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Two Dane County rural areas are among 12 in Wisconsin that have been recommended for designation by the state as agricultural enterprise areas. The 12 areas cover nearly 200,000 acres that include vegetable farms, traditional dairies, poultry operations and organic farms. All 12 petitions submitted to the state’s Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection received the recommendation. The agricultural enterprise designation is part of the state’s Working Lands Initiative. The designation does not control land use, but helps a community promote the future viability of existing agriculture and agriculture-related business. “This really is huge,” said town of Windsor chair Alan Harvey. “When one looks at development pressure in Dane County, a community like Windsor really is at ground zero in terms of the whole issue of farmland preservation.” The Windsor AEA designates 11,135 acres for protection against non-farming development. The other Dane County area to receive the designation was 11,075 acres in the town of Dunn. Once an area is designated as an AEA, farmers owning land in the area may become eligible for tax credits for farmland preservation. Other areas to receive the recommendation include 15,390 acres in four communities in Jefferson County and 22,162 acres in the town of La Prairie in Rock County. Harvey said the AEA designation doesn’t just help the owners of the lands, but the businesses related to those agricultural areas. “Farming has greatly changed, they make exceptionally major investments in facilities, land, grain storage,” he said. “They need the assurance, the safeguard of knowing they have a future in that area, that they’re not going to be crowded out by non-agriculture activities in that area.” In a press release, DATCP said the areas will receive their official designation on or before Jan. 1.

The state has chosen its Department of Administration building at 101 E. Wilson St. for a new Downtown train station to facilitate the city's planned redevelopment of a multi-block area, officials said Thursday. More detailed preliminary designs and a cost estimate for the station should be available by the end of this month, state officials said. The design phase for the station can quickly move forward now that the state has selected a site. The historic state office building at 1 W. Wilson St. had also been under consideration, but 101 E. Wilson St. supported the priorities expressed by the public at two workshops last week, Gov. Jim Doyle said at a press conference at Monona Terrace. Doyle said using an existing structure will save on costs. The state plans to maintain its offices on the upper floors for now but will likely have to move some offices on the first floor. An existing cafeteria with a balcony that overlooks Lake Monona could be integrated into the station plan. The state estimates spending upwards of $9 million on the Madison station, but Doyle acknowledged "there's going to have to be some city resources that go into it." Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said the city will soon seek a master developer for a two-block area across Wilson Street from the station site on what is now the dilapidated Government East parking ramp.

The planned high-speed train line running between the state's two largest cities will drop off its passengers here at the Department of Administration building, Gov. Jim Doyle said Thursday. The announcement came after Doyle reversed himself in May and rejected the Dane County airport as the site for Madison's future high-speed rail station, saying instead it should be placed by the shore of Lake Monona just two blocks from the Capitol. The Administration building is just a few doors down from Monona Terrace at 101 E. Wilson St. Doyle said using the existing state building, which backs up against the train tracks for the planned line and includes a first-floor cafeteria with a terrace, would provide amenities to travelers and hold down what are still undisclosed costs for the station. The station will need to be ready by 2013 if rail service is to begin that year as planned. Doyle said only a few state workers will need to be moved from the Administration building. After an award of $810 million in federal funds, state officials are proceeding with plans to re-establish rail service between the state's two largest cities for the first time in decades. But they have faced sharp criticism from opponents of the train. Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann, who are seeking the Republican nomination to succeed Doyle, have said they oppose the line as a boondoggle and waste of largely federal tax money.

Hobbled by a national recession that brought the housing market to a near standstill, the developer of the Union Corners property on Madisons East Side on Monday turned ownership of the site over to a group affiliated with its lender. Todd McGrath of McGrath Associates said the property was relinquished in lieu of foreclosure and emphasized that the mortgage holder, M&I Bank of Milwaukee, never sued to take possession.

The proposed Union Corners redevelopment project from McGrath Associates is officially dead, with lender M&I Bank taking title to the site at the corner of East Washington Avenue and Milwaukee Street. Todd McGrath of McGrath Associates said the property was relinquished “in lieu of foreclosure” and emphasized that the mortgage holder, M&I Bank of Milwaukee, never sued to take possession. McGrath had proposed building condominiums and commercial space on the 11.5 acres at East Washington Avenue and Milwaukee Street. The city chipped in with $4.9 million tax increment financing — which later expired — and public improvements including a roundabout and street extension. But by the time the plan was finalized in early 2007, a national housing downturn that McGrath termed a “depression” had begun and prospects for the site’s development were dim. “The city committed to over $5 million,” McGrath said. “That doesn’t help you if you don’t have the comfort that the buyers and renters are out there.” Messages left with M&I Tuesday night were not immediately returned. Over the last two years, CVS has shown interest in building a pharmacy there and the Ho-Chunk Nation expressed interest in building a museum and health care center on the site. Earlier this year, the city considered buying the property itself. Ald. Marsha Rummel, whose 6th District includes the property, said Ho-Chunk and other investors remain interested in the property and what neighbors would really like to see there is a grocery.

A listening session to gain community input on Phase 2 of the Allied Drive Redevelopment to single-family houses will be held Wednesday, June 30, from 5-6:30 p.m. at the Boys and Girls Club, located at 4619 Jenewein Road in Fitchburg. Please come and share your thoughts with Melissa Destree of Destree Design Architects and Community Development Authority (CDA) staff as the CDA begins working on how the new houses in Phase 2 of the Allied Redevelopment project will look. Everyone is welcomed to come and have their voice be heard.

I was sitting at the city's financial board meeting on Monday, jotting a few notes on my writing pad, when Mayor Dave Cieslewicz suddenly broke out into a vehement speech. "I would not like to place this on file without prejudice. I'd like to place with on file with extreme prejudice. I think this is a very bad idea," he said. The topic in question? What I had thought would be a relatively minor item related to the city-county squabble on moving to a quarterly, rather than biannual, property tax payment system. The change from two payments to four payments has the possibility of shifting about $200,000 in interest and penalties from delinquent payments to the city from the country, and this item would have restored that balance more or less. But, the finance board opted to place the item on file (essentially killing it, although the council has to vote, as well) rather than return those funds to the county after Cieslewicz gave an impassioned speech that he called a "teachable moment on our relationship with the county." Cieslewicz spoke for about five minutes about his frustrations with the county, which I assume have built up for awhile, "disinvesting" in things like community services and infrastructure. While the city has increased its community services funding by 46 percent in recent years, not including major capital projects like the Villager Mall, the county has only increased them 14 percent, he said. The county also does not contribute to Rhythm and Booms, which brings many people from outside Madison to Warner Park, or the Overture Center, despite having two county appointees on the Madison Cultural Arts District board.

Construction spending declined in May as residential building fell after a popular homebuyers' tax credit expired. The report comes after government data released last month showed sales of new and previously-owned homes fell sharply in May. The federal government's tax credit for homebuyers expired April 30. The renewed slump in housing indicates that the sector's recovery earlier this year was almost totally dependent on government incentives.

A new electric transmission line started moving power through Dane County on Wednesday. The six-mile, 138-kilovolt line runs from Fitchburg to Verona and cost $18.8 million to build, said American Transmission Co. The route follows Fish Hatchery Road south, from a new substation built just north of Irish Lane; travels west on Adams Road; northwest on Hwy. M and connects to a substation in Verona at Hwys. PB and M. The new line will reinforce the transmission system in Dane County, said Charlie Gonzalez, ATC local relations representative. "The new line can better accommodate electric load growth in the community, and it creates an alternate path for electricity to flow in the event of an outage on another portion of the network," Gonzalez said, in a written statement. It is one of seven ATC projects to shore up the transmission system in the Madison area, including the planned 32-mile, 345-kilovolt line from Rockdale, in eastern Dane County, west to the Middleton area.

