Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

More on Wal-Mart ("They don't care if you hate them")

A cogent reader comment regarding "The economic blight that is Wal-Mart: They don't care if you hate them":

I enjoy reading your blog every week, especially regarding the "Shoppes" project.  That being said, I'd like to offer a quick comment on your Wal-Mart post. 

I hate Wal-Mart.  I never shop there because my time is worth more than the 2 bucks I'll save by standing in line for 30 minutes while someone writes out a check for 3 dollars instead of pulling out 3 singles from their pocket.  I CHOOSE not to shop there.  What's great about capitalism is that the consumer has the power to influence the profitibility of companies like Wal-Mart.  Likewise, the sprinkler manufacturer has the ability to tell Wal-Mart to go pound sand when they are told to sacrifice quality to meet Wal-Mart's demand. Maybe the sprinkler manufacturer shouldn't be so dependant on one low-margin customer like Wal-Mart. Unfortunately for the mom and pops, (and the sprinkler manufacturers) of the world, they need to adapt, innovate, and be "proactive" instead of "re-active" in order to survive.  Afterall, how do you think Wal-Mart got where they are today?  The demise of the mom and pops is a sad story.  Guess what.  It's not going to change unless the market CHOOSES to change.  We have on one to blame for Wal-Mart but ourselves. 

Josh Strupp

Would that it was so easy to say "no" to the largest retailer in the world!

The problem is this: You are dealing with a retailer that sells as much in THREE MONTHS as the number two retailer (Home Depot) sells in an entire year. That kind of power is utterly unprecedented - - the most laissez-faire capitalist has to agree that even Adam "let the market sort itself out" Smith could not conceive of that economy of scale when he wrote "The Wealth of Nations."

Faced with such a powerful force - - a force that even today benefits from government subsidies! - - a manufacturer often has to find a way to stay in Wal-Mart's good graces. The math is simple: If you say "no," your competitor will say "yes" and drive you out of business in the "honeymoon" period before they themselves get wiped out or marginalized (i.e. closing down domestic production and manufacturing overseas). You want to preserve your company's jobs for as long as possible. You swallow hard and say "yes" to Wal-Mart and hope that either:

(A) you're the rare company that beats the odds and keeps jobs and quality intact while dealing with Wal-Mart, or;

(B) Your employees can hand onto full-time work with benefits for at least another 18 months, rather than the six months it would take you to go under if you say "no."

Had L.R. Nelson said "no," their demise would have been greatly accelerated.

Can you get away with saying "no" to Wal-Mart? Sure - but it doesn't seem pleasant:

The Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart

Last line of the above-linked story:

And the power and allure of Wal-Mart is such that even Jim Wier, the man who said no to Wal-Mart, a man who knows all the reasons why that was the right decision, has slivers of doubt.

"I could go to my grave, and my tombstone could say, 'Here lies the dumbest CEO ever to live. He chose not to sell to Wal-Mart.' "

 

From Fast Company magazine's The Wal-Mart You Don't Know:

For many suppliers, though, the only thing worse than doing business with Wal-Mart may be not doing business with Wal-Mart. Last year, 7.5 cents of every dollar spent in any store in the United States (other than auto-parts stores) went to the retailer. That means a contract with Wal-Mart can be critical even for the largest consumer-goods companies. Dial Corp., for example, does 28% of its business with Wal-Mart. If Dial lost that one account, it would have to double its sales to its next nine customers just to stay even. "Wal-Mart is the essential retailer, in a way no other retailer is," says Gib Carey, a partner at Bain & Co., who is leading a yearlong study of how to do business with Wal-Mart. "Our clients cannot grow without finding a way to be successful with Wal-Mart."

From the same article, a look at "the Wal-Mart Squeeze":

What does the squeeze look like at Wal-Mart? It is usually thoroughly rational, sometimes devastatingly so.

John Mariotti is a veteran of the consumer-products world--he spent nine years as president of Huffy Bicycle Co., a division of Huffy Corp., and is now chairman of World Kitchen, the company that sells Oxo, Revere, Corning, and Ekco brand housewares.

