A large Oak Creek development site just south of Mitchell International Airport has been purchased by the city.
The City of Oak Creek paid $2.3 million for six parcels, totaling 40 acres, south of East College Avenue and east of South Howell Avenue.
The site was sold by an affiliate of Denver-based development firm Bradbury Cos. That’s according to a deed posted online by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue on April 17.
The city bought the site after Bradbury’s development plans languished, said Kristi Laine, Oak Creek community development director.
“This is a very prominent City gateway and owning it allows the City to control the end user,” Laine wrote in an email to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“Bradbury was struggling to develop the land,” Laine said, “so the City took advantage of the opportunity to step in and purchase the land.”
Bradbury had controlled the site since 2019.
The Oak Creek Common Council in 2023 approved plans for a manufacturing building to be leased to American Industrial Motor Service, which planned to move to Oak Creek from Milwaukee. But that project didn’t advance.
The council vote came after the Plan Commission recommended against a manufacturing use on the property, with some officials saying that use wasn’t appropriate there.
Mayor Dan Bukiewicz supported the proposal, saying it included plans to clean up the site’s environmental contamination.
Bradbury didn’t respond to the Journal Sentinel’s inquiry about the sale.
The site was targeted in 2012 for a 107-room Four Points Sheraton Hotel.
But that plan was dropped, and the land was deeded in lieu of foreclosure by a Chicago-area investors group to Morton Community Bank before being sold to the Bradbury affiliate.
Tom Daykin can be emailed at tdaykin@jrn.com and followed on Instagram, Bluesky, X and Facebook.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Plans fell through on Oak Creek development site. So, city buys it
Reporting by Tom Daykin, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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