This is hardly the kind of news that will encourage companies to hire more workers or offer pay raises to the workers they still have. But a growing number of national experts are now predicting the U.S. economy will slip back into recession. (A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP, the value of all goods and services created by the economy). With federal stimulus dollars slowing and one-time consumer incentives like the homebuyer tax credit and "Cash for Clunkers" expiring, things are not looking very rosy. The stock market is now down for the year and it's rare for the S&P 500 to rally after being in the red numbers at the end of June. More Americans are actually saving money these days instead of buying a lot of junk they don't need. That will not help an economy rooted in mindless consumer consumption. Given those realities, there's a feeling among many economists that we're in the midst of a tremendous cleaving -- rather than the usual ups and downs of the business cycle. "One of the greatest risks to investors here is the temptation to form investment expectations based on the behavior of the U.S. stock market and economy over the past three or four decades," warns John Hussman in a posting today at Seeking Alpha.

The City of Fitchburg could save almost $1 million after bids for the new Fitchburg Public Library were approved at the last city council meeting. The Fitchburg City Council unanimously approved 10 of the 11 sealed bids for the new library at Tuesday’s meeting. Collectively, the bids came back at about $8.96 million. "Because of the favorable bids that we got, the total cost of the project is still coming in under the $10 million budget if we don't use all of the contingency, and that includes the geothermal," Mayor Jay Allen said. "The board and all the people working on this have done an incredible job to make this happen and to make it happen within the budget." Because of a technicality with the submission process, the 11 th contract, for about $400,000 worth of landscaping, did not have a bidder and will be rebid. But that is not expected to slow down the opening of the building, set for spring or summer of 2011. J.P. Cullen Construction will have the largest project, the site preparation, structural and enclosure work for the project. Its bid came in at 17.6 percent less than the construction manager’s estimate, at about $4.3 million. Tri-North builders will manage the carpentry work at a cost of about $946,000. City official said extra mill work is required for this part of the project, which caused Tri-North's bid to be 72.5 percent higher than the construction manager's estimate.

Dane County has balked at a state deadline for its participation in a state long-term care program for the elderly and disabled, adding a potential $6 million hole to a program still struggling to get off the ground. Susan Crowley, long-term care administrator in the state Department of Health Services, said the current state budget was passed with the assumption that Dane County would join Family Care in early 2011. That timeline was based on Dane County deciding by July 1 whether the agency that would run the program here would be public or private. Family Care was first created in 1998 to eliminate waiting lists for those who receive services through a Medicaid waiver program. In March, Dane County had 310 eligible adults receiving no services and 469 developmentally disabled adults waiting for housing services. For years Dane County has been hesitant to join the program, but the Legislature approved $6 million in revenue in its current biennial budget if the county joined in early 2011, according to Legislative Fiscal Bureau program supervisor Charles Morgan. That amount is part of $19.6 million the county must contribute in the first year that it joins the program and would have been included in the next biennial budget. After five years it would gradually decline to $3.9 million, far less than the $17.6 million the county spent in 2009 on long-term care. Crowley remains hopeful that discussions with the county will encourage them to join. The county will be under more pressure to join Family Care by the end of 2013, when the federal Medicaid waiver grant that currently funds the county's long-term care programs expires.

There’s good news for tavern owners worried about the start of Wisconsin’s statewide smoke-free law next week. A new report from Washington state proves getting the smoke out isn’t just good for health; it’s also good for business. The report, published in the July edition of the journal Preventing Chronic Disease and highlighted by the Centers for Disease Control, found taxable retail sales for bars and taverns increased in the two years after Washington state went smoke-free. Researchers analyzed 24 quarters of inflation-adjusted receipts during 2002-2007, before and after the state went smokefree, and found revenue, “grew significantly” in the two years after going smoke-free. In fact, bar revenue was $105.5 million higher than expected. “This study is more proof that going smoke-free works,” said Maureen Busalacchi, Executive Director of SmokeFree Wisconsin. “Not only does going smoke-free improve public health by reducing the risk for cancer, heart disease and chronic respiratory illness, it also improves business. Getting the smoke-out could open businesses up to welcoming in new patrons while keeping the long-time customers. We’re confident Wisconsin’s experience will be similarly positive to that of Washington’s.” Pete Hanson, Government Relations Director for the Wisconsin Restaurant Association, says this report is among dozens of similar studies showing smoke-free laws do not harm business. He says the WRA is proud it supported the statewide law.

The Village Board, during a special meeting Wednesday night, voted 7-0 to annex the remaining town of Bristol after an overwhelming majority of residents, 402-35, favored annexation in Tuesday’s referendum. As a result of the Village Board’s vote, the town of Bristol and its corresponding government was dissolved. The two governments had been operating side by side for about half a year. Today, Village Clerk Amy Klemko will submit copies of the approved ordinance, the certificate of the referendum vote and the village plat to Kenosha County Circuit Court and the Register of Deeds office. The documents will also be submitted to the Wisconsin secretary of state for acknowledgement. The board’s vote occurred in a matter of minutes, but it was really the culmination of at least five decades of work that began with then-Town Board Chairman Earl Hollister, said Village Board president Richard Gossling after the meeting. In that time, the board made two attempts at incorporation before successfully incorporating Wednesday night.

Aurora Health Care announced that it will open its new Grafton hospital on Nov. 1.The 520,000-square-foot building is under construction northwest of I-43 and Highway 60. It will have 107 beds. About 600 people will work at the hospital. Milwaukee-based Aurora says the Grafton hospital will provide integrated care for residents throughout the greater Ozaukee County area. “More than half of the residents of Grafton and the many surrounding communities are already choosing Aurora for their health care,” said Len Wilk, chief administrative officer of Aurora Medical Center in Grafton. “Hundreds of Aurora Health Care and Aurora Advanced Healthcare doctors are now caring for the community’s outpatient needs and soon our patients will have the benefit of coordinated inpatient care,” said Bill Ebinger, an internal medicine physician in Grafton and member of the Advanced Healthcare Board of Directors.

A proposal to relocate the Milwaukee County Transit System’s downtown bus transit center from its current location near the lakefront to a site near the Intermodal Station so that the bus transit center site can be redeveloped is a key recommendation in the new downtown Milwaukee master plan, which will be unveiled today. The proposal is just one of several recommendations in the new downtown master plan, which city officials will unveil today during an open house at City Hall, 200 E. Wells St., from 4-7 p.m. Short presentations about the downtown plan will be made at 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

A tax incremental financing district, created in 1994 to help finance the downtown City Hall Square Apartments, is being dissolved--allowing its property taxes to flow to the City of Milwaukee, Milwaukee Public Schools and other local governments. The Common Council's Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee on Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution dissolving the district, along with two other tax districts created for developments that didn't occur. As a result, the $25 million in improvements at City Hall Square, 104 E. Mason St., will be generating around $640,000 annually for local governments, according to a Department of City Development report. The tax district can be dissolved because it has generated enough funds--$4.8 million--to help pay off the city's debt from helping finance the project. The 136-unit City Hall Square was created within some remodeled vacant buildings, and opened in 1998. Two other tax districts are being dissolved because they were created for projects that failed to occur. One is at S. 5th St. and W. Grange Ave., where a developer hoped to create a new light industrial building. The plan didn't draw any tenants, and was dropped. The city didn't spend any money on that project. The other dissolved district is at W. North Ave. and N. 25th St., where Lena's Food Market wanted to build a new supermarket and additional retail space. The city spent $236,535 on street improvements, and that debt was paid off by property taxes generated from other tax districts, according to a Department of City Development report.

In a 409-5 vote, House lawmakers have passed a standalone bill that would extend for three months Wednesday's deadline for closing on a home purchase in order to claim the federal homebuyer tax credit. The Senate could vote on the bill, HR 5623, as soon as tomorrow, although the death of Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., has slowed the pace of work in that chamber. Without an extension, the National Association of Realtors estimates as many as 180,000 homebuyers who were under contract by April 30 may miss the June 30 closing deadline, including 17,700 in California, 15,340 in Texas, 14,830 in Florida and 9,130 in New York. "Keep your fingers crossed," said Lucien Salvant, an NAR spokesman, who said prospects for quick passage of the bill are mixed. While some observers think HR 5623, "The Homebuyer Assistance and Improvement Act," could sail through without further delay, there's no guarantee it will come to a vote, Salvant said. The Senate is already on record supporting an extension, having amended a bill on June 16 to push the deadline back to Sept. 30. But other provisions of that bill, the "American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010," have proved controversial, prompting House lawmakers to introduce a standalone bill.