He could not be clearer on his opinion about Wal-Mart: It's a great company, and a great company to do business with. "Wal-Mart has done more good for America by several thousand orders of magnitude than they've done bad," Mariotti says. "They have raised the bar, and raised the bar for everybody."

Mariotti describes one episode from Huffy's relationship with Wal-Mart. It's a tale he tells to illustrate an admiring point he makes about the retailer. "They demand you do what you say you are going to do." But it's also a classic example of the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't Wal-Mart squeeze. When Mariotti was at Huffy throughout the 1980s, the company sold a range of bikes to Wal-Mart, 20 or so models, in a spread of prices and profitability. It was a leading manufacturer of bikes in the United States, in places like Ponca City, Oklahoma; Celina, Ohio; and Farmington, Missouri.

One year, Huffy had committed to supply Wal-Mart with an entry-level, thin-margin bike--as many as Wal-Mart needed. Sales of the low-end bike took off. "I woke up May 1"--the heart of the bike production cycle for the summer--"and I needed 900,000 bikes," he says. "My factories could only run 450,000." As it happened, that same year, Huffy's fancier, more-profitable bikes were doing well, too, at Wal-Mart and other places. Huffy found itself in a bind.

With other retailers, perhaps, Mariotti might have sat down, renegotiated, tried to talk his way out of the corner. Not with Wal-Mart. "I made the deal up front with them," he says. "I knew how high was up. I was duty-bound to supply my customer." So he did something extraordinary. To free up production in order to make Wal-Mart's cheap bikes, he gave the designs for four of his higher-end, higher-margin products to rival manufacturers. "I conceded business to my competitors, because I just ran out of capacity," he says. Huffy didn't just relinquish profits to keep Wal-Mart happy--it handed those profits to its competition. "Wal-Mart didn't tell me what to do," Mariotti says. "They didn't have to." The retailer, he adds, "is tough as nails. But they give you a chance to compete. If you can't compete, that's your problem."

In the years since Mariotti left Huffy, the bike maker's relationship with Wal-Mart has been vital (though Huffy Corp. has lost money in three out of the last five years). It is the number-three seller of bikes in the United States. And Wal-Mart is the number-one retailer of bikes. But here's one last statistic about bicycles: Roughly 98% are now imported from places such as China, Mexico, and Taiwan. Huffy made its last bike in the United States in 1999.

Another Wal-Mart experience from the same article:

But not every supplier agrees that the toughness is always accompanied by fairness. The Lovable Company was founded in 1926 by the grandfather of Frank Garson II, who was Lovable's last president. It did business with Wal-Mart, Garson says, from the earliest days of founder Sam Walton's first store in Bentonville, Arkansas. Lovable made bras and lingerie, supplying retailers that also included Sears and Victoria's Secret. At one point, it was the sixth-largest maker of intimate apparel in the United States, with 700 employees in this country and another 2,000 at eight factories in Central America.

Eventually Wal-Mart became Lovable's biggest customer. "Wal-Mart has a big pencil," says Garson. "They have such awesome purchasing power that they write their own ticket. If they don't like your prices, they'll go vertical and do it themselves--or they'll find someone that will meet their terms."

In the summer of 1995, Garson asserts, Wal-Mart did just that. "They had awarded us a contract, and in their wisdom, they changed the terms so dramatically that they really reneged." Garson, still worried about litigation, won't provide details. "But when you lose a customer that size, they are irreplaceable."

Lovable was already feeling intense cost pressure. Less than three years after Wal-Mart pulled its business, in its 72nd year, Lovable closed. "They leave a lot to be desired in the way they treat people," says Garson. "Their actions to pulverize people are unnecessary. Wal-Mart chewed us up and spit us out."

And, lastly, Josh makes a valid point: Companies need to be pro-active rather than reactive in order to survive. However, the huge, government subsidized power of Wal-Mart has caused companies to "pro-actively" outsource to China and cheapen the quality of almost every product you can imagine. It's called "the Wal-Mart effect" because the decisions and demands made by Wal-Mart ripple into every other retailer as well (Huffy and Dial Corp design their entire product lines around making sure Wal-Mart is happy, for instance.)

