Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Fountains of Franklin gains focus: Part 2

Sendik's looks like it's a go for the corner of 51st and Rawson, and that's a good thing. (As soon as my records request is answered, there'll be a site plan here.)

However ...

From FranklinNow's coverage of last week's plan commission meeting:

The [Sendik's] site plan was approved with several conditions. Deliveries will not be allowed between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.; truck refrigeration units must be shut off during late night and early morning. Outdoor seating will be prohibited at the location. In addition, beefed-up screening - to be approved at a later date by the commission or planning staff - will be added to the north end of the lot to help muffle noise and deflect headlights and other problems for residents in the nearby subdivision.

It should be noted that the actual owner/operators of the planned Fountains of Franklin Sendik's were not present when it was decided during the course of the meeting that, for instance, deliveries will not be allowed between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. One imagines a bit of pique when developer Greg Devorkin reports that particular stipulation back to "the boys" (as he referred to the Balestreris).

More odd - - and incredibly indicative of the scourge of sprawl development - - is the fact that the subdivision adjacent to the Sendik's lot had to be "mitigated,"  "shielded" and "screened." The first site plans, evidently, faced bare, unadorned walls and the loading dock toward the neighborhood. It was only after developer Greg Devorkin met with residents of the subdivision that changes were made to deal with (or even acknowledge) the neighborhood's proximity.

But that's the point: Suburban sprawl development practices - - - 481-page unified development ordinance notwithstanding - - - make it a dead-lock certainty that retail establishments will be designed to appeal to the ROAD and literally turn its back to the PEOPLE in a neighborhood for which it could represent a wonderful resource. Since the initial site plan disregarded the needs of the adjacent subdivision, the residents of the nearby neighborhood had no choice but to do the best they could to "wall off" the loading dock and parking lot that faces them. Who wants that stuff staring at them?

Though the Sendik's store will be great to have nearby, it's very, very unfortunate that there seemed at no time to be thought of a store that served the neighborhood as well as the traffic on Rawson. Imagine how wonderful it would have been to see the North and West sides of the site plan open itself to the nearby residents as a place to bike and walk to for coffee, a few groceries, and even outdoor dining within a few minutes walk of their houses. What an outstanding, community-building amenity for any neighborhood!

Forget all that, though: Given the current plan, residents of the nearby Serenity Estates subdivision will have to get into their car and drive to Sendik's like everyone else.

Adding insult to injury to an attractive store facade whose most striking feature is a nifty retractable awning: "Outdoor seating will be prohibited at the location"! I've gone over my nine pages of notes and the recording of the meeting, and I can't for the life of me determine when and how that stipulation entered the process. No relaxing outside with a muffin and a coffee? No monthly farmers market? No possibility of a wonderful, vibrant public area?

I guess there'll be a part 3 to this topic ....

For Menards apologists . . .

. . . who are somehow taken in by a pandering story in the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, a newspaper published in Menards' home town ("Menards sues company over recalled wood"), here is a helpful review of the April 29th story in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ("Suspect firewood lingered at stores: Two Wisconsin Menards tardy with recall, state says").

The items below are quoted directly from the Journal-Sentinel story. And - surprise - not at all mentioned in the Leader-Telegram:

• The recall order came April 13, according to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and Menards was given 24 hours to get the job done. But more than a week later, government inspectors found contraband wood still for sale at two stores in southern Wisconsin.

• In 2004, Menards was investigated by the Michigan Department of Agriculture for selling live ash trees in an area of the state where the sale of ash trees was prohibited.

• Menards was let off with a warning after a company attorney promised it wouldn't happen again in an Aug. 24, 2004, letter to the Michigan Department of Agriculture. Then last summer, a Menards store in Traverse City, Mich., was caught doing the same thing, according to Jim Bowes, enforcement security officer for the Michigan Agriculture Department's pesticide and plant pest management division.

