Volume 2 - Issue 31 - Circulation 3,500 Week of 07.30.09 to 08.06.09
Always Online at WisconsinDevelopment.com

Wisconsin - - In order to create jobs for Wisconsin families, the state's largest business group Monday called for bi-partisan support for the "Moving Wisconsin Forward" plan developed by the business community. The Moving Wisconsin Forward plan represents a fresh approach to public policy, said James S. Haney, WMC president. "The plan calls for investing in our people, promoting innovation and job creation, investing in infrastructure, fostering a competitive business environment including tax relief, and improving public systems."...

Ken Notes: Their plan is HERE. My articles on the subject for the last three years are HERE. Also my appoligies for a bad link last week - my article on Growing Our Own is HERE.

Madison - 8/04/2009 - Despite concerns from the owners of Westgate Mall, the city Plan Commission on Monday night approved the new Midvale Heights-Westmorland Joint Neighborhood land use plan. Two years in the making, the plan puts an emphasis on preserving small, single-family homes for an aging population while attracting younger families and more local retail stores....

Madison - August 1, 2009 - President Barack Obama, fresh off a narrow re-election victory over Sarah Palin, is celebrating the opening of new Amtrak service between his hometown of Chicago and Madison. Obama is riding with Gov. Jim Doyle and Mayor Dave Cieslewicz as the train rumbles past East Towne and under Wisconsin 30 and starts across East Washington Avenue. "There's the Capitol," says Obama, looking out the window of a new Spanish-built Talgo passenger car. But instead of slowing, the train sweeps around the corner at First Street and starts heading back out of town....

Ken Notes: The scary part is that the beer they were after cost a billion dollars. We need a lot more planning and patience when it comes to opening a check book that is empty to begin with.

Wisconsin - August 2, 2009 - The recently released Wisconsin Economic Outlook by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR) includes current employment, income and housing data and projections through 2012. This month, Economic Snapshot will highlight the DOR report and its forecast for economic recovery in Wisconsin. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research...

Ken Notes: You know who is thriving in this economy - the research firms that compile the data to tell us how bad it is...

Madison Area - August 5, 2009 - The good news for beer fans: On Saturday, the Great Taste of the Midwest beer festival will turn Olin-Turville Park on John Nolen Drive into one large celebration of the Midwest's robust beer brewing culture. The bad news: All 6,000 festival tickets were sold within two hours of their release at the beginning of June and attendance is strictly limited to ticketed participants and volunteers. That means a lot of beer lovers get shut out of the annual event...

Ken Notes: This could be an economic tourism engine for the region. We need to promote these venues, along with a few wineries as day trip opportunities. The 77 Square map FOUND HERE. is a great start. By the way they forgot Grey's Tied House in Verona!

Dane County - 8/3/09 A review of the current initiatives of the Dane County Economic Development Committee.

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...

Madison - August 2, 2009 - A proposal by Alds. Satya Rhodes-Conway and Brian Solomon asks the city to gather data on vehicle miles traveled per capita to help create policies and slowly make changes to help people minimize motor vehicle use. An initial proposal set a specific goal of decreasing vehicle miles traveled per capita by 25 percent between 2005 and 2020, but that proposal was reshaped to remove those specific goals. Instead, the proposal seeks to gather data, instruct city panels that make land use and transportation decisions to consider the goal of minimizing traffic, and it gives the city's Long Range Transportation Committee a year to make recommendations on ways to cut auto travel demands....

Ken Notes: What everyone is missing is that mandates have little effect on consumer habits. We need to provide opportunities and advantages to reducing our carbon foot print or development will simply move out of town.

Wisconsin - 8/5/2009 - Though recent figures show a slight uptick in Wisconsin housing starts, 2009 is on track to see fewer houses built than 2008, which was Wisconsin's worst year in more than a decade. "Usually the first quarter is the worst quarter of the year for housing starts and the second quarter is the best, but we've seen 80 to 90 percent declines in some markets," said Dominic Collar of MTD Marketing, a builders' consulting firm. "It's not good." Through May of this year, just 2,003 permits were issued for one and two-family housing according to figures provided by the Wisconsin Builders Association...

Wisconsin - 8/06/2009 - Sometimes, it pays to get mad at Oprah. Cinda Baxter did, and the result has been a Buy Local initiative that has spread nationally and found scores of supporters in Wisconsin and Dane County. The 3/50 Project began this spring, sprouting from a notion Baxter suggested on her blog (www.alwaysupward.com), "Always Upward." The idea is simple: Consumers pick three locally owned businesses they wouldn't want to see disappear and try to spend a total of $50 a month among the stores...

Ken Notes: My picks, Miller Grocery, Culvers - a national chain with a Wisconsin Heart, and Duluth Trading Company.

Madison - AUG 5, 2009 - In the heart of Allied Drive, in a new plaza amid attractive new housing, stands a sculpture of hands raised to the sky. The hands "are the residents of this community," said longtime neighborhood activist Robert Artis, "They have raised from the street." Artis said this once-notorious place is changing, although no one says the area is completely turned around...

Ken Notes: I still believe we need some private sector input but this is a start.