And, moneybags bursting, Wal-Mart continues to ask for and get government subsidies while increasing the burden on state health care and welfare systems, pressuring suppliers to outsource more and more to China as we bleed jobs here.

Welcome Wal-Mart, indeed.

The economic blight that is Wal-Mart: They don't care if you hate them

Things you hate to see:

- A large oil spot in the driveway where your car was parked
- A big little "bomb" symbol in the middle of your computer screen
- Scattered clothing and a discarded shoe in the lion enclosure at the Milwaukee County Zoo
- A picture of the mayor of your city in a newspaper next to a headline that says "Welcome Wal-Mart"

But there it was, below the fold in the July 27th issue of the Milwaukee Business Journal: Franklin Mayor Tom Taylor giving the high sign to the retail monster for a Supercenter upgrade. With some improvements, of course. Pretty please.

"It would be nice if Wal-Mart upgraded that business in that area," [Mayor Taylor] said.

It would be nice. But it won't happen.

But, guess what? Wal-Mart doesn't care.

Not so long ago large companies toed the line to some extent in order to curry favor among the public at large. It was a standard tool in the public relations toolbelt: If people like you, they'll do business with you.

Wal-Mart now understands that they are not under that pressure.

The ad agency Foote, Cone & Belding traveled to Oklahoma City (selected because Wal- Mart has the latest of all its formats - - Wal-Mart, Supercenter, Sam's Club, and Neighborhood Market - - - operating there) to see who shops Wal-Mart and how they feel about the store.  After compiling the data, the group split those surveyed into four segments - the champions, the enthusiasts, the conflicted and the rejecters.

From Heidi R. Centrella's story in The Oklahoma City Journal Record:

The champions really love Wal-Mart, she said, and they make up about 29 percent of shoppers, tending to be younger families. The enthusiasts are 27 percent of shoppers who are typically older and on fixed incomes, they also look at Wal-Mart as a trusted advocate looking out for them.

The conflicted are 15 percent of shoppers who tend to be boomer families.

The reason we call them 'conflicted' is because they're very Wal- Mart negative. And they don't like (Wal-Marts) for political and societal reasons. They feel that Wal-Marts are killing off mom-and- pop shops, losing jobs, et cetera, [senior vice president and director of brand equities at FCB Paula] Ausick said.

However, this group shopped at Wal-Mart 5.6 times in the past four weeks. They're the second-highest most frequent shopper of Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart rejectors are 29 percent of shoppers. They tend to be dual-income, no-kid families. And they shop Wal-Mart about once every four months.

As Charles Fishman says in his excellent (and balanced) book, THE WAL-MART EFFECT: "How many companies can say that the amount of customers who use their services second most often, and spend the second most amount of money with them, are 'very negative.'?"

Bottom line: Wal-Mart knows it need not be liked in order to continue making money. That's why they have no qualms about:

• building stores that are a blight inside and out
• squeezing suppliers until they have to move manufacturing to China
• squeezing municipalities by demanding tax breaks and free land (only to then lease the free land to a Wendy's or Pay-Less Shoe Store and pocket the income)
• doing all they can to keep their employees on or below the poverty line by enforcing low wages and insufficient benefits leading to additional stress on state aid agencies, etc.

How bad is it? In Arkansas - Wal-Mart headquarters - Wal-Mart is NUMBER ONE in Children of employees on publicly-funded State Health Care programs.

Quoting a story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: "Georgia, Tennessee, Washington, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Connecticut have also reported that Wal-Mart employees, or their children are a disproportionately large share of their state health rolls."

More: "A 2002 Georgia state survey showed that 10,261 of the 166,000 children covered by PeachCare for Kids (a Georgia state health program) had a parent working at Wal-Mart. That’s 14 times the number for the next highest employer, Publix grocery store, with 734."