• Menards said: "Menards discovered a shipping error caused by a. . . vendor that mistakenly caused a small amount of ash trees to ship to a northern Michigan store. Regrettably, the mistake did happen, but to the best of my knowledge, no trees were sold. The mistake was caught and the trees were transported back to the vendor. The vendor was fined heavily and put on sanctions by Menards internal compliance department." Bowes, however, said he believes several trees were sold at the Traverse City store.

• Minnesota Department of Agriculture spokesman Michael Schommer said Menards has been "very cooperative" in the recall effort.
  
  An Iowa official, however, is less thrilled about Menards' response so far. Although there is no evidence the company violated the letter of the recall, Iowa state entomologist Robin Pruisner believes it did violate its spirit.
  
  Pruisner said she found some Taylors firewood on a Menards store shelf on April 21, which she believed was well beyond the date that it had been ordered removed.

All interesting elements to the story. Yet none of it reported in the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram story.

Madison's Capital Times didn't hold back: "State: Menards Not Complying - Recalled Wood May Contain Ash Borer."
 

Given the incredibly high stakes, one could certainly call Menards' lackadaisical response less than inspiring. In my opinion, criminal negligence could - - would - -  certainly be explored if an infestation were to be traced to any of the above actions.

That's not to say that the Menards corporation might not suddenly  do something remarkable to redeem themselves - - I'm an optimist. And the "Menards Guy" spokesman is from my hometown!

But for now, Menards big move is suing their supplier. I don't know whether they get a parade in their honor for that.

If they catch the golfer who flicked a lit cigarette in the Hollywood Hills a few days back to spark the current wildfire raging around Griffith Park, I suppose he or she will immediately sue the tobacco company that made the cigarette ...

Previous postings on the subject here and here.

Better retail design

Typically sharp commentary on the state of retail design by the Journal-Sentinel's Whitney Gould in Sunday's paper:

Stand-alone store puts mall to shame
By Whitney Gould

On the coasts and in Europe, modern store design has become almost an art form.

In the malled-out Milwaukee area, alas, developers of all too many new retail spaces are marching backward, to judge from the kitschy, Disneyesque facades at Glendale's new Bayshore Town Center and many smaller shopping strips in the western suburbs. These wallpaper-thin ventures in fake history, repeated endlessly from one community to the next, erode a sense of place and give nostalgia a bad name.

A welcome departure from the trend is the Crate&Barrel store at Mayfair. This crisp showcase for Euro-sleek home accessories and furnishings, which opened in late 2005 in the mall parking lot, is so beautifully designed, inside and out, that it's a gentle rebuke to the bland, sprawling mall next door.

The two-story, stand-alone Crate&Barrel is a series of interlocking boxes clad in a tapestry of white precast , buff stone, glass and corrugated, galvanized metal. Horizontal windows wrap around the corners on both levels. The front and rear entrances are big and transparent; the back side, facing Mayfair Road, is especially welcoming, with a spacious patio, a sloping, handicapped-accessible walkway and generous landscaping.

The airy interior, with its polished concrete floors and warm finishes (maple, pine, cedar and buff limestone), is rationally laid out and easy to navigate. And there are some handsome details, including a big swoop of tawny maple that looks like extruded taffy and serves as both display and checkout counter.

The store is also admirably green, flooded with sun from the well-spaced windows and skylights. When I was out there on a recent balmy day, the entrances at either end were wide open, bringing in a nice breeze. A concrete canopy linking the store to the mall is planted with low-growing vegetation, to absorb runoff.

To move from Crate&Barrel to the mall is like entering a time machine. While suburbs themselves have begun to make gestures toward pedestrian-friendly design, Mayfair remains a creature of cookie-cutter, auto-dependent sprawl. Looking out over a vast parking lot, the mall's facade is mostly vast stretches of precast and brick, with appliquéd Old World detail: fussy gables, finials and corner towers. The back side is particularly bleak - essentially a big, unarticulated loading dock overlooking a sea of asphalt.