Recent commercial property listings from PropertyDrive.

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

Madison - August 2, 2009 - Hy-Vee plans to seek LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for its Madison store under construction at 3801 E. Washington Ave. Energy-saving features of the $16 million project include skylights to provide day lighting for most of the sales floor, occupancy sensors and a dimmable system to control lighting, LED lighting on display doors for walk-in coolers and freezers, and carbon dioxide monitors that automatically adjust ventilation. The store, which is the first Hy-Vee in Wisconsin, also will reuse about 60 percent of an existing building and will have finishes that contain low levels of volatile organic compounds...

Ken Notes: Quite a renewal project. You have to give them a lot of credit for doing a lot of things right.

Madison Area - August 2, 2009 - Grocery options continue to grow for Madison area consumers, with five new stores proposed or under construction. Experts disagree, however, on whether more stores are needed or whether the market is becoming too crowded. The new stores include: * Copps Food Center, Sun Prairie's second Copps store, which will open Aug. 25 at 640 E. Main St. * Pierce's Supermarket, which will open in October in University Square, at Lake Street and University Avenue...

Ken Notes: Great summary of the grocery projects planned and in the dirt...

Madison - August 3, 2009 - If someone offers to sell you women's panties at a deep discount, there's a good chance the undies are hot. Five hundred pairs of panties valued at $8,000 were pilfered from the Victoria's Secret store at East Towne Mall on July 18, allegedly taken by two men seen running out of the store by the store manager....

Ken Notes: That is $16 each. Pretty pricey pantie pickings pilfered by the perpetrator. I'm sorry it has been a very long morning. Send complaints to Ken@wisconsindevelopment.com...

July 30, 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. The address of the property is listed first, followed by the type of property, the contractor and the value of the project....

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...

NEW YORK - 8/06/2009 - Worried about job security and finding fewer options among the sales bins, shoppers remained tight-fisted in July, resulting in sluggish sales for many merchants and raising concern about the back-to-school shopping season's health...

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!...

Midwest - AUG 6, 2009 - MGE Energy is taking the first steps toward creating two more wind farms, both in Iowa. MGE, parent company of Madison Gas & Electric, has signed agreements to buy land development rights for wind generation sites near Wellsburg and Hawkeye, in northeast Iowa. Terms of the deals were not immediately disclosed and no proposals have been sent to state regulators, but the projects, if built, could total $300 million to $400 million, said Don Peterson, MGE executive director of energy products and services...

Ken Notes: The cost benefit of this project seems reasonable (but is still 4K per household) and the farmers who site the turbines should do well. Too bad these are in Iowa.

Monroe - AUG 6, 2009 - Wal-Mart is getting ready to open a larger store in Monroe. The 186,000-square-foot store, which will be called a Wal-Mart but offer the same merchandise as a Wal-Mart Supercenter, including a full line of groceries, is scheduled to open Sept. 2 at 300 6th Ave. W. It will employ 320 people...

Ken Notes: We should see if we could encourage adaptive reuse of older stores before we approve new ones.

Stoughton - AUG 6, 2009 - Stoughton Trailers says orders for trailers are starting to come in, so the company is rescinding its latest layoff notice to the state that had warned more job reductions could occur around Aug. 20. Work orders will keep the plant operating through mid- to late October, Stoughton Trailers president Ken Wahlin said Thursday...

Ken Notes: I hope this is a sign that there is a real recovery on the horizon.

Middleton - 8/6/2009 - Most citizens speaking out about a proposal to pave sections of a trail in Pheasant Branch Conservancy are voicing misgivings about the idea, saying it could harm wildlife and diminish the enjoyment of the preserve's current human users. But there is little solidarity on the issue amongst wildlife and conservancy lands experts. Consultants brought forward by city public lands manager Penni Klein have said, in front of elected officials and in writing, that they favor installing a strip of porous asphalt along the north and west segments of the Pheasant Branch Trail...

Middleton and Westport - 7/31/2009 - Developer T. Wall Properties' latest project has taken another step forward with the City of Middleton's approval of a Central Urban Service Area (CUSA) amendment application. On July 21 the city joined the Town of Westport in filing a CUSA application for Bishops Bay, a proposed 780-acre mixed-use community spanning parts of both communities...

Verona - 8/6/2009 - Members of the Plan Commission and Common Council have complained about meddling by the metro area's regional planning body before. Monday night they got to say it to their faces. Despite a respectful tone and compliments going both ways, commissioners showed plenty of apprehension over the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission's project to put local planning into a regional perspective. Senior CARPC planner David Greene and deputy director Kamran Mesbah came to Verona to explain their goal - the identification of future urban development areas (FUDAs)...

Oregon - 8/1/2009 - Three years ago, developer Chuck Elliott had big dreams for his two-building Foxboro Commons project. Located south of the intersection of Wolfe and Janesville streets, the three-story Commons included 40 condo units, about 25,000 square feet of first-floor retail space and 60 stalls of underground parking...

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...

Wisconsin - 8/05/2009 - Scientists who want to turn their research into biotechnology companies or who want to grow their young businesses may be able to tap into a new round of grant money. The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) is providing a $100,000 grant, to be matched by $100,350 from BioForward, formerly the Wisconsin Biotechnology and Medical Device Association....