Now, is that just because Wal-Mart employs SO MANY people that the numbers are skewed? I'm afraid not: Wal-Mart claims to have similar health care coverage as other large retailers. That's just silly. A recent Harvard Business School study (2002) shows that Wal-Mart spent an average of $3,500 a year on health care for each employee, compared with $4,800 for the average retailer and $5,600 for the average U.S. company. In Tennessee these numbers are even worse, with 3,700 of Wal-Mart’s 9,617 employees, or 26%, on state aid (according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press)!

When you are the biggest employer in the country, these practices CAN and DO cost the taxpayer money, putting ENORMOUS pressure on state health care systems. Just "good business"? It's irresponsible and simply shameful.

And this is not to mention Wal-Mart suppliers. Decades-old companies that provided jobs for thousands of people in their communities are forced to close their domestic operations by Wal-Mart's demand that they CONSTANTLY lower their prices to meet Wal-Mart's internal goals. Now you can get that $75 air conditioner for $69 - - - meanwhile, 97 American workers at the air conditioner factory are out of work because the jobs had to be shipped overseas to meet the Wal-Mart price demand. (There's a pretty interesting story along those lines with very specific cases here.)

The products you think you're getting such a good deal on aren't so great anymore, either. THE WAL-MART EFFECT contains an instructive case history in the sad fate of the L.R. Nelson sprinkler company of Peoria, IL. Long story short: Got involved with Wal-Mart; forced to lower quality on products (plastic swapped for metal, etc.); then forced to move elements of production to China. Sturdy sprinklers are now a thing of the past, as whatever is speced by Wal-Mart also goes everywhere else (that's part of "the Wal-Mart effect"). Instead of spending $40 once every ten years on a good sprinkler, you spend $9.99 every summer on a piece of plastic garbage. That's value?

By the way, the L.R. Nelson Sprinkler Company will finish moving ALL production lines to China in the next two years. 450 former full-time workers - - who had benefits - - are on the street. Nelson President Dave Englinton does not beat around the bush: he blames the relocation and lost jobs on Wal-Mart. "Wal-Mart has said that they would love to buy from us because some of the product is [was] done in the United States, but the cost differential is so great that they told us that unless we supply them out of China, we couldn't do business."

More on the Wal-Mart blight:

The cost of doing business with Wal-Mart.

George F. Will - "Condescending lectures by liberals RE Wal-Mart"

What's wrong with having a Wal-Mart across the street?

FAST COMPANY: The Wal-Mart You Don't Know (the article that became the book THE WAL-MART EFFECT

Shoppes at Wyndham Village web site up

A placeholder until the official "fully interactive website" is ready - - see it here.

"Imagine carrying out your shopping errands at your favorite retailers and being able to meet friends for coffee and lunch at Franklin’s finest shopping experience."

I've seen the site plan. Imagine navigating an ocean of unabated asphalt, dodging cars on an 87-degree day while trying to get from Target to Starbucks on foot ...

Speaking of Target, who writes Carstensen's marketing copy?

"Target Corporation: The country’s second largest retailer has gained a reputation for providing for a wide variety of shopping needs."

Spine tingling!

Seriously - - say what you will about whether or not Target is "upscale," but the store has a lot more going for it than "a reputation for providing for a wide variety of shopping needs." Target has a unique style and flare within its market space that is heads and tales above, for instance, Wal-Mart.

Personal side note: Last week I needed a generic (and cheap) three-shelf bookcase and picked up a Target-branded product that sold for $19.99. My expectations were low, but so were my needs for that particular piece of furniture. This thing turned out to be a solid, very nicely designed piece that can be assembled without using a tool of any kind. I've paid twice as much in the past for half the quality, and I believe Target's store brand furniture is manufactured in the United States (North Carolina, to be exact).

So, even "home of great cheap bookshelves" would be an improvement, marketing copy-wise ...

Antoine Predock-designed Indian Community School of Wisconsin is a jewel

Architect Antoine Predock is responsible for some buildings I wouldn't personally call attractive (like, for instance, this one), but the Indian Community School in Franklin is simply outstanding.

See also Whitney Gould's 2004 article about the school's planning.

