The loser here is the big retailer - they want the Grafton market more than Grafton needs a bunch of minimum wage jobs. Menards will be back.
Also, I sense there is other information at play (in terms of demands made by Menards) that didn't make it into the story.
From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
Menards drops Grafton plans
Company cites village requests
By LAWRENCE SUSSMAN
[email protected]Posted: Aug. 20, 2007
Grafton - Menards has dropped plans to build a warehouse store at the east end of Grafton near the I-43 / Highway 60 interchange, saying village officials insisted on too many changes in the company's plans, a Menards official said Monday.
"We just went as far as we could go revising the plans, and finally we said it wasn't worthwhile," said Marv Prochaska, the company's vice president of real estate. "At some point, you have to operate your business, and it was beyond the point where the deal made any sense.
"It was just numerous, numerous small things that all added up to way too much, and it just didn't make any sense," he said.
This would have been the first store in Ozaukee County for Eau Claire-based Menards. Prochaska declined to say whether Menards was considering other sites in the county.
The Menards complex was to be on 18 acres on the east side of Port Washington Road about one-quarter mile south of Highway 60. The complex would have been just south of a Home Depot-Target complex.
Menards had proposed constructing a primary store with 162,340 square feet, with an additional 40,608 square feet of storage next to the building in what a Menards officials described as an enclosed structure. An unheated warehouse building, with 26,420 square feet, was to be located on the east side of the site.
Village President James Brunnquell said Monday that Menards wanted outdoor storage, something Grafton does not permit. He also had objected to the number of openings to Port Washington Road that Menards had requested.
In addition, he said, Grafton officials had wanted adequate screening for the Hunter's Crossing subdivision on the other side of Port Washington Road and west of the Menards complex.
"For them," Brunnquell said, "it was a business decision, which just didn't quite meet with the requirements of the village and for that area.
"They're a quality company, but we have the ability to demand quality standards, and our residents expect us to hold to those standards."
Nevertheless, plan commissioners - including Brunnquell - reacted favorably to the initial Menards plans at a July 24 meeting.
"It was the consensus of the commission that this was a good start, and the overall building is very nice," the commission minutes said.
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