WASHINGTON - 8/04/2009 - Only 15 percent of homeowners eligible for the Obama administration's $50 billion loan modification program have been offered help so far. In its first monthly progress report on the plan launched in March, the government on Tuesday detailed big disparities among the 38 companies that have signed up. Several loan servicing companies -- including American Home Mortgage Servicing and PNC Financial Services Group Inc. -- have yet to modify a single loan...

Janesville - 8/05/2009 - More jobs could leave Janesville along with a piece of the city's history. The Sanford Corp., a subsidiary of Newell Rubbermaid in Atlanta, said it might close its Janesville manufacturing facility, known for decades as the Parker Pen Co. If closed, 153 jobs would move to other locations with excess capacity...

Ken Notes: It is too bad that Wisconsin can not protect some of the iconic brands that placed us on the map in the first place. Parker, Miller, Lands End, Kimberly-Clark, Midwest...

- Aug. 6, 2009 - Johnson Controls Inc. snared the biggest piece of the stimulus pie divvied up by the Obama administration on Wednesday, when the Glendale company secured a $299 million grant to build lithium-ion batteries for hybrid vehicles at a Michigan factory. Vice President Joe Biden announced that Michigan would get $1 billion in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help set up a domestic manufacturing base for next-generation batteries - considered to be the key to making plug-in electric vehicles a reality....

Ken Notes: We cuda been a contender...

Milwaukee - Aug. 5, 2009 - There's growing chatter from people who think Michael Cudahy's purchase of the former Pieces of Eight lease--and his plan to donate it for a proposed University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee facility--means that the city's decision on whether to allow this development is a "done deal." Some folks posted opinions to that effect when I broke the news on Monday on my blog. And, this morning, I heard radio talk show host Charles Sykes make similar comments on WTMJ-AM. I've seen no evidence to support that view. To the contrary...

Milwaukee - Aug. 5, 2009 - City officials will consider spending $6.5 million to help create a business park on a vacant 17-acre parcel just south of the Harley-Davidson Museum, in the Walker's Point area. The Redevelopment Authority on Wednesday set an Aug. 20 public hearing for the proposal, which would help finance a business park on the former Reed Street Yards property, bounded roughly by S. 6th St., S. 3rd St., the Menomonee River Canal and W. Florida St....

Milwaukee - Aug. 4, 2009 - The former Tower Automotive Inc. site will be the target of $1.1 million in federal stimulus cash to help redevelop the property into a business park and other uses. The 84-acre Tower site, near W. Capitol Drive and N. 27th St., is one of several Milwaukee sites that will receive just over $3 million in stimulus funds to do environmental cleanup work, Gov. Jim Doyle announced Tuesday....

Milwaukee County - Aug. 5, 2009 - Milwaukee County would play a larger role in marketing the entire county for development under an idea County Executive Scott Walker floated Wednesday with local officials. He said it could make sense to consolidate local economic-development promotion efforts with the county, but he wants to make sure it does not conflict with ongoing efforts of the Milwaukee 7 group or Visit Milwaukee....

Milwaukee - AUG 6, 2009 - City of Milwaukee officials hope to attract water technology businesses to a proposed business park that would be built on the vacant 17-acre Reed Street Yards site, located just south of the downtown area. The city is proposing a $6.5 million tax incremental financing (TIF) district to create the business park on the Reed Street Yards, which is bounded roughly by South Sixth Street, South Third Street, the Menomonee River Canal and West Florida Street. The Reed Street Yards is a brownfield with poor subsoil conditions and contamination. The TIF district also would include several vacant industrial buildings to the west of South Sixth Street,...

Delafield - July 31, 2009 - Delafield Hotel, a small luxury hotel that opened in 2006, is getting some new partners and has proposed an expansion that would more than double its room count. Delafield Hotel is still owned by Delafield Hospitality Group LLC, said Connie Barbian, principal with Fort Atkinson-based IDM Group LLC, the hotel's new management firm. But Delafield Hospitality...

Whitefish Bay August 6, 2009 - Developer Blair Williams' plan to build upscale apartments at the northeast corner of N. Oakland Ave. and E. Kensington Blvd. got an initial review this week from the Whitefish Bay Village Board, according to sister publication Whitefish Bay Now. The site, where a gas station was recently demolished, straddles the Whitefish Bay-Shorewood border. The development plan's success might depend on whether Whitefish Bay officials agree to give up some ...

Milwaukee - Aug. 6, 2009 - The 11 separate lawsuits pending against Renaissant Lafayette LLC, developer of the Park Lafayette condominium towers, should be consolidated under one judge, according to a motion filed by Renaissant in Milwaukee County Circuit Court. The lawsuits all make similar claims..

Milwaukee - Aug. 5, 2009- The development of new hotels near Mitchell International Airport continues, with the lastest being a plan for another hotel near S. 13th St. and W. College Ave., in Oak Creek, where Wisco Hotel Group already operates some properties....

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

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Kenneth Harwood
WisconsinDevelopment.com LLC
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