, including their pensions and 401(k) matches...

Wisconsin - May 11, 2009 - A new report said state lawmakers might have to cut $1.6 billion more from the state budget through June 30, 2011. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau said lower collections of the individual and corporate income taxes than expected are causing a big hole in the budget. The report said that income tax revenue dropped by 35.8 percent in April compared to last year. Anticipating the shortfall, Gov. Jim Doyle last week announced a plan to layoff up to 1,100 state workers and require most of the state workforce to take 16 days off without pay over two years...

Ken Notes: Why not offer an optional four day workweek to all state employees at 82% of current salaries. Less layoffs. More recreational spending. More job opportunities as economy recovers. Role model for other businesses. By the way 1,100 hundred jobs is only 110 Million (even at 100K per year) so you would still have 1.5 billion in cuts to go!

WISCONSIN - This is a comprehensive data base of all business professionals in development, planning, government, commercial real estate, architecture, construction, and service providers to business. Any professional may enter his or her own business card for free. FutureWisconsin is Wisconsin's own social networking data base to promote new business in the state...

Ken Notes: Network with professionals doing business in the state...

Beaver Dam - May 10, 2009 - Downtown Beaver Dam is getting a new look, thanks in part to last year's flood. The city will soon begin razing 10 downtown buildings, constructed mostly in the early 1900s, that are in the flood plain of the Beaver Dam River. When the river rose last June, it forced city officials to take action on a $2.7 million project that has long been talked about in this Dodge County community about 40 miles northeast of Madison...

Madison - 5/14/2009 - Sperry Van Ness, has announced that Jeff Jansen, CCIM, of the Middleton, WI office has completed the sale of downtown office space at 315 S. Baldwin St, Madison to Distillery Holding, LLC. Distillery Design Studio is an innovative designer innovative studio that does branding and advertising for businesses and organizations. They will locate their office there this month...

Ken Notes: The Distillery Design Studio website is interesting www.distillerydesign.com.

WASHINGTON - 5/08/2009 - The pace of layoffs slowed in April when employers cut 539,000 jobs, the fewest in six months. But the unemployment rate climbed to 8.9 percent, the highest since late 1983, as many businesses remain wary of hiring given all the economic uncertainties. The Labor Department tally released Friday wasn't nearly as deep as the 620,000 job cuts that economists were expecting, and was helped by a burst of government hiring...

Ken Notes: The scary part if this is the government hiring numbers. At some point someone has to pay for these new jobs. Phase II or the "recovery" may be as bad or worse than phase one.

BARABOO - May 11, 2009 - Money is beginning to trickle into the economy through community banks that took federal bailout money even as some banks bail from the program. Community banks - even healthy ones - were encouraged to participate in the Troubled Asset Relief Program to bolster their capital and make more loans. In Wisconsin, Baraboo Bancorp earmarked all of its nearly $21 million for loans for homes, cars, businesses and farms...

Recent commercial property listings from PropertyDrive.

Madison Area - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - The listing of area building permits is gathered from records filed with planning officials in Madison, Fitchburg, Middleton and Sun Prairie. The listing includes new residential construction, as well as non-residential construction totaling at least $100,000...

Ken Notes: A little thin...

Wisconsin - More than $336 million in federal stimulus money has been allocated to counties, cities, towns and villages in Wisconsin. Of that total, about $124 million has been allocated through the state Department of Transportation for road, bridge and transit projects. And more than $48 million in Housing and Urban Development funds has been allocated...

Ken Notes: Great Resource

The seller of real estate is required to file a Real Estate Transfer Return (RETR) with the County Register of Deeds when recording deeds of property conveyances. State statutes require those returns to be filed electronically beginning July 1, 2009. Below is a link to the electronically filed Real Estate Transfer data as of July 1st 2009 and forward. The data will be updated on a weekly basis...

Ken Notes: This link is a regular feature of WDN...

Treasury Department Debt to the Penny Link
CNN Money Scorecard
Government Recovery Website
Wisconsin State Budget Google News

Create a vibrant, innovative and prosperous entrepreneurial business climate, nurturing, connecting and celebrating entrepreneurs and their companies...

Ken Notes: A valuable resource worth visiting for all businesses in the state. A special thanks for BizStarts for compiling and sharing the resource!...

Wisconsin - MAY 13, 2009 - Wisconsin existing-home sales were down 22 percent through March compared to the same period last year, while median sale prices fell 9.5 percent to $137,500, according to a report issued Tuesday by the Wisconsin Realtors Association. In Dane County, home sales dropped 15.2 percent compared to the first quarter of 2008, from 3,638 to 3,084 through March of this year...

