(Published Saturday, April 14, 2007 12:59:14 AM CST)
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
By Marcia Nelesen/Gazette Staff
JANESVILLE
A Hobby Lobby would be the largest tenant in a redevelopment to upgrade the big-box building that once housed Wal-Mart.
The prominent site at Highway 14 and Milton Avenue would include at least two new buildings and at least two restaurants, according to city documents released Friday.
A public hearing on the conditional-use permit is scheduled before the plan commission at 6:30 p.m. Monday in City Hall, 18 N. Jackson St.
Two of the buildings-the 110,000-square-foot structure that housed Wal-Mart and a second building on the south side of the site that used to house Meyer's Farm Market-would have similar architectural elements. Those two buildings are being developed by D&B Properties of Northbrook, Ill.
Also planned:
? An 11,200-square-foot addition to the south side of the Hobby Lobby building planned by D&B as demand warrants.
? A structure by D&B on a south-side site that formerly housed Meyer's. That store would be 14,100 square feet.
? A new freestanding building of 4,800 square feet west of the main building proposed by D&B. But that layout and design is not being addressed at this time.
? A structure on the northeast corner of the site developed by the Adams family. The Adams family had owned the former Meyer's Farm Market site but traded that property with D&B for the corner site.
The corner site building would be 10,200 square feet. Its architecture would be different but complement the other two buildings, said Gale Price, the city's manager of building and development services.
The only other tenant being announced now is Dollar Tree, which would move into the Hobby Lobby building from the strip mall across the street next to Target.
A Borders bookstore and Pet Smart had been lined up, but the companies reined in their expansion plans, Price said.
The Hobby Lobby building is called "mid-box" in real estate terms because it is a big building divided into a number of mid-sized units, Price said.
The Hobby Lobby store would be 58,000 square feet, while Dollar Tree would occupy just less than 12,000 square feet. The mid-box eventually will house four to five tenants.
The city has planned for at least two restaurants on the site because the peak times for traffic and parking differ for retail and restaurants.
Staff is taking this opportunity to fix the layout of frontage road in that area, Price said.
The current road curves around the edge of the site from the Milton Avenue entrance to the Highway 14 entrance. The pattern didn't allow for vehicle stacking and limited good circulation, he said.
The new road will align at the main entrances but become an interior road.
The developers would pay for the new road. In return, the city would allow the developers to count the former roadway as green space for the development.
City staff is pleased with both the timeliness and quality of the developments, Price said.
Residents were concerned that Wal-Mart's move to a new site would leave a large, vacant eyesore at a prominent intersection, Price said.
"We weren't going to tolerate that," he said.
"Fortunately, Wal-Mart sold the property early on, and now we got a developer (who's) able to pull the trigger and make something happen."
As a plus, the development also includes the Meyer's Farm Market site that had been sitting vacant.
Price said reusing existing property is significant because the new development does not plow up another farm field, and it uses existing infrastructure.
It is an important sign when a community can promote redevelopment of outdated, older buildings, he said.
"We've really come into our own. That's important because you want to continue to have people reinvest in the areas that the community's already invested in with significant amounts of infrastructure.
"We're there," Price said. "This is a good thing.
"We think we're going to fill the rest of the buildings out with uses that aren't here already … I think we'll see it get filled out very shortly."