Inside, despite the addition in recent years of an atrium and second story that add daylight, it feels like malls everywhere: antiseptic and artificial, with canned air and canned music. If I were the czar of Mayfair, I'd peel away the entire facade, bring in some first-rate designers to create a glassy new front, and green up the surroundings. In other words, take a cue from that elegant upstart next door.

Curious to know more about how Crate&Barrel approached the design of its stores, I called up the CEO, Gordon Segal. The 68-year-old dynamo started the company with his wife, Carole, in 1962, on Chicago's Wells St. The stylish wares they had picked up in Europe were displayed on packing crates and barrels.

Based in Northbrook, Ill., the chain has grown to nearly 150 stores nationwide. Some, like the one on Broadway in Manhattan, are in gracious older buildings; others, like the one at Mayfair in Wauwatosa, are unabashedly contemporary. The newer ones have similar features - rigorous geometry, lots of glass - but no two are alike. They're all designed in-house by the firm's architecture department, with an eye toward what will last.

"We're very neurotic about good architecture and good design," Segal told me. "Beautiful things have a longer life than ugly things. And they make people feel better. Look at the iPod and the Apple computer. People want to have them because of the way those things look. Same thing with building a store. Why would you want to put up an ugly box?"

Segal said the company uses only renewable woods, and tries to stick to local materials, such as the Wisconsin limestone in the Mayfair store. "It's not fancy stuff, like what you'd find at Neiman Marcus," he said. "But we want to create a clean, inviting atmosphere - the kind of design that will be as beautiful 10 or 20 years from now as it is today."

Not a bad recipe for retailers of all stripes. If cleaner, greener design wins enough converts, the effect could be transformative for shoppers and communities alike.

E-mail to [email protected] or call (414) 224-2358.

Fountains of Franklin gains focus: Part 1

After some time out of the limelight due to the hubbub surrounding Shoppes at Wyndham Village, The Fountains of Franklin had the Plan Commission stage to themselves at the 5/3/07 meeting. Mark Carstensen's 11th hour request to pull "Shoppes" from the agenda meant Fountains occupied the entire session.

After a flurry of press releases proclaiming enormous square footage, the developers of Fountains came before the Plan Commission with what could be called stage one; a 58,700-square-feet Sendik's grocery store on a 7.1-acre lot that it will  eventually share with a bank.

The mayor was moving briskly to a vote on approval for the site when Aldermen Steve Olson (District 1) and Lyle Sohns (District 5, within which Fountains would be built) agitated for a halt, asking why there would be no public hearing on the matter. A group from the neighborhood adjoining the development were in attendance and obviously expected to be heard.

"I have issues. Mr. Mayor, this is the first time I have ever been to one of these meetings - - in your tenure, in the tenure of Fred Klimetz - - that the public has not been allowed comment," Alderman Olson said, with Alderman Sohns joining in as well. Alderman Olson pressed on, adding that he'd first seen the plans the previous Monday.

The city attorney assured all assembled that no public hearing was needed, and added that he didn't recall public hearings on site plans before the Plan Commission previously.

"Well, can we have one?" Alderman Sohns asked. The mayor then allowed public comment, which mainly revolved around the concerns residents of the Serenity Estates subdivision somewhat adjacent to the planned Sendik's.

More on that and the intriguing implications thereof in Part 2, where I'll take a look at issues of human scale and neighborhood integration into a commercial zone, two facets that are once again being given short shrift at an otherwise positive commercial project.

Shoppes at Wyndham Village plan withdrawn for re-tooling

An auspicious 200th post for SPRAWLED OUT: A day before the Plan Commission meeting wherein the project was to be discussed and perhaps approved, developer Mark Carstensen has pulled the current plan in order to re-evaluate the concerns of myriad groups who'd voiced concern with his original plan.

Mr. Carstensen should be congratulated for his decision. Though the delay is surely not pleasant for Carstensen on many levels, the best thing for Franklin as a whole is to take a fresh look at the project and make it something the community can be proud of today and build on tomorrow.