Middleton - 5/7/2009 - City officials are moving forward with a proposal intended to transform maligned neighborhoods on Middleton's east side using public financing. While elected officials have not yet approved any binding plans, the Middleton Council of the Whole voted at an April 25 meeting to endorse a list of massive projects as part of tax increment financing district (TID) 4. ...

Middleton - 5/7/2009 - The Middleton City Council has granted two major developments some extra time, but a spokesperson for the developer says the projects are still on track. On Tuesday, April 21 the council voted unanimously to extend the general implementation plan (GIP) for T. Wall Properties' Tribeca Village development, which would have expired in May. On April 7, the council had unanimously approved a similar extension of the GIP for Harvard Square ...

Madison - 5/14/2009 - Research analysts are expressing concerns about TomoTherapy after the Madison medical equipment company released earnings late Tuesday that showed a big slowdown in sales. TomoTherapy announced a first-quarter net loss of $13.0 million, or 26 cents a share, on revenue of $30.6 million, compared to the year-ago net loss of $6.2 million, or 12 cents a share, $38.9 million revenue...

Stoughton - 5/13/2009 - Stoughton Trailers is cutting more jobs the fourth work-force reduction in the past year. Company officials held employee meetings Tuesday and said 80 to 100 people will get pink slips this week, bringing the number of remaining staff below 300, the lowest in recent memory...

LaValle - May 10, 2009 - The books at the village library in LaValle are safe and dry. They're also overdue to be read. Since floodwaters from the Baraboo River soaked this northwestern Sauk County community in June, the library's books have been in storage. But a new facility to properly house and display the 5,000 books and periodicals should be open by fall...

Wisconsin - This section allows you to access any of our current space needs and acquire some brief detail regarding each. You'll notice that in addition to posting our current RFPs and RFIS, we are listing other significant needs for which we are seeking space....

Ken Notes: Brokers should check this often...

May 10, 2009 - The water is gone, along with the mushrooms that had sprouted from the saturated carpeting. For Rada and Denny Milanovic, hope also is fading 11 months after their business, Prairie House Motel, was flooded. Financing for the construction of a new place has twice been dashed. If a third attempt for a loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration isn't successful, bankruptcy may be on the way for the couple, who came from Serbia in 1980 and became U.S. citizens eight years later. They purchased the 51-room motel nine months before heavy rains last June flooded the motel and swiped their livelihood....

DETROIT - 5/11/2009 - Bankruptcy protection for the nation's biggest automaker is becoming more probable with a deadline just over two weeks away, the company's top executive told reporters Monday. General Motors Corp. CEO Fritz Henderson is still holding out hope that the company can restructure without court protection, but he says the tasks to complete before a June 1 government-imposed deadline are large...

Ken Notes: I am still a bit dazed by the fact we may loose one of the big three. We need a new paradigm. Small local companies with great new products.

MILWAUKEE- May 13, 2009 - Harley-Davidson Inc. is considering moving its main motorcycle plant in York, Pa., as it aims to lower costs and cope with a sales downturn. Spokesman Bob Klein said the Milwaukee-based company is exploring ways to reduce costs at the location, which include a move. The York facility employs about 2,400 workers and consists of two motorcycle factories...

Ken Notes: Bring it home big guy. We love you and we need you. You can be the role model for American Made. Wisconsin should make this happen.

Milwaukee - 5/13/2009 - Neenah-based Miron Construction Co. Inc. announced recently that is has opened a new office in downtown Milwaukee in 250 Plaza, located at 250 E. Wisconsin Ave., Suite 1800. Klaus Lemke has been hired as vice president for Milwaukee operations and will manage the new Milwaukee office. Lemke has more than 18 years of experience and leadership in construction management. The company said it wanted to open the office to "better serve the southeastern portion of the state."...

Wauwatosa - May. 11, 2009 - University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's plans for a new engineering campus in Wauwatosa, which supporters say will help to create more tech-related jobs, took a big step forward Monday. The County Board's Economic & Community Development Committee recommended on a 4-2 vote that Milwaukee County sell 72 acres to a UWM affiliate for $13.55 million...

Milwaukee area - 5/13/2009 - Home sales in southeastern Wisconsin were down again in April, compared to a year ago, according to the latest statistics from Metro MLS Inc. In the four county (Milwaukee, Waukesha, Washington and Ozaukee counties) area there were 1,140 homes sold in April, down 2 percent from 1,163 in April of 2008 and 23.6 percent behind April of 2007 sales of 1,493 homes...