St. Paul-based CommonBond Communities Inc. is still pursuing plans to develop apartments in downtown Milwaukee's Park East area, despite failing to obtain federal tax credits to help finance the project. CommonBond will look at other ways to finance the 87-unit Park East Commons, spokesman Joe Schwenker told me. "We're not giving up on the project by any means," Schwenker said. CommonBond wants to build the apartments on land bordered by N. Milwaukee, N. Jefferson and E. Lyon streets and E. Ogden Ave. CommonBond has agreed to buy a portion of the site from an investment group led by Chicago developer Rich Curto. CommonBond sought federal tax credits to help finance the project. In return for the housing tax credits, which are sold to raise equity financing, developers must lease apartments at below-market rents to people whose households earn no more than 60% of the area's median income. The monthly rents for units with one to three bedrooms would range from around $420 to $920. The income limits for renters, including children, range from $29,880 for one person to $49,500 for six people, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority last week put the Park East Commons tax credit request on hold. That means CommonBond can seek the credits of other projects that might fall through, and also can reapply for a new round of credits in 2011

Alterra Coffee Roasters Inc. wants to expand the outdoor seating area of its Wauwatosa cafe, but some are opposed because that would encroach on public green space. After six revisions, Alterra Coffee Roasters on Tuesday submitted final plans for expanding its Wauwatosa café's outdoor seating area. Still, a few members of the city's Community Development Committee wanted to see another redesign. Alterra wants to add seating for 34 people via a row of tables along the front of the café on North Avenue and a landscaped seating area between the sidewalk and curb on the Swan Boulevard side. Taking into account comments from city officials and integrating what has worked at other Milwaukee area locations, the latest plans call for moving seating further back from the curb and installing street-side barriers for protection of patrons, putting crushed granite under the seating area to absorb stormwater runoff and installing bicycle racks.

The long-planned development of Oak Creek's lakefront might be getting a financial boost from city taxpayers. Preliminary work on creating a tax incremental financing district, to help pay for work in the lakefront area, has been approved by the Common Council. The proposed district would cover 335 acres, most of it undeveloped or underdeveloped, overlooking Lake Michigan near Bender Park, east of Chicago Avenue. The district, if given final council approval, would allow the city to borrow money and spend it on roads, cleanup work and other public improvements. That debt would be paid off through property taxes generated by private investments in the lakefront area. Once the debt is paid off, those property taxes would then go to the city, its school district and other local governments. It will likely be another year or two before the city begins to seek developers to make private investments in the area, said Doug Seymour, community development director. Before that happens, the owners of some former industrial properties on the lakefront need to clean up environmental contamination on their land, Seymour said Thursday.

Junior Achievement of Wisconsin Inc.'s plans to build a new headquarters on Milwaukee's far northwest ran into a delay Tuesday after aldermen raised concerns about the project site dropping off the property tax rolls. The non-profit group has agreed to buy five acres on W. Liberty Drive in the Liberty at Park Place development, north of W. Good Hope Road and east of Highway 45. The 43,900-square-foot building also would house the new JA BizTown and JA Finance Park programs. Those programs teach work readiness, financial literacy and entrepreneur skills to school-age children. Junior Achievement wants to begin construction this summer, and open the new building by the fall of 2011. The group's headquarters is now at 6924 N. Port Washington Road, Glendale. The organization is seeking zoning approval from the Common Council. But the council's Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee on Tuesday morning voted unanimously to delay acting until obtaining more information about whether Junior Achievement will provide a voluntary payment in lieu of property taxes. Committee members praised the organization and its plans. But they also said they were concerned about seeing a five-acre parcel in a business park being used by an organization that's exempt from paying property taxes. In some cases, non-profit groups will agree to make payments to the city to help make up for the loss of property tax revenue. But that program is voluntary, and cannot legally be linked to zoning decisions. Ald. Jim Bohl, whose district includes the development site, told committee members that he understood their concerns. But Bohl also said the parcel that JA would develop has been on the sale block for over 10 years without drawing any serious offers. The committee will likely meet again on July 7 to discuss the issue.

Mining equipment maker Bucyrus International Inc. could receive up to $2 million in property tax revenue generated by its purchase of the former Midwest Airlines Inc. headquarters, in Oak Creek. The Oak Creek Common Council will consider creating a proposed tax incremental financing district that would encompass the former Midwest buildings, a nearby logistics facility for Yellow/Roadway, and other nearby vacant or underused properties. The district would return up to $2 million in property tax revenue to Bucyrus, which in May bought the two buildings, at 6744 S. Howell Ave., for $9 million. The money would be returned to the company over 12 years, and would amount to 75% of the property taxes generated by the $9 million Bucyrus investment, according to the city's proposal. The buildings were previously exempt from property taxes because of a state law that provides a tax break for headquarters facilities of airlines with hubs in Wisconsin. Indianapolis-based Republic Airways Holdings Inc. moved jobs out of the Oak Creek facility after last year buying Midwest, which is being merged into Republic's Frontier Airlines. The council is to give preliminary consideration to the proposal at a special meeting that begins at 7 p.m. Tuesday, at City Hall. "In our discussions with Bucyrus International, they indicated that there were several other sites in other municipalities that were being considered for this expansion," reads the city's proposal, written by Doug Seymour, director of community development.

A Milwaukee investment group plans to build a $21 million student housing complex near Marquette University's campus. The eight-story building, with rooms for up to 450 students, would be at the southeast corner of W. Wisconsin Ave. and N. 20th St., according to documents filed with the city Board of Zoning Appeals. The building would have 150 apartments, many of them housing up to four students each. It would include a 64-space lower-level parking garage, 3,200 square feet of street-level retail space, and such amenities as a fitness center, conference room and business center. The apartments would be available for Marquette students, and students from other local universities and colleges, according to the filing. The building would be staffed 24 hours a day with resident assistants and other employees, and would have 15 full-time and 11 part-time staffers. A small retail and apartment building that now occupies the 29,700-square-foot lot at 1925-1933 W. Wisconsin Ave. would be demolished to make way for the new building. The project would need variances from the board to allow fewer than the 108 parking spaces that would otherwise be required by zoning ordinances, as well as a smaller lot than mandated. The board is to consider that variance request at its July 8 meeting.

The next Great Wolf Lodge resort will be in California, less than two miles from Disneyland. Great Wolf is not building the resort but the Madison indoor waterpark company will get a minority share of ownership as well as ongoing fees for licensing and operating the resort in Garden Grove. "It is our new business model for development," said Great Wolf spokesman Steve Shattuck. "Instead of developing (the resort) ourselves ... we're able to expand our brand footprint by exploring license and management operations." The developer, McWhinney, is a Loveland, Colo., real estate company whose projects range from warehouses and shopping centers to apartments and hotels. If construction financing and local government permits all go through, construction could begin in 2011 and should be completed in late 2012 or early 2013, Shattuck said. The project cost was not yet available. The resort will have 600 suites, 30,000 square feet of meeting space and a 100,000-square-foot indoor waterpark — slightly bigger than the indoor waterparks at other Great Wolf parks. "I am very excited about this license and management agreement. With a sizable population within a three-hour drive along with the close proximity to Disneyland, we have an attractive location for Great Wolf's first California resort," said chief executive officer Kim Schaefer. Shattuck said having an established tourist destination nearby, such as Disneyland, is a big plus. "It just gives people another reason to come ... and stay for another day because there are other things in the area to do," he said.