My only regret is that in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story I'm referred to in a pull-quote as an "opponent of proposed Shoppes at Wyndham Village," which, if not read carefully, makes it seem as though I don't want the development to succeed. On the contrary, I'm a proponent of Carstensen's concept of a mixed-used commercial development on the corner of Drexel and Hwy. 100. It's just very important that what is put there is sensitive to the character of the area and built with the City Civic Center zoning guidelines in mind.

So, the "reset" button has been pushed, and there are potentially very exciting times ahead. This will be a process to watch closely.

Developer to retool proposal

Franklin retail center has raised ire of neighbors, environmentalists

By ANNYSA JOHNSON
[email protected]

Posted: May 2, 2007

Franklin - Developer Mark Carstensen, whose controversial Shoppes of Wyndham Village development was to be reviewed by the city's Plan Commission tonight, withdrew the proposal late Wednesday, saying it would be revised to address the numerous concerns that have dogged the project almost from the beginning.

Carstensen said in an e-mail Wednesday that he has been working with the city, the state Department of Natural Resources, environmentalists and the community "to accommodate and balance the various concerns and legal requirements of these several parties, taking everyone's interests to heart."

Wyndham Village, at Highway 100 and W. Drexel Ave., was one of two developments that were to be taken up by the Plan Commission at 7 tonight. That project, along with the Fountains of Franklin near S. 51st St. and W. Rawson Ave., which remains on the agenda, would add as much as 790,000 square feet of commercial space within a four-mile stretch of the city.

The Plan Commission's meeting had been moved from City Hall to the police-court complex at 9455 W. Loomis Road to accommodate what was expected to be a larger-than-usual turnout, particularly for Carstensen's Wyndham development.

That project has drawn criticism from neighbors who expected more upscale retailers than the Target store that's planned, to detractors of the design who see it as a missed opportunity to create a pedestrian-friendly downtown in what's been designated in the zoning code as the city's "civic center."

"We need a town center desperately," said John Michlig, a Franklin-based author who is writing a book on suburban development and has dubbed Carstensen's project "The Shoppes at Wyndham Parking Lot" on his blog at fullyarticulated.typepad.com/sprawledout.

"Why not make this a destination place?" he said. "If we put down just another slab of parking lot, then that opportunity is lost."

Target and Sendik's

Carstensen's proposal, estimated to cost $30 million to $40 million, would be built on 38 acres and would include a 124,900-square-foot Target store and 60,000-square-foot Sendik's.

Several public officials have endorsed the project, including state legislators Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) and Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale). Milwaukee County Director of Transportation and Public Works George Torres, who sits on Franklin's Plan Commission, urged the state Department of Transportation - on county letterhead - to support it.

But the site, which is situated in a secondary environmental corridor and includes vulnerable plant species, has been problematic.

Environmentalists have been outraged by what they say is a total disregard for the landscape there. Under the current plans, 2.4 acres, or more than a fourth of the woodlands on the site, would be felled, and three of the eight wetlands filled. The footprint was reconfigured in the last month, at the urging of both the city and state DNR because the Sendik's store sat on top of a wetland.

Download the complete report to the Plan Commission regarding "Shoppes at Wyndham Village" here

The Franklin Plan Staff has has prepared a rather comprehensive report on the Shoppes at Wyndham Village for their Thursday, May 3rd commission meeting (7pm at the Franklin Law Enforcement Center). I got a copy via open records request and posted it here in pdf form here (it's 10 pages long). Download ShoppesReport.pdf

If you're going to attend the Plan Commission meeting Thursday night, I encourage you to read this document. Frankly, the report is right on the money in many, many ways, and members of the public who wish to speak at the meeting will appreciate the detailed history of the project recounted in the report, as well as some spot-on specific recommendations made by planning staff.

More on the report later ...