Manitowoc - 5/12/2009 - At a time when many companies are cutting back, Burger Boat Company continues to invest in its employees. Burger's long term business commitment to employee training is not only a smart business decision that started years ago and continues today, but is an example of a company dedicated to its future. When Burger made the decision to further invest in its employees, Burger University was developed. Burger University consists of a series of courses and training programs targeted to improving the quality of work, eliminating waste, mapping and developing better processes allowing for improved work efficiencies, continually improving the business culture and increasing employee health and safety awareness...

Ken Notes: Not a bad business model.

Milwaukee - 5/13/2009 - The Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee plans to build a $40 million development with a mix of single-family market-rate homes, townhouses and senior-only apartments for both independent elderly and those needing assisted living facilities on the 5.6-acre former Army Reserve site at 2372 S. Logan Ave. The development is a "net zero energy" project, meaning it produces the same amount of renewable energy as the energy consumed on-site...

Milwaukee - May 14, 2009 - A legal dispute over the sale of condominiums at The Point on the River, a downtown development, has been settled. The dispute began when developer Scott Fergus agreed to sell nine condos to groups led by investor Ron San Felippo, just before construction began on the 152-unit project in 2005. A court-appointed receiver last year took control of The Point, 106 W. Seeboth St., and later asked a judge to toss out those pending sales contracts...

Waukesha - May. 9, 2009 - An almost-completed Target store on W. Sunset Drive will be the unlikely scene where Target Corp.'s bitterly contested proxy fight plays out this month. The giant Minneapolis-based discount chain will hold its annual meeting in the empty store on May 28...

Milwaukee - 5/13/2009 - Hartland-based Town Bank will open a loan production office in late July or early August in the Milwaukee Center at 111 E. Kilbourn Ave. in downtown Milwaukee, the bank's first foray into Milwaukee. Town Bank, which has four branches in Waukesha and one in downtown Madison, has made loans to Milwaukee-based companies since it was formed about 10 years ago...

- 5/11/2009 - Sales were down in just about every county in southeastern Wisconsin in April compared to a year ago, according to housing statistics released by Metro MLS, Inc. today. However, brokers report that sales activity has picked up in recent weeks, which should result in more sales in the next 30- to 60-days, similar to the activity we saw in February, especially among first-time buyers, which we are seeing in the form of closed sales in April's data. Buyers recognize the 'perfect storm' in the housing market, consisting of: 1) historically low interest rates; 2) a plentiful supply of homes; 3) discounted prices; and 4) the $8,000 federal tax credit; as a unique opportunity to buy a home and build future equity when the market improves...

Milwaukee - 5/13/2009 - A Japanese steakhouse and sushi bar is planned for The Point on the River building at 106 W. Seeboth St. in Milwaukee's Walker's Point neighborhood. Alessio Foracappa and Maria Foracappa plan to open the restaurant, called The Screaming Tuna Restaurant, in a 5,700-square-foot space in the building, with an additional 1,000 square feet of outdoor patio space along the riverwalk...

A single source for all economic development news for Greater Madison and beyond. Wisconsin Development News, (WDN) is published weekly by Ken Harwood.

Available to commercial brokers, developers, financial professionals, community planners, public officials, the press and others who have expressed an interest in Wisconsin development. All stories should link to their original source in the original context. These pages may contain advertising, and I encourage patronage of both our sponsors and the related advertisers and publications I link too.

We link to Editorial and Opinion articles each week, this does not suggest we agree with the stance of the author. The "Ken Notes" items are the opinion of our editor. We will include any comments or feedback sent to WDN. Ken also writes a monthly column for Capitol Region Business Journal and other state publications.

The focus for WDN is to create a positive view of economic development for the Greater Madison Region. The publication will also feature news from around the state, nation, and world that offers insight to policy, trends, and projects that may be of interest to the reader.

Please forward any information you would like included for consideration. We do our best to include any non advertising stories, press releases, or articles from other sources that you feel would be of interest to the reader. WDN can also host your news stories and press releases online. Please feel free to forward WDN.

We continue to develop this newsletter because of the positive feedback we have received in the past and strong encouragement to continue. As always let us know what you think.

Ken

Kenneth Harwood
WisconsinDevelopment.com LLC
P.O. Box 930234
Verona, WI 53593-0234
608.334.2174
ken@wisconsindevelopment.com