Consumer confidence dropped almost 10 points to the lowest level since February, creating renewed concerns about consumer spending — and the fragile economic recovery. Consumer confidence fell to 52.9 in June, from a revised 62.7 in May, according to The Conference Board, a research group in New York. Consumers are concerned about the job outlook and recovery from the recession. Consumer confidence is critical to the economy since consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected a slight increase in consumer confidence to 62.8 this month. Both components of the index — how consumers feel today, and their outlook over the next six months — fell. Investors worried about the declining consumer confidence — and possibly spending — sent the Dow Jones industrial average down almost 240 points in midday trading Tuesday. However, the market had regained a few points as of 8:30 a.m. The Milwaukee metropolitan area saw its seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate decline to 8.2 percent in May, but when job totals are adjusted for seasonality, the area lost 800 local jobs to decline to a total of 798,400 nonfarm jobs, according to preliminary figures from the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. The Milwaukee metro was one of two Wisconsin metros to lose jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis.

Milwaukee has been chosen by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. to pilot a new media campaign designed to help homeowners facing foreclosure and to assist those who want to buy a home, Mayor Tom Barrett said. The program and website is called "Take Root Milwaukee" and also includes a hot line, (414) 921-4149, designed to provide authoritative and confidential information for those dealing with foreclosure or looking to buy a home, he said. Milwaukee was chosen for the project, which will receive $175,000 seed money for various media outlets, including billboards and outreach, because of the existing Milwaukee Foreclosure Partnership Initiative that was started by Barrett in June 2009 to try to deal with the foreclosure crisis facing the city, said Rick Padilla, director of corporate relations and housing outreach for the mortgage agency, commonly known as Freddie Mac. The partnership includes representatives from banks, nonprofits, government and real estate agents. "When Freddie Mac learned about the partnership, it approached the city for this project as part of efforts to stabilize neighborhoods," Barrett said at a news conference Monday outside City Hall to announce the new effort. The partnership already offers mediation services through a partnership with Marquette University, and it also offers homebuyer counseling to those trying to buy a home. Padilla said Take Root Milwaukee could become a model for other cities.

Midwest bankers think the economy is starting to look up. A survey conducted in May shows 44 percent expect improvement in the economy in the next six months. That's substantially higher than the 30 percent who anticipated improvement six months ago, according to the 17th Bank Executive Survey, conducted by Grant Thornton and Bank Director magazine. Fewer bankers say they expect better conditions at the local level, though. Only 27 percent look for improvement in their local economy in the next six months, up slightly from 26 percent, in December 2009. At least one local bank executive said he thinks the Madison area may be faring better than the Midwest as a whole. "We're cautiously optimistic that the economy is improving," said Tim Ryan, senior vice president and chief financial officer of Monona State Bank. "Things are picking up a little bit. Some home sales are happening. Location is key — if a home is for sale in a nice location, it's going to sell." Ryan said some businesses customers also are starting to loosen the purse strings. "We're seeing a little bit of expansion. We're not seeing a lot, though, and we're not seeing a lot of hiring," he said. The survey showed that bankers anticipate more job losses within their own industry. Twenty-two percent of the Midwest bankers who replied say they think their staff will decrease by yearend, up from 16 percent who anticipated cutting jobs six months ago. Even in the Madison area, "some good bankers are being let go," Ryan said. He said Monona State Bank has hired three bankers, downsized from other local jobs, in the past three months. The nationwide survey tallied responses from 230 bankers, with 59 of them from the Midwest, including nine from Wisconsin. States considered by the poll as part of the Midwest region are: Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Kentucky. No margin of error was provided.

The drought that has gripped northern Wisconsinfor eight years is drying up lakes, distressing wildlife and forests and changing Pat Wingo's business. At Captain Hooks, the bait, tackle and gift shop he owns in this town of 1,200, Wingo, 45, stocks less live bait and more plastic lures because there are fewer walleye and more bass in some lakes. Walleye are finicky about where they spawn, and changes in some lakes have reduced their population, he says. His work as a fishing guide is altered, too. Some of the usual hot spots are gone. He takes anglers in pursuit of musky and perch to different lakes than he once did. "We've seen some big changes," Wingo said. The lakes and their fish populations "probably have changed forever." Parts of this state's North Woods and the adjacent Upper Peninsula of Michigan are the only areas in the continental USA experiencing "extreme" drought. It is the region's most severe drought since the 1930s and its longest dry period since the 1950s, according to Roy Eckberg, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Green Bay. It will take 30 to 50 inches of precipitation to make up the deficit, probably over two or more years, he says. The drought is caused by "natural variability in weather patterns, and I'm sure there is some global (climate) change aspect," Eckberg said. "How much, that's really hard to say."

Up to 1,000 jobs at Bucyrus International Inc. and its suppliers could be in jeopardy as the result of a decision by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, funded by Congress, to deny several hundred million dollars in loan guarantees to a coal-fired power plant and mine in India. About 300 of those jobs are at the Bucyrus plant in South Milwaukee, where the company has 1,410 employees and its headquarters. The remaining jobs are spread across 13 states, including Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana. On Thursday, the Export-Import Bank denied financing for Reliance Power Ltd., million in coal an Indian power plant company, effectively wiping out about $600 mining equipment sales for Bucyrus, chief executive Tim Sullivan said. The fossil fuel project was the first to come before the government-run bank since it adopted a climate-change policy to settle a lawsuit and to meet Obama administration directives. "President Obama has made clear his administration's commitment to transition away from high-carbon investments and toward a cleaner-energy future," Export-Import Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg said in a statement. "After careful deliberation, the Export-Import Bank board voted not to proceed with this project because of the projected adverse environmental impact." The bank's decision is puzzling, Sullivan said, because the power plant will meet international standards and the bank's environmental criteria. The plant is under construction in Sasan, central India, and is scheduled to be up and running in 2012. Coal mining will take place for the plant whether it's done with Bucyrus machines or equipment from China and Belarus, Sullivan said.

A tentative agreement has been reached between U.S. Export-Import Bank and Reliance Power Ltd. of India that could save 1,000 new jobs at South Milwaukee-based Bucyrus International Inc. The Ex-Im Bank said its board is willing to enter into a memorandum of understanding in which it will provide loan guarantees to help finance the purchase of U.S. coal-mining equipment by Reliance Power Ltd of India from Bucyrus. The Ex-Im Bank had denied that support last week on the grounds that the equipment was to be used to feed a new coal-fired power plant that will create carbon-dioxide emissions. The $600 million in financing was sought to help Reliance buy mining equipment that would be used for a coal mine that is to supply a power plant under construction at Sasan in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. In a follow-up letter to Reliance chairman Anil Ambani, Ex-Im Bank chairman and president Fred Hochberg wrote, “The Export-Import Bank of the United States is prepared to consider this proposal in light of the new information and Reliance's ongoing commitment to renewable energy. I look forward to working with you on these projects with the intent to finance the sale of Bucyrus-made mining equipment and support U.S. jobs.” The letter was shared with the BizTimes by the office of U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) The news comes as President Barack Obama is preparing to conduct a town hall meeting on the economy in Racine this afternoon.

Less than three hours before President Barack Obama arrived in Racine for a town hall meeting Wednesday, the U.S. Export-Import Bank agreed to reverse a decision that had threatened up to 1,000 U.S. jobs and $600 million in mining equipment sales at Bucyrus International Inc. Under pressure from the White House to get the deal done before Obama stepped off Air Force One, the bank struck a deal to provide loan guarantees to a coal mine and power plant project in central India. In return, the project developer, Reliance Power Ltd., agreed to rescind its cancellation of the Bucyrus orders, said Tim Sullivan, chief executive officer of South Milwaukee-based Bucyrus. "I think we are back on track," a relieved Sullivan said. The Bucyrus equipment orders had been at risk of falling through after the bank - citing environmental concerns - last week denied several hundred million dollars in loan guarantees for Reliance. Without the loan guarantees, Bucyrus said it would lose the orders, and the jobs, to an overseas competitor. Obama's scheduled visit to Racine for a public meeting about the economy proved to be well-timed from Bucyrus' perspective, even though the company's situation was never mentioned. Sometimes things come down to "the miracle of scheduling," said Carol Raulston, spokeswoman for the National Mining Association, a Washington, D.C., trade group that followed the Export-Import Bank controversy closely.