Menards continues to thumb its nose at us

There's an update on Menards' rather lackadaisical concern regarding a possible emerald ash borer infestation in this week's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Read it. Then send your business to Home Depot or Lowe's.

Also, read a profile of John Menard at Milwaukee Magazine's site. Here's a particularly cuddly anecdote from the story:

Managers are prohibited from building a home, even if they purchase the construction materials elsewhere. It’s a measure to prevent employee theft, John Menard once told the media. The penalty is termination.

Even minor building projects concerned him. On numerous occasions, former managers say, Menard hired private investigators to take photos when an employee added a deck or addition, then had internal examiners cross-reference the materials in the photos with items the employee had purchased, looking for products that had been stolen.

The most infamous casualty of this policy was Eldon Helget, a lumber yard manager for Menards’ Burnsville, Minn., store. Helget’s daughter was confined to a wheelchair and the narrow hallways in the Helget home made it difficult to get around. She was getting too big for her mother Linda to carry her up the stairs, and because the bathroom couldn’t accommodate her wheelchair, the girl had no privacy. When the Helgets could find no home that met their needs, they decided to build from scratch.

But Helget’s boss, Larry Menard, said there were no exceptions to the company rule. Helget, who had a stellar 13-year record with the company, could resign his post and take a lower-level job, Larry said. That meant a $15,000 cut in his $40,000 salary, but Helget still agreed.

The Helgets hired a contractor to build a ramp-equipped home, using building materials from another company. When John Menard heard about the deal, he fired Helget. The company notified Helget that if he ever showed up on its property again, he’d be arrested for trespassing.

“John would say, ‘Why make a rule if you’re not going to enforce it?’” Archibald recalls, adding “sometimes, you have to cut throats. That’s how business works.”

Helget’s story found its way into the Minneapolis Star Tribune.A columnist called Menards’ policy, “something exhumed from the Bronze Age with all its primitive logic intact.” The story continued a second day when a local lumberyard offered Helget a job. The Helgets were elated – until they discovered Eldon’s contract with Menards barred him from working for a competitor for a year.

This rule came from Menard’s concern that his trade secrets might be revealed. Indeed, he refused to hire former Home Depot or Lowe’s employees for fear the person might be a spy.

Linda Helget phoned Menard to plead with him to relent. “He said we could find a house in another town, but all our friends and family are here. He thought he was a real stud muffin the way he talked and I said ‘who are you to tell us where to live?’ I told him ‘someday I hope a train runs you over and cuts your legs off.’’

[Excerpted from MILWAUKEE MAGAZINE, "Big Money" by Mary Van de Kamp Nohl]

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Suspect firewood lingered at stores: Two Wisconsin Menards tardy with recall, state says

By DAN EGAN
[email protected]

Menards was ordered this month to take all firewood off its Wisconsin store shelves that violated a federal quarantine designed to keep the emerald ash borer from hitching a ride into the state.

It didn't happen, at least not in all of Menards' Wisconsin home improvement stores, according to a state agriculture official.

The recall order came April 13, according to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and Menards was given 24 hours to get the job done. But more than a week later, government inspectors found contraband wood still for sale at two stores in southern Wisconsin, said Mick Skwarok, spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

Menards' response: "We were in complete cooperation with the (federal) recall order and have obtained a new firewood vendor."

The company added it has pulled 23,014 bundles from its store shelves in a recall that is now national.

The Illinois firm that supplied the firewood, Springfield-based Taylors Wood Products Inc., has already been slapped with a federal "notice of violation" for violating the quarantine, and could face $250,000 in fines, according to inspection service spokeswoman Sharon Lucik.

Efforts to reach Taylors representatives were unsuccessful.

This isn't Menards' first dealings with government regulators scrambling to contain a particularly virulent pest that has already destroyed more than 20 million ash trees in the Midwest. It is a tree-killing bug that, if left unchecked, could wreak up to $300 billion in damage, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

In 2004, Menards was investigated by the Michigan Department of Agriculture for selling live ash trees in an area of the state where the sale of ash trees was prohibited.

