Governor Signs Bill to Pave Way for Von Maur Project

Saying it would not shift jobs but create new ones, Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill Thursday giving the Town of Brookfield a never-before power to create a special taxing district to support the Von Maur retail and office redevelopment. 

"This is not about taking retail from one spot to another spot," Walker said, referring to from existing Blue Mound Road sites.

"It's about bringing retail into the entire area because  these developments attract shoppers from far beyond Wisconsin, from far beyond the region," he added.

Walker said cited information from the Marcus Corp. that its planned $100 million development would generate about 750 jobs — 350 in construction and 400 in retail and office after it opens. 

"Those are good jobs," he said, adding they counted toward his pledge to create 250,000 private-sector jobs by 2015.

 “We are focused on doing everything we can to make it easier for employers to do business and put more people to work, and this TIF district is another tool for job creation," he added.

Walker credited town officials and the bill's sponsors, including state senators Rich Zipperer and Randy Hopper and state representatives Paul Farrow and Mary Williams.

Among those on hand for the bill signing were Town Chairman Keith Henderson, Town Supervisor Mike Maxwell, Town Administrator Rick Czopp, Greg Marcus of the Marcus Corp. and  Carol White, president of the Brookfield Area Chamber of Commerce.

Under tax increment financing, increased property taxes paid for the new construction is diverted from the budgets of schools, county, technical college and town, and used instead to pay for public improvements within the development, such as new roads, sewer and water lines and in this project, a possible new water tower. Once the public improvements are paid, the increased tax revenue is shared with the local governments and school districts. 

Towns are only allowed to create TIF districts for environmental cleanup projects. Only villages and cities are allowed to create such tax districts for redevelopment.

Senate Bill 21, which Walker signed into law Thursday, authorizes just the Town of Brookfield to create a TIF district for just the Poplar Creek redevelopment project at the I-94 interchange at Barker Road.

However, the governor said he would be willing to consider giving all towns the economic tool, if state lawmakers were interested in pursuing that.

The planned project — approved conceptually Tuesday by the Town Plan Commission — will raze the former Menards, Marcus Corp. West Point Cinemas, Applebees and West Point Plaza shopping center and build a $100 million open-air retail and office complex to be anchored by a Von Maur department store. 

call for about eight buildings totaling 614,000 square feet with more than 1,000 underground parking spaces built into a sloping hill between Menards and the West Point shopping center.

The project has , who objected to the state giving the town special power to create a TIF district. City leaders have said the new complex would steal tenants from existing city and town shopping centers and Brookfield Square mall. They have argued Von Maur should instead be built at the mall as a new anchor store, but Boston Store has objected to that idea.

Here are of the area where the project would be built.