Cindy Hein has spent the last 27 years creating, repairing, and selling custom leather merchandise in her shop Heinsight Leather in the Wauwatosa Village. Located on Harwood Avenue, the small boutique is one of dozens of specialty stores, restaurants and coffee shops that makes the charming neighborhood a destination for visitors and residents alike.
From her shop on Harwood Avenue, Hein has weathered a three-year-long street construction project and the economic hit COVID-19 delivered to local businesses. She hopes to keep doing the work she loves until she physically can’t any longer.
But developments that are proposed for the area make Hein wonder how businesses like hers will fare with construction and more competition for parking spaces.
“I’ve seen a lot of changes, but this one to me is just out of control,” Hein said. “Too much, too fast, especially if there’s going to be three projects going on at the same time.”
Hein’s concerns are among many expressed by business owners and residents about proposed developments and the effects they could have on the Village experience. Two development firms are at different stages in the process for the city to approve two respective apartment building projects and another parcel has plans for the development of three luxury condos.
Three significant developments proposed for the Village area of Wauwatosa
At the city-owned Blanchard Street parking lot, the Mandel Group has gained initial approval in the first of many public meetings seeking approval to build the 157-unit Harlow & Hem apartment building. The project first was chosen by the city in 2020 in a request for proposals at the parking lot. Developers later put the development plans on hold due to increased project costs.
About 600 feet to the north, developer Three Leaf Partners announced in April it would buy the St. Bernard parish building from the church. Three Leaf is now working on revised designs for a 163-unit apartment building after community members and the Design Review Board turned down initial plans.
And on the west end of the Village, at 7746 Menomonee River Parkway, Wauwatosa’s Community Development Authority will close a sale in June with an LLC owned by Joseph Galbraith of Galbraith Carnahan Architects to redevelop the lot into three condos, according to the city’s development website. The condos are listed for sale for almost $1.4 million on Zillow.
The new developments would bring hundreds more residents to the area and support the city’s tax base. They also would fill a demand for multi-family housing Wauwatosa highlighted in Wauwatosa’s 2023 Housing Study and Needs Assessment.
Concerns raised by business owners and residents
Some business owners and residents, however, have doubts about the developments. Residents have showed up to Wauwatosa public meetings en masse asking developers to change their designs to match the historic Village’s aesthetic, ensure buildings have affordable units, or scrap them entirely.
Business owners like Hein are dreading the thoughts of construction from two developments being built at once in the retail area where it’s already a challenge to find parking.
“The people who are impacted most will be the customers coming in here to support us,” Hein said. “Let’s face it, (if they drive) round and round and round and can’t find a place to park, they’re going to say ‘let’s go somewhere else.’”
Both apartment projects could be built at the same time
If both apartment projects are approved, Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride said constructing both at once would bring less disruption to the area.
“Some people use the term ‘ripping the Band-Aid off,'” he said. “There’s always disruption when any project is built, that’s something that can’t be avoided.”
Businesses on Harwood Avenue would be impacted the most, he said. The city would make sure there are signs to direct people to the many other parking options in the area, he said.
“The Village has lots of parking, it’s just not where people expect it to be,” McBride said.
Laura Hanson, who lives about a block and a half north of the Village with her husband and their 2-year-old child, worries the new developments won’t provide enough public parking or affordable housing.
Getting to the village is already more challenging for her husband Ryan, who has a form of cerebral palsy that impacts the mobility in his legs. There are few accessible parking spots in the area as it is, she said, and distance and uneven terrain with construction would make it harder for him to get around the area.
Mandel Group plans 98 public parking spots, replacing the current public spots that would be developed on one-to-one. Hanson, like some residents and business owners the Journal Sentinel spoke to, said residents at either multi-family development and their visitors would take up those spots.
Hanson wonders how these developments will shape her community for the next forty to sixty and hopes to see more forward thinking in the planning.
“I just hope when developers are building these cash cows that they’re also thinking about meeting the needs of residents, and that’s people like me, people like my husband,” she said.
Wauwatosa city staff worked with a consulting firm to conduct a parking study on the current parking conditions in the Village to inform recommendations for future planning. The report is still being finalized and results may be included on a Transportation Affairs Committee agenda in the next month, according to Eva Ennamorato, the city’s communications manager.
Some Village business owners want better outreach from developers
As both multi-family apartment proposals go through different processes for city approvals, some business owners in the Village wish for better community engagement and communication from developers.