From Franklinnow.com:

Eye-catching Indian school nears completion

Officials view facility as a source of pride for local community

By John Neville
Staff Writer
Posted: July 25, 2007

A state-of-the-art school designed by an internationally renowned architect has set its sites on a Sept. 1 opening, even as the city of Franklin works out some final details concerning the campus.

On July 19, the Franklin Plan Commission approved a site plan amendment for Indian Community School of Wisconsin to add 12,773 square feet of playground for the soon-to-be-open school in the 10400 block of West St. Martins Road.

The pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade facility cost about $35 million to build.

Architectural wonder

The school, designed by New Mexico-based architect Antoine Predock, features four white pine trees from the Menominee Indian reservation as pillars. The 165,000-square-foot facility will also boast unique features such as metal beams in the ceiling near a main doorway to represent migratory paths of birds. There also will be a drum-shaped, 200-seat theater. A breakout classroom overlooks nearby wetlands.

Franklin Mayor Tom Taylor described the building as an architectural showpiece.

"We had the number one architect in the world design this building. For those of you that haven't been in the building yet, you will be utterly amazed and have a great sense of pride … in what has been built," he said.

A cornerstone-placing ceremony took place last September and was attended by Wisconsin First Lady Jessica Doyle. A time capsule with various artifacts and gifts was also sealed and installed at the now nearly complete school.

Preparing to move in

The old school, which has a student population of about 375 students and more than 30 teachers, is in its final days of operation in Milwaukee at 3121 W. State St.

Taylor said a coordination team has been assembled to inspect the new building before it opens.

"There's hundreds of items that need to be checked off a list, from fire suppression to building inspection things. Because it's a school, we really put it under a microscope," he said before the meeting.

City Building Inspector Frederick Baumgart said school administrators have targeted Wednesday, Aug. 1, as move-in day for the school's teaching staff.

The school will open about a month later.

Space to play with

Franklin Planning Manager Joel Dietl said school officials recently requested additional playground space as one final detail that differed from earlier plans for the campus.

"The area where (the school is) planning the playground would have been a parking lot so there would have been no impact on natural resources," Dietl said prior to the July 19 commission meeting. "It would have been resurfaced anyway."

Timothy Hayes, an engineering consultant who represented the school at the meeting, said school officials decided recently to request a second playground, which would include two basketball hoops.

The first playground was approved with the project's site plan in 2006.

John Neville can be reached at [email protected] or (262) 446-6609.

Wisconsin foreclosures way up

I would tend to blame adjustable rate mortgages much more than a soft resale market.

State foreclosures up 23 percent

The Business Journal of Milwaukee - July 10, 2007

The foreclosure rate on Wisconsin homes remained high throughout the first half of 2007, driven by rising interest rates and the soft housing market, an industry monitor reported Tuesday.

Wisconsin as a whole had 9,229 foreclosure filings in the first half of 2007, up nearly 23 percent compared with 2006, a year in which foreclosures jumped 34 percent, according to newly released data compiled by ForeclosuresWI.com, a provider of Wisconsin foreclosure resources and statistics.

Filings for the month of June 2007 were up more than 8 percent from May.

Milwaukee County foreclosure filings are nearly 48 percent higher compared with the first half of 2006. That's more than double the statewide increase.

Robert Jansen, president of ForeclosuresWI.com, said results were consistent with the growing number of mortgage defaults nationwide. He said a mix of rising interest rates are being compounded by adjustable-rate mortgages, creating staggering increases to many homeowners' monthly mortgage payments, Jansen said in a press release.

A cooling housing market is also making it difficult for homeowners to quickly sell their homes to avoid foreclosure, Jansen said. Subprime mortgage providers are also tightening their standards, eliminating refinancing options for troubled homeowners.

Raise fares, cut routes: Business as usual for Scott Walker

"The county has raised fares, cut service or both every year since 2000. One result is that transit ridership is dropping here while it's rising nationwide and in most other major cities."

Not a problem, of course, for people who have two cars in the garage and fixate on their property taxes. The Scott Walker solution seems to be: make the people with the smallest incomes pay more for less.

Perhaps gas prices need to go up even further so anti-transit and anti-light rail forces can begin to see what's ahead - - and what we're not nearly prepared for.

