Wauwatosa shops for specialty grocer

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By BRIDGET FOGARTY

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

A busy corner of Wauwatosa‘s North Avenue could become a specialty grocery store instead of the previously proposed five-story retail and housing development that included units for adults with disabilities.

Elm Grove-based Luther Group LLC has submitted to the city’s Design Review Board a proposal to develop two buildings into a yet-to-be-announced specialty grocery store and a bank at 7501 W. North Ave. Luther Group owns the lot at the corner of Wauwatosa and North avenues, which currently holds a BMO bank branch and shares the intersection with Wauwatosa City Hall, Lutheran Home and Longfellow Middle School.

Name of possible grocery store at Wauwatosa and North avenues not yet announced

According to designs submitted to the city, both buildings would sit along North Avenue, and visitors could access the adjoining parking lot from the avenue. The first building would include a red brick facade with wood-like paneling, and the second building would include red brick and blue metal elements. Groth Design Group is working with the developer on the project.

A representative of Luther Group told a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter June 3 that the group had no comment on the development. The Design Review Board will review the design plans in Wauwatosa City Hall’s Committee Room #1 on June 4 at 7 p.m. No option is available to attend the meeting virtually.

However the meeting goes, the Luther Group will need further approval for signage once tenants are announced.

Previous plans for apartments, including housing for adults with developmental disabilities, scrapped

Luther Group’s grocery store plans for 7501 W. North Ave. are a pivot from its November 2021 announcement of a proposal to bring the corner five story building with retail, 92 apartments and four townhomes.

Bethesda Lutheran Communities and Luther Group Cornerstone aimed to create Cornerstone Village Wauwatosa, an “integrated residential and commercial community that welcomes independent adults with developmental disabilities as well as young professionals and families,” the Journal Sentinel previously reported.

Twenty-three of the previously planned housing units were slated to have affordable rents to serve people with disabilities. Apart from the housing, the development plans also included an updated BMO Harris bank branch to replace the branch already onsite, two retail spaces and a “Discovery Lab.”

Intersection will likely see changes one way or another in the coming years

Mayor Dennis McBride did not have thoughts on the proposed designs for the grocery store and bank when reached on June 3 ahead of the June 4 Design Review Board meeting.

But he did say he’s generally in favor of development that could activate the intersection of Wauwatosa and North avenues for pedestrians, residents, and customers, not just for cars.

“it’s one of the deadest intersections in Milwaukee County,” he told a reporter June 3.

One of the four corners, 7725 W. North Ave., is anticipated to change in the coming years. Wauwatosa is exploring four renovation concepts for city hall and the library, ranging in cost from $36.1 million to $107.2 million, for remodeling the 118,000-square-foot building.

City staff encourage residents to give feedback online on the concepts at engage.wauwatosa.net/library-and-city-hall-remodel. The Common Council will make decisions on the development in July.