The City of Milwaukee announced in early April that the Chinese investment group who owns Northridge Mall has until the end of April to tear it down because of safety concerns.
Northridge Mall. If you grew up in the 1970s or ’80s in Milwaukee, you’ll remember this sprawling, 800,000-square-foot shopping center, which largely defined Granville and Brown Deer on the city’s Northwest Side. But if you didn’t grow up back then, you likely won’t even remember when or why Northridge shut down. That’s because Granville—the area where the old Northridge Mall is located—is often overlooked and forgotten by much of Milwaukee.
Once a retail paradise, Granville has since fallen prey to online shopping and the movement of industry jobs to Milwaukee suburbs. Add to this the fact that the city just announced that the Chinese investment group who owns Northridge Mall has until the end of April to tear it down because of safety concerns. If Black Spruce Enterprise, who originally planned to renovate the space, doesn’t tear it down, the city will.
Despite all this, however, city leaders—along with a newly invigorated Business Improvement District (BID)—are making sure Granville stays relevant. One of their goals is to create an entrepreneurial hub for local individuals and businesses to learn and grow. But this isn’t the only thing the district has accomplished lately; add beautification, an uptick in safety and a focus on workforce training to the list of things Milwaukee and the Granville BID are doing to try to mold this area back to what it once was. The area is also growing in popularity and relevance due to the work of a popular jazz festival and monthly jazz pop-up events at abandoned parking lots and storefronts that used to be home to retail stores that have long since disappeared.
“The whole idea is to bring people back in, get that name out there and get people to realize that this area is not still waiting for something to happen anymore,” said an enthusiastic Mary Hoehne, Granville BID’s executive director. “It can never be the way it was in the past because of what’s happened in retail, but there’s no reason it can’t look like a very vibrant area.”
Photo credit: Granville Business Improvement District
The Granville BID hosts an annual outdoor Car, Truck & Bike Spectacular in late September that includes a car show, live music and food trucks.
A BID for the Neighborhood’s Future
Milwaukee has the highest concentration of BIDs per capita compared to anywhere else in the nation. The Granville BID, created in 2012, is a sprawling, commercially zoned district located generally along West Brown Deer and Good Hope roads between 60th and 95th streets. The Granville BID has 384 manufacturers, merchants, car dealerships and professional businesses. There are also currently approximately 39,000 Granville residents who call it home and another 38,000 who call it their workday home.
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The Granville BID has five main goals in its 2019 operating plan: beautification, safety, economic growth, marketing and community outreach. Hoehne said all five of these goals are being met. It now has regularly mowed lawns in the medians, and flowers can be seen there in the summertime. The BID has its own private security unit that monitors the businesses in the area, and it is also working on marketing the area for stores and businesses who might want to open (or reopen) there. But the city and Granville BID are also constantly working at reaching out to the community and increasing employment opportunities for area residents.
Kenneth Little—the City of Milwaukee’s neighborhood business development manager—essentially watches over Milwaukee’s 31 BIDs. He says the city recently did an area plan for Granville, adding that bringing back all of the businesses that were once located in Granville is very unlikely, as the “retail apocalypse” is here. “The era of the mall is over, so to bring something like that back on the retail end is just not going to happen,” Little says. Ninth District Alderperson Chantia Lewis mirrors these concerns. “We can’t wait on big boxes or big chains to ‘come in and save the day.’ We have to start right here in our backyard with our own people,” she says.
This is where Granville decided to get creative. With hubs like the Sherman Phoenix opening up just miles away, Little, Hoehne, Lewis and the Granville BID decided that it was time something like that finally came to their neighborhood. As a result, some of them took a 1,000-mile trip to DeSoto, Texas, to visit Grow DeSoto—a business incubator started in a vacant store. That’s where they got the idea for the “Granville Connection,” which they envision as a space for entrepreneurs and small businesses to gain a foothold and grow across the city.
‘We Are Talking About Cultivating Business’
The goal is to convert the old JoAnn Fabrics building (8633 W. Brown Deer Road) into a space for an open-air mall environment that will attract foot traffic. They envision it mirroring the Grow DeSoto Marketplace, which is now home to nearly 50 businesses. A public-private partnership, Grow DeSoto offers low rent and utilities for growing businesses. Ideas for businesses for Granville’s space include everything from designers and retailers to fitness gurus and coffee lovers. There would be room for 30 businesses, four to five restaurants and pop-up businesses as well.
Ald. Lewis also envisions many job training opportunities. “Not only having [businesses] come in, but we are also talking about cultivating business,” she says, “and helping them understand this is the grist of what a business looks like.” The goal is for businesses to move in and have the opportunity to grow at other locations across the city. Other positives for businesses inside the space include reduced rent and utilities, easy access to major thoroughfares and the freeway system and access to mentorship opportunities. Little envisions the space to also mirror Sherman Phoenix (which opened last year in Sherman Park) adding that it’s important to put entrepreneurs “in a visible location.”
The BID and the city are currently looking at funding sources for the JoAnn Fabrics space, as they will need to renovate both the inside and outside of the location. Possible funding could come from the BID itself, the Department of City Development and/or grants. They are also looking at other funding sources, including private donations. However, the dream for this opportunity is increasingly looking more like a reality.
“How can we invest so that the third-grader who’s living in Granville right now, the people who are underserved—10 or 15 years from now—get jobs in Granville and buy homes in Granville?” Hoehne says. “That’s our hope.”
