Waukesha to consider rezoning for Woodman's Food Market

Sept. 12, 2011

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By Laurel Walker of the Journal Sentinel

Sept. 12, 2011 0

Waukesha - The Plan Commission is scheduled to take up a rezoning request Wednesday that, if approved, would make way for the opening of a Woodman's Food Market on an industrial site now owned by Spancrete Industries Inc.

Both companies are requesting that the nearly 34-acre property at Highway 164, or Les Paul Parkway, and E. Main St. be rezoned from manufacturing and industrial to a community business district.

Planner Doug Koehler said staff will be recommending approval.

Woodman's announced last month that it planned to open a store and gas station on Waukesha's east side in the summer of 2013, pending city approvals.

The plan submitted to the Community Development Department shows about 19 acres of the site used for the grocery store and parking for 722 cars. Six out-lots ranging from just under an acre to 1.8 acres are shown for future development, mostly along Main St. The gas station would occupy about 1.4 acres. Two storm-water retention ponds on the east and west sides of the property would occupy 2.7 acres.

Spancrete, a manufacturer of pre-stressed concrete for the construction industry, closed its plant at the site in November.

The Janesville-based company, which is known for its 250,000-square-foot stores, would be building its Waukesha store adjacent to one of the city's several Pick 'n Save stores.

Woodman's opened a store in Menomonee Falls last year and one in Oak Creek in 2008. The company, which has 10 stores in Wisconsin and three in Illinois, also broke ground this year in Sun Prairie.

About Laurel Walker

Laurel Walker covered local, school and county government for 20 years -- the last half of that at the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- before she was named Waukesha County columnist in 1997. Today she writes about the people, places and events around metropolitan Milwaukee with a broad suburban focus. She was the youngest of nine children raised on a central Wisconsin farm before leaving the nest for journalism studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and a masters degree at the University of Oregon. She has spent the last half of her life in Waukesha County, where she and her husband raised two sons. Though she has a fondness for life in Waukesha, she eagerly partakes in the culture of the big city to the east and the recreation of the forests to the west. With sons in the arts, she has a special fondness for symphonic music concerts and art museums. She finds peace in a good book at a Northwoods getaway weekend, adventure in family visits to the east and west coasts, and satisfaction in a column well-written that reaches readers.