Four generations of Jim Niemann’s family have worked at Niemann’s Homemade Candies and Ice Cream, 7475 Harwood Ave., since the business opened in Wauwatosa in 1919. Niemann now owns the candy shop and Anodyne Coffee’s building at 7475 Harwood Ave., which sits between the proposed Mandel Group and Three Leaf Partners developments.
Niemann said he was on board with the first Mandel Group development plans that included townhouses and apartments because the previous management team communicated and worked closely with him. He said he didn’t hear from the developer about the latest plans until mid-May, when he scheduled a meeting with Phillip Aiello, the president and COO of the Mandel Group.
After that meeting, “I got a much better feeling on the grasp of the project,” Niemann said May 22.
Niemann hopes the developers will consult with local business owners who border both proposed developments throughout the process and when plans change. Next to Anodyne Coffee, which includes the alleyway where Niemann’s business currently puts its trash and a residential home, is where Mandel Group has proposed to build its surface public parking lot for Harlow & Hem.
“The good news is we have time,” he said, adding that he thinks construction on both projects wouldn’t start until spring 2025 after the candy shops’ busy seasons for the Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Easter holidays.
Next door to Niemann’s at Draft & Vessel, 7479 Harwood Ave., owner Nat Davauer is concerned about the prospect of Harlow & Hem’s apartment building wall being too close to the craft beer bar’s patio. Niemann’s and Anodyne Coffee also have patio seating in that area.
Davauer understands to an extent what it’s like to be a developer because he designed his business’s building. But he said the backyard space is a major reason why his customers choose to come to Draft & Vessel.
“The last thing I want is for my product, which is my experience, to be compromised by someone else,” Davauer said.
Aiello of the Mandel Group said in a Wauwatosa Plan Commission meeting that his team is looking into including more space between the patio and the apartment after hearing community feedback about the proposed proximity to the Draft & Vessel patio.
Aiello told the Journal Sentinel that once the Mandel Group resumed plans for Harlow & Hem, he approached board members of the Village BID to show the latest proposal. Now, he plans to do more one-on-one calls and visits with business owners in the area.
“We are at the beginning stages of the approval process, and we will be reaching out to them to present the development to them and hear their feedback,” Aiello said.
Wauwatosa residents wish to see more community space in the Village
Other business owners say they want to see developments in the Wauwatosa Village include space for the community, not just prospective new residents, to enjoy.
At the Design Review Board meeting in April, community members implored Three Leaf Partners to change the proposed enclosed green space designed for the apartments at the St. Bernard space to include space that anyone in the Village can use.
Three Leaf Partners did not respond to a request for an interview before this story was published.
Executive board members of the Village of Wauwatosa Business Improvement District, or BID, wrote a letter in support of the initial development proposal ― with the enclosed green space ― because of Three Leaf’s “willingness to assist us in the activation of the (city-owned) pocket park adjacent to the property,” the letter said.
Chris Barlow, the executive director of the Wauwatosa Village BID, said the BID Board chose to write the letter because of where Three Leaf Partners was in the process of getting the development off the ground. Since that development was a private purchase, it did not have nearly as many meetings to go through as the Mandel Group proposal.
Barlow said the BID is interested in businesses coming in that will bring more people to the Village, including housing developments.
“When it comes to housing, we’re interested in discerning do the businesses coming in fit into the Village from an aesthetic standpoint” and analyzing how the business will affect traffic, he said.
As new executive director, Barlow said the BID’s next goal is to work with the city and businesses to come up with a comprehensive strategic long-term plan for the area.
Tosa business owner says Village needs more space for businesses to grow
Mark Bauer, who co-owns The Flannel Fox at 7602 Harwood Ave. with his wife Melyssa Bauer, said the Village needs more space and opportunities for new retail and for current businesses like his own.
“Our spot is a little too small for us and we would love to expand but we would want to stay in the Village … but there’s no place for us to even go,” he said. “So if our business grows and we want to move somewhere, it probably won’t be here.”
Dan Bieser, the owner of Tabal Chocolate, 7515 Harwood Ave., said people come to the Village for the small retail experiences. He wants to see apartment developments incorporate ground floor retail space with affordable rents for small businesses and the residents.
Bieser thinks development groups could learn from the fair-trade methods used in Tabal’s cacao bean sourcing to make chocolate. Developers can approach their housing projects by listening to the community’s needs and enriching the area with more green spaces and bike trails, he said, “instead of just taking the money and getting richer.”
The Mandel Group’s Harlow & Hem project will have a public hearing at the Common Council meeting Tuesday, June 18 at 7:30 p.m. Meanwhile, Three Leaf Partners will return to the Design Review Board at a date not yet determined.
Contact the reporter at bfogarty@gannett.com