The market for selling affordable housing tax credits, which developers sell to raise equity financing for apartment projects, has improved after hitting a low point in 2008. That's according to this article at ChicagoRealEstateDaily.com. Such projects in the Milwaukee area include a proposal in New Berlin that's drawn a lot of opposition, along with less-controversial developments, such as one planned for Milwaukee's riverfront.

Nearly two years after a Wall Street meltdown left the economy reeling, the House on Wednesday passed a massive overhaul of financial regulations that would extend the government's reach from storefront thrifts to the executive suites of Manhattan. Senate support for the far-reaching bill remained in flux, however. The Senate was forced to delay its vote to mid-July, denying President Barack Obama a victory before Independence Day. Democrats struggled to secure the votes of a handful of Republican senators even after meeting their demands and backing down on a $19 billion tax on big banks and hedge funds. The legislation, swelling to more than 2,000 pages, would rewrite the nation's regulatory books. Simple supermarket purchases and exotic derivatives trades would be subject to new laws, and the entire financial system would be placed on a risk watch in hopes of thwarting the next threat of a financial crisis. The 237-192 House vote broke largely along party lines but attracted more support than in December when no Republicans voted for the House version of the bill. The new legislation combines the House bill with one passed by the Senate last month. The Wisconsin delegation split strictly along party lines, with the Democrats voting for the bill and the Republicans voting against.

Decreased funding and increased customer participation have prompted Focus on Energy to revamp some of the incentives it's offering to make businesses and homes more energy-efficient. The state Focus on Energy program is funded by utility bills, based on 1.2% of utilities' electricity sales. The program provides incentives ranging from rebates for energy-saving light bulbs and energy-saving measures like air sealing to funding for businesses that want to undertake efficiency projects. Sara Van de Grift, director of residential programs at Focus, said the program has become more popular, and demand for its incentives increased in recent years. The Focus program, run by Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corp. in Madison, reduced its marketing expenses considerably and delayed some spending on program evaluation in order to allocate more dollars for customers, she said. Without those moves, Focus would have run out of funds by September, said Teresa Weidemann-Smith, a spokeswoman for the state Public Service Commission.

The economic rebound is stalling. A raft of weak new reports Thursday provided the strongest evidence yet that the recovery is slowing and added to concerns that the nation could be on its way back into recession. Most notable was a rise in the number of people filing for unemployment benefits for the first time. The four-week average for jobless claims now stands at its highest point since March. The bleak indicators come just after Congress adjourned for the holiday weekend without extending jobless benefits, and a day ahead of a report expected to show only modest improvement in the national job market. On top of that, the housing market appears to be slumping again, and the Dow Jones industrials closed down for the sixth trading day in a row at 9,732.5. Add in slower growth in China and the Europe debt crisis, and economists are scaling back their forecasts for the United States. “When you add it all up, it doesn’t imply a double-dip, but it does suggest that growth will be slower than we’d like to see,” said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James. A double-dip recession happens when an economy shrinks, then begins to expand again before going back into reverse. Economists don’t agree on a more precise definition. Less money in people’s pockets could hamper economic growth. JPMorgan Chase economist Michael Feroli lowered his growth forecast for the third quarter to an annual rate of 3 percent from 4 percent, citing tighter government spending. Other economists expect growth to slow to an anemic 2 percent in the second half of this year. That probably wouldn’t reduce the unemployment rate, currently at 9.7 percent. Today, the government’s June jobs report is expected to show a modest rebound in private hiring — 112,000 jobs, according to a survey of economists by Thomson Reuters. Unemployment is expected to edge up from 9.7 percent to 9.8 percent.

Target Corp. bought land at the Hilldale Shopping Center on Thursday for what will become the third Target store in Madison and the fifth in Dane County. The 6.75-acre property is at University Avenue and Hilldale Way, at the northwest end of the shopping area. The land initially had been slated as a new location for the Whole Foods market, but that project was canceled. The Target store will have two levels, with 460 parking stalls at the street level and 150,000 square feet of shopping space upstairs. Neither the cost of the project nor the price of the land was immediately available. The store is expected to open in 2011, but a specific date was not released Thursday. The other area Target stores are at 201 Junction Road; 4301 Lien Road; in Fitchburg; and in Sun Prairie.

Harris Bank says it will close 16 of the Amcore Bank branches the company took over in April, including one in Madison, at 14 W. Mifflin St., on the Capitol Square. A branch in Waukesha is the only other Wisconsin location affected. The closings will take effect Sept. 17. The nine other former Amcore branches in the Madison area are expected to stay open. The Capitol Square office is "a very small branch that (doesn't) have a lot of customer traffic," said Harris spokesman Jim Kappel. Kappel did not have information about the number of employees at the Downtown office. But he said they will not necessarily be out of work. Harris has 140 vacant jobs right now, Kappel said. "We are looking to see how many of the employees we can retain and bring to other Harris facilities," he said. "We are encouraging them to look at the open positions." Financially troubled Amcore, based in Rockford, was closed by federal regulators in April. Harris Bank, of Chicago, part of the BMO Financial Group, Toronto, acquired Amcore's $2.1 billion in deposits and $2.5 billion in assets, as well as 58 locations.

Landmark Services Cooperative has received approval from the Cottage Grove Village Board to construct a 22,800-square-foot office building in the Cottage Grove Commerce Park. The office, at 1401 Landmark Drive, near Highway N and Interstate 94, will be home to Landmark's general administrative offices, energy division offices, a heating and cooling showroom and the headquarters of Verity Resources, Landmark's agriculture financing and crop insurance partner. About 50 people will work in the building, said John Blaska, president of the co-op's board. A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for Aug. 3, with the facility to be completed by April. The general contractor for the project is Bauer & Raether Builders of Madison.

The Boldt Co. of Appleton and the British consulting firm AMEC have been selected as the engineering and construction contractors for the conversion of the coal-fired power plant on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus to burn natural gas and biomass. The Boldt-AMEC team was selected after a competitive selection process that was launched in March for the $250 million project, according to the state Department of Administration. Now that the team has been selected, the agency said it will work to negotiate a contract with the firms. Boldt is heavily involved in construction projects involving renewable energy, including ethanol plants and wind farms. It has also been selected as contractor for two We Energies renewable energy projects – the Glacier Hills Wind Park northeast of Madison and the proposed biomass energy project at the Domtar Corp. paper mill in Rothschild. The British firm AMEC has experience working with the paper industry and biomass energy. AMEC and Boldt worked together on construction of an addition to the Manitowoc Public Utilities coal plant in Manitowoc, completed in 2006. The Charter St. plant is a heating plant, providing heating for the UW campus. The state is converting to biomass and natural gas as part of a settlement of a Sierra Club lawsuit claiming that the coal plant violated air pollution laws. The Charter St. plant is slated to stop burning coal by the fall of 2011, and the construction project is scheduled for completion in the spring of 2013.

Global engineering firm AECOM has been selected to develop in Dane County one of the first systems in the country for turning food waste into electricity. By September, AECOM is expected to complete a local feasibility study on the renewable energy potential of food waste from commercial, industrial and institutional sources, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk said. The study will develop a cost estimate and identify possible financial benefits for taxpayers. Anaerobic food digestion "is a relatively new, cutting edge application of a time-tested technology," said Don Pirrung, senior engineer for AECOM's Sheboygan office. Microorganisms have been used in wastewater treatment facilities since the early 1900s, including a facility developed in Antigo by Pirrung's office when it was called the Jerry Donahue Co. Dane County is also developing an anaerobic digester near Waunakee to convert manure into electricity. The food digester would likely be constructed at the county's landfill, which receives about 200,000 tons of material every year, one-sixth of which is food waste. Diverting food waste to a digester will significantly extend the life of the current landfill, Falk said. The $300,000 study is being paid for with federal stimulus funding through an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant.

