Oak Creek aims to spend up to $30 million on business park, begin work in fall

Listen to this article

Oak Creek officials are looking to spend more than $20 million on a new business park that officials expect to draw in suppliers of the massive factory complex Foxconn Technology Group is building nearby in Racine County.

In a recently completed report, the village laid out plans for road projects and other public works for the new business park, which will be called the Ryan Business Park and which will be built on 85 acres of land abutting a Canadian National railroad line south of Oak Creek‘s West Ryan Road. Doug Seymour, the Oak Creek director of community development, said officials hope to begin work on the business park in early fall and have companies moving in there by 2020.

Under two options for the development, Oak Creek could spend between $22 million and $30 million to support the business park, including between $12 million and $14 million on public-works projects. The park’s layout will ultimately depend on who agrees to move in. Seymour said the city will build roads that are tailored to suit park tenants.

With Oak Creek’s OakView Business Park nearly full, Mayor Dan Bukiewicz said on Monday that officials wanted to be ready with land once Foxconn’s plant begins operating. It wasn’t clear to Bukiewicz, though, exactly what sort of companies might follow Foxconn to Wisconsin or expand in the state as a result of Foxconn’s plans.

“(The new business park is) not dependent on Foxconn,” Bukiewicz said. “But we have to be prepared for whatever happens. We don’t want to get caught with our pants down.”

Officials expect the new business park to have 1.1 million square feet in its buildings and generate between $85 million and $100 million in new taxable value. The existing value of the area is $1.5 million.

“We want to be flexible with what the marketplace demands,” Seymour said. “We don’t want to put in a road just to have to rip it up later. It’s just prudent planning.”

Although planning for the Ryan Business Park has been underway for several years, Seymour said the project has begun to come together only in recent months. Foxconn’s new factory in Mount Pleasant, which is just 15 miles south of the business park’s site, is expected to bring some of the company’s suppliers to Oak Creek.

Although the city had seen an increase in industrial development even before Foxconn announced its plans to move to Wisconsin, the company’s massive factory will “amplify” what’s already happening, Seymour said.

Two developers, Capstone Quadrangle and General Capital Group, are now working to find tenants for the park. Michael Faber, a principal at Capstone, did not immediately return a message seeking comment on Monday.

Between the two plans that have been laid out for the park so far, the main the differences relate to how big the eventual tenants will be.

The cheaper of the proposals, a $22.3 million plan, would dedicate 70 acres of the 131-acre park to one large user and carve up the rest of the site into three more lots for smaller firms. A pricier alternative, running to $29 million, calls instead for dividing the site up into nine relatively small lots.

Beyond spending money on road work, grading and other projects, Oak Creek plans to use $6 million worth of incentives to attract companies.

To play for the plan, Oak Creek would rely on a Tax Increment Financing district, which would take any additional tax revenue generated by the new development and set aside for use at the same site. Setting up such a district would require approval by the Oak Creek Common Council. A public hearing on the plan is scheduled for late July. Follow @natebeck9