Plan ends routes, raises fares

By LARRY SANDLER
[email protected]

Posted: July 22, 2007

Milwaukee County would raise bus fares from $1.75 to $2, drop 13 bus routes and shorten 13 others, under the Milwaukee County Transit System's 2008 budget request.

Also, fares would rise from $3.25 to $4 on the Transit Plus vans that serve the county's disabled and frail elderly residents. And Transit Plus service would be sliced to the minimum allowed by the federal government, replacing the current countywide door-to-door service with service only in areas near the shrinking bus routes.

Together, the fare hikes and service cuts would drive down regular bus ridership by 16% and Transit Plus ridership by 8%, transit officials estimate.

Some bus riders said Sunday they were disappointed in the proposal.

"For me, I would be at a loss," said Joyce Kubiak as she got off the Route 64 bus at Southridge Mall Sunday afternoon. The 64, which generally runs along S. 60th St. from W. Greenfield Ave. to W. Grange Ave. before turning west to Southridge, is one of the routes proposed for elimination. She lives along the route and said, "I depend on it."

$2 fares
Fares would rise from $1.75 to $2 for adults who pay cash on the bus. Cash fares would rise from 85 cents to $1 for riders who are aged under 12 or over 64 or are disabled. Weekly passes and sheets of 10 tickets would stay at $16.

13 routes ended
Eliminated would be five regular routes, four Freeway Flyer routes, three school routes and an industrial park shuttle.

13 routes sliced
Shortened would be 11 regular routes and two Freeway Flyer routes. Service would be reduced or reorganized on several other routes.

Paratransit service cut
Instead of countywide door-to-door service, the Transit Plus van service for the frail elderly and disabled would run only within three-quarters of a mile of county bus routes. Transit Plus fares would rise from $3.25 to $4.

County Executive Scott Walker said he doesn't want to cut service, but everything would be on the table when he tries to balance the overall county budget before he sends it to the County Board in September. Through a spokesman, County Board Chairman Lee Holloway said he would fight to avoid either service cuts or fare hikes.

Although Walker and transit system Managing Director Anita Gulotta-Connelly said multiple factors - including rising employee and retiree health care costs - contributed to the proposed cuts, the budget request says the proposed $2.3 million spending reduction "is the result of significant service adjustments to meet targeted tax levy amounts." Gulotta-Connelly said the county budget office told the bus system to chop its property tax support by nearly $1 million, reflecting Walker's pledge to hold the line on property taxes.

Even worse times could be ahead. The proposed cuts would reduce service by 13%. But without new state or local funding, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission has warned the bus system could face a 35% service cut by 2010, when it exhausts a pool of federal aid for major maintenance on buses.

The bus system's plight led Walker, Holloway, Gulotta-Connelly and Mayor Tom Barrett to renew their calls for a new revenue source to take public transit off the property tax - and to speculate whether it would take a crisis to reach that goal.

"I do think we are on the edge of that crisis," Gulotta-Connelly said.

Holloway "feels the transit system is dying without a dedicated funding source," County Board spokesman Harold Mester said.

And Walker said he hoped the possible cuts and fare increases would spur the Legislature to act, adding, "Nothing else has worked thus far."

Milwaukee County is one of the only places in the nation where property taxes pay for buses, keeping the transit system in competition with other county agencies for tax dollars. But neither local officials nor legislators have reached a consensus on how to replace the levy.

Holloway wants the Legislature to authorize a new local sales tax for transit, as do some other supervisors and aldermen. But the board has yet to rally behind a transit sales tax; Walker opposes any new sales tax; and other supervisors and Barrett say new sales tax revenue should be shared with parks, public safety agencies or both.

Walker, meanwhile, wants the Legislature to shift part of the existing state sales tax on vehicle-related purchases into transportation, a concept vetoed several years ago by Gov. Jim Doyle. Barrett said that's not politically realistic and pointed out that no lawmaker has even raised the idea during deliberations on the 2007-'09 state budget. Walker retorted that no one has added a local sales tax to the state budget, and he doesn't think that's politically realistic, either.