The city of Madison would get the $205 million Overture Center “for free” under a plan announced by Overture officials Tuesday, but details of what owning the facility would cost city taxpayers going forward were scarce. Overture officials and the three banks involved — JP Morgan Chase Bank, U.S. Bank and M&I Bank — have agreed to a deal to eliminate $28.6 million in debt, the biggest impediment to a stable financial future for the arts facility. But the financial deal is contingent on the city’s acceptance of ownership. The plan also depends on $15 million in contributions from a group of private donors.

At a press conference this morning, Overture Center and city officials announced that a handful of private donors -- including original donor Jerry Frautschi -- stepped up in recent weeks to help solve the center's remaining $28.6 million in debt. The donors will provide $15.1 million, enough for the center's lending banks to agree to forgive the remaining $13.5 million. Besides Frautschi, those donors included 201 State Foundation chair Deidre Garton, Joe and Mary Ellyn Sensenbrenner, the Terry Family Foundation, the DeAtley Foundation, the Cummings Christensen Foundation and Jim and Cathy Burgess. The breakdown of how much each donor gave was unavailable, but there was some implication that Frautschi led the list. Frautschi originally put up $205 million for the center's construction, but center officials with city support opted to put about half of that into a trust fund to supplement the center's operating costs that failed in September 2008 and left a significant amount of unresolved debt.

A decision on a specific site Downtown for a Madison train station could be made as early as next week, state officials said Tuesday. But first Department of Transportation staff plan to process input from Tuesdays public workshop at East High School and a second workshop Wednesday night at 101 E. Wilson St., one of the two state-owned buildings under consideration for a station. The other is the historic state office building at 1 W. Wilson St. Tuesday night’s workshop was the first official forum for public input on a Madison train station since Gov. Jim Doyle announced in January the state had received $810 million in federal funds to restore Madison-to-Milwaukee passenger rail service by early 2013. In May, Doyle announced the station would be Downtown, rather than at the airport or a location at First Street and East Washington Avenue favored by many East Side residents. Some of the 72 participants in Tuesday’s workshop were still bitter about the decision to put the station Downtown.

State environmental officials adopted sweeping regulations Wednesday to control phosphorus pollution in Wisconsin waters, hoping to slow runaway algae growth and preserve water-based tourism and recreation. The package creates new restrictions on a wide range of potential sources, from farm fields and barnyards to large-scale wastewater producers. The Natural Resources Board adopted the regulations unanimously after about four hours of discussion. "In the long run, this may be the single most important action on water quality the Natural Resources Board has ever done," said Jonathan Ela, the board's chairman. "This takes us a long ways." Biologists believe phosphorus, a chemical commonly found in fertilizer and manure, can cause ugly algae blooms that deplete water oxygen levels, killing aquatic life. The blooms also can cause health problems, including rashes, headaches and nausea. The DNR considers 172 Wisconsin lakes, rivers and streams "impaired waters" because of phosphorus pollution. The Department of Natural Resources generally prohibits excessive phosphorus in state waters, but the agency hasn't set out any hard limits.

Only in Madison! Say it with heartfelt pride or a snort of frustration, it attests to the power of place, especially a distinctive place. Think of the gilded glory of the state Capitol, the Dane County Farmers Market on Saturdays, sunsets over Lake Mendota and the human-powered pleasures of Ride the Drive or Paddle and Portage. The refurbished Madison Children’s Museum, slated to reopen Aug. 14, illuminates all that’s best in the city’s colorful, creative and slightly quirky character. Although the new venture aims primarily at an audience of museum-goers 12 and under, plenty of other visitors will also enjoy the newly remodeled space at the former Montgomery Ward building, 100 North Hamilton Street. The museum features one-of-a-kind exhibits: a human-powered hamster wheel; an authentic, restored 1850s log cabin perched in a parking lot one story above street level; and a kid-friendly rooftop park that features hills, a waterfall, gardens, homing pigeons, a chicken coop and a bird’s-eye view of the Capitol.

Quincy Bioscience whose product, Prevagen, claims to fight the aging process has moved its offices from University Research Park to 301 S. Westfield Road, the former TDS building, most recently occupied by Epic Systems. Quincy Bioscience has a staff of 40, up from 17 when Prevagen hit the market in fall 2007. Thirty employees in sales and marketing and in research and development occupy the new offices, but there is room for as many as 90 in the 25,000-square-foot space, company President Mark Underwood said. Another 10 employees continue to work at the company’s laboratory and manufacturing center at 2010 Pinehurst, Middleton. Packaging is contracted out to another company. Underwood said he plans to add another three to five employees a month for the next couple of years. He would not provide sales figures but said annual revenues are in the $5 million to $10 million range.

State statistics show all 12 metropolitan areas of Wisconsin added jobs and reported drops in their unemployment rate in May. The Department of Workforce Development says the Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis area added 5,700 jobs in the month while the Madison area added 4,500. The 10 others added jobs, too. Meanwhile, 71 out of 72 counties reported decreases in the local unemployment rate. Wisconsin's overall unemployment rate dropped to 8.2 percent in May, its lowest level in more than a year. DWD Secretary Roberta Gassman called the statistics a sign of economic recovery, but says there is much more work to be done to help the unemployed.

Coldwell Banker rolled out a new national website this week featuring more video, more social networking and three new ways to search the housing market that go way beyond number of bedrooms or zip code. The first tool, known as "BlueScape," asks users to rate a series of images -- including landscape scenery, snowmobiles and taxicabs -- with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Modeled after music recommendation sites like iTunes' Genius Mixes, the exercise gives the search engine a better intuitive feel for the type of home a user may want, developers said. It then uses those cues to help generate a list of possible homes that may be a good fit for the user after a query is made. A keyword search, designed so users can more easily narrow down the properties they want to see, is the second new tool. The third is a clickable "You May Also Like" feature, which offers additional homes of interest based on user preferences.

The State of Wisconsin is poised to begin a new budget year with tens of millions of dollars in new funding for public land purchases, with officials getting off to a roaring start on Wednesday with five major deals covering 24,922 acres and valued at $18.5 million. The Natural Resources Board will review a spate of transactions at a meeting in Madison. The biggest costs $8.3 million and will allow public access to 18,438 acres of prime hardwood forest land in Forest County in northeastern Wisconsin. The largest deals will protect forests in Forest County, stretches of the Totogatic River in Washburn and Douglas counties, bluff and wetlands in Adams County, grasslands in Portage County and forest and wetlands in Iron County. The funding comes from the State Stewardship Fund, which begins a new round of financing on July 1. The fund increased state spending for public land from $60 million to $86 million a year. The deals together are large but still rank below an $83.7 million deal in 2006 that protected 64,634 acres of North Woods land - much of it from the International Paper Co.

A south-central Wisconsin town overstepped when local officials imposed water quality conditions on a giant farm's permit, a state appeals court ruled Thursday. Larson Acres, Inc., had asked the Town of Magnolia in Rock County for permission to expand operations to 1,500 animal units, according to the opinion. A thousand animal units is equivalent to about 700 cows. The town granted a permit but included conditions requiring the farm to minimize nutrient run-off and allow well water tests. A state review board invalidated the conditions, but Rock County Circuit Judge James Welker upheld them. The 4th District Court of Appeals reversed Welker. The court agreed with the review board that the town acted outside the process set out in state siting standards when it applied the conditions. Larson Acres attorney Eric McLeod said the decision reaffirms state standards trump local regulations, adding state standards lend predictability to the permit process. Town attorney Glenn Reynolds called the decision "very disappointing." He said the appeals court ignored the need for clean water. Peter McKeever, an attorney for neighbors who sued in support of the town, says the decision leaves residents at the mercy of industrialized farms.

