IKEA announcement highlights a Tale of Two Cities

This morning, the City of Oak Creek, along with IKEA officials, confirmed rumors all week that the popular retailer was finally coming to Wisconsin with a store along the 27th Street Corridor. IKEA will anchor another Oak Creek mega project, this time developed by Northwestern Mutual's real estate arm, which could include up to 100 acres of land between 27th Street and I-94 along Drexel Avenue. This also expands Oak Creek's "downtown" area westward on Drexel to its border with Franklin.

While a huge victory for Oak Creek, and surely receiving praise from many IKEA lovers in the southern suburbs for being so close to their homes, this project is yet another stab in the gut to Franklin's economic development woes continuing onward since Mayor Olson took office. At this morning's press conference, Oak Creek Mayor Steve Scaffidi touted that this project will bring Oak Creek's new development to the $500 million mark.

So, while Oak Creek was landing a half a billion in new development projects, what has happened in Franklin?

In 2014, Mayor Olson announced to the city that he had $330 million in future development proposals - a business park along the 27th Street Corridor, a mixed use project near 116th St & Loomis Road, and the project now known as the Ballpark Commons project. Thanks to Olson's apparent love of political discourse, he subsequently alienated a chunk of the Common Council and doubled down with a heavy focus on just the business park. This, among other issues, helped create a division between the Mayor and Council that has yet to heal, and likely never will.

At the time, the Journal Sentinel highlighted the situation as "dueling development initiatives" - the Council favored the concept that became Ballpark Commons versus Mayor Olson's business park. Several aldermen felt strongly (some still do) that Franklin deserves a solid retail and dining push, and acknowledge the possibilities of The Rock becoming a strong destination draw for outdoor and sports enthusiasts. Meanwhile, the Mayor aligned with Franklin Business Park developer MLG and argued that more business parks (that likely will be full of warehouses) - not retailers - was necessary for Franklin's future.

In addition, recent social media backlash about the fear of apartments and their assumed undesirables has placed the only project of Olson's 2014 future developments, Ballpark Commons, in a continued struggle to win approvals at City Hall.

These continued battles has all but stalled Franklin's economic development arm. And this has led to Franklin's neighbors reaping the rewards. Not only is Oak Creek touting half a billion in new development, but Greenfield recently finalized approvals of their 84South development along Layton Avenue, Greendale is adding a luxury Marcus theater and apartments to Southridge, Muskego is working on rehabbing its Parkland Mall site, and New Berlin is continuing its work on creating a strong retail and business corridor at I-43 and Moorland Road.

This is why allies of the Mayor have to keep creating Kayla's Playground controversies and dividing the public against their aldermen - because the real story here is the lack of moving Franklin forward in anything else.