As that debate has continued, the county has raised fares, cut service or both every year since 2000. One result is that transit ridership is dropping here while it's rising nationwide and in most other major cities. The transit system is expecting 2007 ridership to fall well short of its projected 47.7 million rides, the budget request says.

Walker said cutting bus routes would limit access to jobs and cutting paratransit van service would hit the elderly and disabled. By contrast, he said, "I don't like fare increases, but they're the least of my worries."

Gulotta-Connelly said the bus system had cut other spending, including a successful push in union contract talks to require transit employees and retirees to pay part of their health insurance premiums for the first time.

Alan J. Borsuk of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

Trees coming down fast and furious at Shoppes site

Could all of this just be a big misunderstanding?

Shoppes at Wyndham Village: More dancing around the UDO?

From the looks of the earth-movers setting up on the corner of Drexel and Hwy. 100, Shoppes at Wyndham Village is a go.

But ...

The minutes from the City of Franklin Special Plan Commission Meeting, May 31, 2007, seem to indicate that there are conditions on approval of the site plan that have not been met (my emphasis added below):

BUSINESS ITEMS: Mark E. Carstensen Developments, Inc. (Shoppes at Wyndham Village)

2. (Site Plan) To allow an up-scale, retail center called The Shoppes at Wyndham Village with approximately 251,000 square feet of commercial development consisting of eight (8) buildings on approximately 38.7 acres.

Commissioner Bennett moved and Alderman Skowronski seconded to recommend approving with conditions a Site Plan for the Shoppes at Wyndham Village Commercial Retail Center (Approximately 7700 to 7800 South Lovers Lane Road (USH 45/STH 100)) (MEC Holdings I, LLC, Applicant), in addition, with the conditions that the architectural plans and elevations are not approved hereof and must be returned to the Plan Commission for review and approval at a later date, and that the developer must receive all wetland permits and approvals from authorizing agencies. Upon roll call Alderman Skowronski and Commissioners Torres, Ritter, Bennett and Hanneman voted ‘aye.’ Commissioner Haley voted ‘no.’ Motion carried.

Today is July 17th, and earth-moving equipment and Porta-potties are being offloaded onto the development property.

Why is this interesting? Because it appears that Mark E. Carstensen Developments, Inc. still has some DNR permits outstanding.

I'm told that a I have in my possession a copy of the WDNR Water Quality Certification letter (also known as "the permit") that is dated June 12th. Once issued, as part of the permit condition, the developer must publish the certification  as public notice in the paper and send proof to the DNR that it was printed. Then a 30-day waiting period begins.

The public notice (certification) was published in the paper on June 28th. The WDNR permit/certification becomes effective after the 30 day period if there is no objection. For this certification/notice, the comment period will close July 28th. A contested case hearing was requested within that time period (the Milwaukee County Conservation Coalition is just one one group that has petitioned the DNR for a contested case hearing).

Is there follow-through on contingencies within resolutions like the ones we see in the Plan Commission minutes above? Can a developer begin grading on a site plan not yet approved?

Just another case where there needs to be far more transparency in the Franklin planning process.

The scene this morning at Drexel and Hwy. 100

Heavy machinery and Porta-potties have invaded the landscape. BUT - does the Shoppes at Wyndham Village have all of its permits? Stay tuned ...

Some folks just don't like sidewalks: "Farms are the back bone of all civilization. They dont have sidewalks."

An... interesting... comment left here at SPRAWLED OUT earlier today:

Farms are the back bone of all civilization. They dont have sidewalks. Some of us think that sidewalks devalue our property, increase taxes not ot mention the work to maintain them when we dont want the foot traffic they bring. I chose no sidewalks. you choose side walks. let compare property values. would you put them on both sides of the street or just one?
Would you have them lit up all night? would you like us to live in a box and have the goverment provide not only our health care but our life home and auto insurance? do you want to bus kids to schools that are better then where they live. There are no buses runnig where I live. I am free. you want me not to be.

Posted by: Ron Rady

And there you have it. Almost a poem.