Business, education and community leaders are planning a series of summits to develop recommendations on how to boost Wisconsin's economy and create more jobs. The 2010 Wisconsin Economic Summit Series will consist of three sessions: Creating the Economic Vision Managing the State Budget Deficit Moving Wisconsin Forward. Managing the State Budget Deficit, Aug. 26, La Crosse, will look at 2011-2013 state budget challenges facing the governor and Legislature who will be elected in November. Moving Wisconsin Forward, Oct. 5, Milwaukee, will make recommendations on job creation, economic growth, and state budget issues. The key groups behind the summits are the UW System, Competitive Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Technology Council, the Wisconsin Way and the Wisconsin Higher Education Business Roundtable. The summits revive a process that took place from 2000 to 2003, where state business, labor, education and government officials met and talked about boosting the economy. Today, there are still questions about the best ways to do that, said Michael Knetter, Albert Nicholas dean of the Wisconsin School of Business at UW-Madison. "I would say that Wisconsin doesn't have a really clear direction for a statewide economic strategy, in part because we have a fairly diverse economic base. So that does make it a little bit more challenging," said Knetter, who is likely to be one of the summit speakers.

Woodman's Markets is continuing its efforts to expand in the Milwaukee area. Clint Woodman, vice president of the Janesville-based grocery company, said he is working with officials in the village of West Milwaukee to construct a 225,000-square-foot store. Woodman said they tried to acquire four properties totaling 20 acres but were unsuccessful, so he is hoping the village can work to amass the land for the project. West Milwaukee is just south of Miller Park. Woodman said he is also looking at sites in Waukesha and on Blue Mound Road in Brookfield for possible stores. Woodman's opened a store in the suburb of Oak Creek, south of Milwaukee, in 2008 and in November is scheduled to open a store northwest of Milwaukee in Menomonee Falls.

Dan Druml, the Milwaukee franchisee of Paul Davis Restoration, recently purchased two properties to assemble the site for the Haymarket Square development. Druml, who formed McKinley Avenue LLC for the two-block, $16 million redevelopment project, recently purchased two buildings, with a combined 45,000 square feet of space, on a block northeast of North 8th Street and McKinley Boulevard. One of the buildings is a 10,000-square-foot structure located at 1324 N. Eighth St. that was owned by the owner of Trade Design Inc., which will remain in the building. The other building, located at 714-34 N. McKinley Ave., has 35,000 square feet of space and was owned by the owner of Trade Tech Inc., which moved its operations to Hartford. The sale price of the buildings was not disclosed. The deals were brokered by Kurt Van Dyke of Cassidy Turley Barry. The buildings will be added to the site that Druml is assembling, which also includes a 67,500-square-foot building at the northwest corner of North 6th Street and McKinley Avenue that is being redeveloped and will be occupied by Everest College, a private college owned and operated by Santa Ana, Calif.-based Corinthian Colleges Inc.

The amount of farmland in Wisconsin declined from 15.5 million acres in 2004 to 15.2 million acres in 2009. Finding the balance between development agriculture has been a long-running process — prompting the state to set up the Wisconsin Farmland Preservation Program more than 30 years ago and more recently pass the Wisconsin Working Lands Initiative updating those plans.

By a 10-0 vote, the City Council on Monday overturned a veto by Mayor Randy Knaack against a planned 250-bed student housing complex with commercial development in downtown Menomonie. Plans for the four-story buildings at the site of the former Leever's Foods grocery store, at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Broadway Street, were vetoed by the mayor June 11 after the City Council had unanimously approved the project June 7.

Will the Rockwell Village project still happen? Although it's been a year since the last development on the project, and although no new reports of activity are evident, there seems to be something going on at City Hall that indicates the project will happen - although when might be is still up in the air. The Common Council went into closed session on the matter Tuesday night. Mayor Jim Daley said city staff and Rockwell representatives have met for the past two weeks. He declined to disclose anything more about the closed session meeting other than to say that he wanted to see what kind of support the council gives the project. In general, Daley said there is renewed interest in the project.

A groundbreaking ceremony for Ingeteam's wind turbine generator factory is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, near Canal St., west of the 35th St. viaduct, in Milwaukee's Menomonee Valley Industrial Center. The Common Council in March agreed to sell more than eight acres at the industrial center, east of Miller Park, for $1.04 million to Ingeteam. The 114,000-square-foot Ingeteam building is scheduled to open with 31 employees by the end of this year. Also, the Redevelopment Authority approved a $2 million forgivable city loan to Ingeteam to help finance the $17.5 million factory. Ingeteam won’t have to pay back the money if it meets job creation goals, including 275 full-time positions by 2015.

A 149,000-square-foot building in West Allis, which once housed Sam's Club, is seeking approval from city officials for its redevelopment plan. The building, at 801-829 S. 60th St., has other tenants but has had a large vacancy since Sam's Club moved out in 1999. The property's owner, an investment group led by developer Joel Lee, is now proposing to make major improvements. The details, including renderings, can be seen in a city Plan Commission staff report. The commission is to consider the proposal at its Wednesday meeting. The Community Development Authority in February designated the property as blighted. That allows the owner to seek a city bond issue to help finance the property's redevelopment. The city bond issue would not involve a loan by the city. It would allow the developer to sell tax-exempt bonds to investors, which means the developer can borrow funds from bond purchasers at a lower interest rate.

The Friday announcement of which affordable apartment projects are getting federal tax credits included several Milwaukee-area developments. But one of the biggest developments didn't get much ink from yours truly: plans to remodel the city Housing Authority's Westlawn public housing complex on Milwaukee's northwest side. The Westlawn project is getting the largest affordable housing tax allocation in the state's history: $7.3 million. The credits will be used to help finance an ambitious plan to renovate existing units and add more units at Westlawn, which covers 75 acres south of W. Silver Spring Drive, between N. 60th and N. 68th streets. I hope to get more details about the Westlawn project. But the plans include boosting the total number of units from 726 to 885 and creating market-rate units, said Bobbi Marsells of the Housing Authority.

The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater will receive a federal grant of $5.9 million to retrain displaced auto workers in southeastern Wisconsin and north-central Illinois. U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced the Economic Development Administration (EDA) grant for UW-Whitewater to administer the Auto Adjustment Entrepreneurial Support Initiative. The grant will benefit Rock County, where General Motors Corp. shut down its assembly plant last year, and Kenosha County, where Chrysler is expected to close its engine plant this fall. "Collaborating across state lines to maximize regional resources in new and innovative ways will help create jobs in this economically-distressed region," Locke said. "This EDA grant will create jobs by supporting a seamless network of regional services and incubator facilities that will accelerate innovation and entrepreneurship, particularly in emerging green technologies and global commerce, and by providing training in high-skill, high-wage industries."

Public hearings are planned next week on a proposal aimed at adopting uniform siting rules for wind power projects in the state. The public hearings and a rulemaking are part of a process launched by the state Legislature when it passed a uniform siting law last year. The legislation essentially delegated to the Public Service Commission decisions on the thorny and controversial questions raised by supporters and opponents of wind power projects at hearings in the Legislature last year. Questions that must be resolved include how far a wind turbine must be placed from a nearby property or home, and what maximum noise standards should be. The PSC has released an initial proposal for public comment, and an advisory council created by the legislation is also studying the issue. Public hearings will take place Monday in Fond du Lac, Tuesday, June 29 in Tomah and Wednesday in Madison. Hearings will begin at 1 and 6 p.m. each day. More details about the hearings can be found here. The legislation was aimed at replacing a patchwork of different rules and moratoriums that have been imposed by counties and towns around the state for small wind power projects.

A fight over the proposed $98 million redevelopment of the historic Edgewater hotel, one of the most controversial projects in recent memory, will continue. Residents Fred Mohs and Eugene Devitt, outspoken opponents of the project, late Thursday afternoon filed a lawsuit asking the Dane County Circuit Court to overturn the City Council's granting of a Certificate of Appropriateness for the project, required under city law because the property is in the Mansion Hill Historic District. The council, in a marathon meeting on May 18 and 19, voted 14-4 with two not voting to overturn a decision by the city Landmarks Commission, which had voted on May 10 to deny the certificate because the project was too large. The council's first-ever reversal of the Landmarks Commission was among five separate land use, financial and other approvals given at the meeting, which lasted 12 hours and ended at 7:40 a.m. The Hammes Co. wants to restore the 1946 hotel, cut the size of a 1970s addition and build a public terrace atop it overlooking Lake Mendota, create a staircase to the lake and erect a nine-story hotel tower. The hotel would have up to 190 rooms, up to 10 condos, and 355 underground parking spaces.