Menards was let off with a warning after a company attorney promised it wouldn't happen again in an Aug. 24, 2004, letter to the Michigan Department of Agriculture.

Then last summer, a Menards store in Traverse City, Mich., was caught doing the same thing, according to Jim Bowes, enforcement security officer for the Michigan Agriculture Department's pesticide and plant pest management division.

Bowes said his agency is seeking $7,000 in fines, the maximum allowed.

In a written statement, a Menards representative responded:

"Menards discovered a shipping error caused by a. . . vendor that mistakenly caused a small amount of ash trees to ship to a northern Michigan store. Regrettably, the mistake did happen, but to the best of my knowledge, no trees were sold. The mistake was caught and the trees were transported back to the vendor. The vendor was fined heavily and put on sanctions by Menards internal compliance department."

Bowes, however, said he believes several trees were sold at the Traverse City store.

The nationwide recall on Taylors firewood affects Menards stores in a number of Midwest states, including Minnesota and Iowa.

The problem is at least some Taylors firewood arrived on store shelves with its bark still on, a violation of the federal quarantine prohibiting firewood shipments out of lower Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

Minnesota Department of Agriculture spokesman Michael Schommer said Menards has been "very cooperative" in the recall effort.

An Iowa official, however, is less thrilled about Menards' response so far. Although there is no evidence the company violated the letter of the recall, Iowa state entomologist Robin Pruisner believes it did violate its spirit.

Pruisner said she found some Taylors firewood on a Menards store shelf on April 21, which she believed was well beyond the date that it had been ordered removed.

She said a store employee, however, said that particular bundle of wood had actually been received months ago, prior to the firewood quarantine, which kicked in Dec. 1. That made the wood legal to sell, Pruisner said the Menards employee explained.

"I was not happy at all. That would be the understatement of the year," Pruisner said.

She said she bought the wood herself and took it home to burn it.

On April 24, that pre-quarantine exemption was closed when the federal government ordered the recall to cover all Taylors wood shipped from Illinois before Dec. 1.

"It's going to attract more birds. They will be crapping more."

As reported in the April 14th edition of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, In April 2005, the Port Washington Common Council voted  5-2 to narrow Franklin and Wisconsin streets - - a downtown area - -  from 48 feet to 42 feet. The plan also requires widening the sidewalks along these streets from 8 to 11 feet and reducing the parking lanes on both sides of the street to 9 feet from 12 feet. In addition, 271 trees will be planted along the streets. The project will span 1.6 miles and is expected to cost about $7 million, with the city's share being about $1.8 million. The state will pick up the balance.

Port Washington aldermen said they liked the plan because it will allow pedestrians to walk more quickly across the streets and make it more pleasant to walk in the downtown.

"We will make it (Franklin St.) safer, more attractive and we're repairing the infrastructure under the street," Alderman Thomas Hudson said. He also stated that sections of Franklin and Wisconsin streets are badly deteriorating, "and the vehicles now rock on the pavement slabs, which are actually moving." He compared these streets to what Highway 32 (Spring St.) south of Port Washington was like before it was resurfaced.

"We have the money from the state," Hudson said, "so I think that we ought to do it. Strike while the iron is hot and don't allow the street to deteriorate any further."

City Administrator Mark Grams said the city held three or four public information meetings to explain the street projects, and people who own properties along the streets were invited to attend and comment on the plans.

"Why didn't the aldermen talk to the people downtown? We're the ones who will be affected by it," said Alphonse "Junior" Uselding who evidently missed each and every one of the meetings. He owns the Pier 6 tavern and Uselding's, an embroidery and silk screening shop. He said planting trees "will be blocking our windows, which is the only free advertising that we have.

"The tree thing is just ridiculous," Uselding continued. "You will have a mess with the leaves going into the sewer system. It's going to attract more birds. They will be crapping more."

Yes, he really said that.