Developers propose 116-acres of housing near Oak Creek Ikea

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A development package with up to hundreds of housing units next to Ikea went before the Oak Creek officials.

An affiliate of Milwaukee-based Wangard Partners and Waukesha-based Siepmann Realty Corp. proposed a development on nearly 116 acres on the northeast corner of South 27th Street and Drexel Avenue. The plan includes single-family home subdivisions, multifamily buildings and commercial space.

The Oak Creek Plan Commission was scheduled on Tuesday to discuss the plan. No action was taken on the item, the agenda showed.

OC27 LLC, the name of the partnership company between Wangard and Siepmann, named the development “The Prairie.” The housing unit spread breaks down as such.

• Six multifamily buildings with 48 units each, totaling 288 units
• Four multifamily buildings with 26 units each, totaling 104 units
• Five four-family buildings, 20 units total
• 15 duplexes, 30 units total
• 96 single-family lots

The applicant also has plans for more than 17 acres of commercial development on the northeast corner of South 27th Street and Drexel Avenue. Plans will include new infrastructure including roads that would connect 27th Street and South Ikea Drive just east of the site.

The site is bounded by South 27th Street to the west, Milwaukee County’s Falk Park to the east, Drexel Avenue to the south and an existing residential area along West Minnesota Avenue to the north, plans showed.

Most of the land is owned by Northwestern Mutual, as the company office is across 27th Street. But the insurance company will close that office campus and moving thousands of workers to its North Office in downtown Milwaukee, which is currently under renovation.

The site contains farmland, former homes, forested areas, environmentally sensitive lands and a small retail parcel that saw environmental remediation several years ago, developers said.

The developers expect to bring out plans for the first phase of land use and land division applications in summer 2025. Construction is expected to start in fall 2025 and first occupancy in spring 2027, they added.

Project financing will come through a conventional bank construction loan, developers noted.