As Madison residents and transportation officials begin to make decisions about a Downtown passenger rail station, they don't have to look far for inspiration. In the last few years, Milwaukee has transformed its dilapidated 1965 Amtrak depot from what the American Institute of Architects called a "hopeless space" into a luminous landmark with a glass-faced atrium crisscrossed by white structural beams. The renovated downtown station, which serves 1.4 million train and bus passengers a year, includes several features that Madison officials are eyeing for a station near Monona Terrace. Though there are many differences, including location and parking capacity, Downtown Madison would benefit from other features at the Milwaukee station such as connectivity to other transit, integrated office space and a locally owned cafe, Madison transit planner David Trowbridge said. "The similarities are the things we're going to try to build on." The Madison station has yet to be designed, but the state Department of Transportation is asking for guidance from the public as it works with Washington-based consultant CH2M Hill on a specific site, possibly in an existing state-owned office building. The state has scheduled workshops Tuesday and Wednesday in anticipation of passenger rail service between Milwaukee and Madison starting in early 2013.

A main difference between the Milwaukee Intermodal Station and the proposed passenger rail station in Downtown Madison is the parking. The main parking lot at the Milwaukee station with 275 spaces charges $5 a day, but is often less than half full. Daily commuters to Chicago can find free parking along St. Paul Avenue within a short walk of the station. Madison is still in the preliminary stages of designing a 1,200-space underground parking structure near the proposed station site. But the construction phase could take up to 30 months, Parking Operations Manager Bill Knobeloch said. A partial underground ramp could be completed next to the Madison Municipal Building by early 2013, he added, but the entire structure may still need to be bigger than 1,200 spaces if the two-block redevelopment includes a hotel, office space and a public market, all of which Mayor Dave Cieslewicz supports. Cieslewicz said this week the city will solicit a master developer for the two blocks it owns along Pinckney Street. Knowing whether the site will include a hotel or office space or both will be important for knowing what kind of parking structure to build, chief of staff Janet Piraino said. Parking rates at the 500-space Government East ramp, which is to be demolished, have increased recently to account for the originally planned $24.5 million parking ramp. But Knobeloch isn't sure yet how a larger ramp can offer affordable daily rates for rail commuters to Milwaukee or Chicago if the city has to pay for it all without private subsidy or a federal grant, which the city is pursuing. "If (the parking) is going to be subsidized, I'd sure want to know who's going to subsidize it," Knobeloch said. "If the city had to pay for it all — the train's portion and hotel's portion and the office portion — we couldn't charge people enough to build that. We would have to charge them like in Chicago."

Dane County’s first community manure digester, with the potential to generate electricity and reduce lake pollution, was approved Thursday by the County Board. The $12 million digester will use bacteria to turn cow manure supplied by three town of Vienna farms into methane gas, fiber and a liquid fertilizer. The methane is burned and expected to generate $2 million worth of electricity every year, and the fiber can be used as cow bedding. Algae-producing phosphorus is the biggest cause of pollution in the Yahara Lakes watershed, said Josh Wescott, spokesman for County Executive Kathleen Falk, in a release. The digester will use advanced separation technology to remove up to 70 percent of the phosphorus from the manure. It will also reduce odor problems and lessen the need to spread manure on distant fields, which generates environmental problems, Wescott said. Milwaukee-based Clear Horizons will own, operate, and partially finance the digester. The County Board also approved issuing $6 million in bonds through a federal stimulus program, and the state will contribute another $3.3 million toward the project. The state also included $6.6 million in its last budget for this and another digester planned near Middleton. Wescott said he and other officials are still working with farmers there.

The Gospel according to the economic development Gods says that an anchor store is vital to drive traffic to any shopping mall or commercial area, but Sun Prairie's new Prairie Lakes commercial development will have two such traffic generators, and perhaps a third depending on how you count. One anchor is already there; another fell into the developers' laps, and the third would represent a regional draw that isn't even part of the 100-acre development. One anchor is already there; another fell into the developers' laps, and the third would represent a regional draw that isn't even part of the 100-acre development. Prairie Lakes already features a 134,000-square-foot Target store, and sometime in the summer of 2011 it could be the home of a new, 16-screen Marcus movie theater complex. When fully developed, the privately funded development will add between $150 million and $200 million in tax increment to the city, with Target and Marcus accounting for a combined $25 million to $30 million. The importance of the project for Sun Prairie, one of Dane County's fastest-growing communities, cannot be understated. As part of Sun Prairie's West Side Neighborhood Plan, the city did not want a cookie-cutter approach to a development that would be situated along major roads, but they still wanted one that would appeal to every resident of Dane County. "We had identified very early on that our west side was going to be our most critical development area," said Neil Stechschulte, economic development coordinator for the city of Sun Prairie. "We've been very deliberate. It took us a considerable amount of money in terms of plans and infrastructure improvements to set up that whole area."

Walgreens representatives may be wishing they had never changed their policy on selling alcohol in their drug stores after spending more than three hours in front of the city's Alcohol License Review Committee Wednesday night only to end up with two "nos" and three "wait and sees" from the committee. The ubiquitous drug store chain was at one time the nation's top alcohol sales outlet with most stores having full liquor sections, but the practice was largely phased out in the 1990s because of the difficulty of navigating local liquor laws. Through a combination of improved technology, more demand for "one-stop shopping" and likely competition from other alcohol-selling drug stores chains like Rite-Aid and CVS, however, Walgreens has begun a nationwide effort to bring limited amounts of alcohol -- wine and beer only, with no single-serving containers -- back to its stores. That effort placed them before Madison's alcohol licensing body on Wednesday with five store requests for beer and wine licenses, with alcohol sales projected to take up 2 percent of a store's shelf space. Those five stores, which are less than half of the city's total number of Walgreens, are located at 7810 Mineral Point Road, 8302 Old Sauk Road, 606 S. Whitney Way, 108 Cottage Grove Road, and 4518 Cottage Grove Road.

Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz wants to speed up the process for reviewing development projects after a $98 million hotel plan got bogged down for months. In his "State of the City" speech, the mayor says the process for approving the Edgewater Hotel renovation was too long and difficult. He says the city's reputation as anti-business scares away other investors. The mayor says he has asked business and labor leaders to recommend changes to the review process. He says he plans to take executive action to implement changes and ask the city council to approve others. He says he doesn't want the city to lower standards but to be "businesslike in its approach, predictable in its outcomes and expeditious in its decision-making."

My first reporting assignment in Madison three decades ago was covering Dane County government, led at the time by the late George Reinke, a decent, able county executive who was as charisma-free as any political figure I've ever met. The contrast between Reinke, a buttoned-down Greatest Generation administrator, and his mayoral counterpart, Paul Soglin, celebrated nationally as the brash hippie mayor of the Berkeley of the Midwest, was stark, to put it mildly. I was reminded of the stylistic contrast between our city and county government leaders as I listened to County Executive Kathleen Falk describe in an interview at her office some of the important things happening in county government. If they were siblings, our city government would be the arm-waving, attention-grabbing child, our county government the serious, no-nonsense one. While Falk and Madison's mayor, Dave Cieslewicz, are both baby boomers with careers rooted in environmental politics, their personas seem to follow that dichotomy. Falk is Dane County's longest serving executive (since 1997) and the first woman in that job, overseeing a budget of nearly $500 million in a county of nearly 500,000. A lawyer, she was a candidate for governor and attorney general and had significant career stops at the state Justice Department and with Wisconsin Environmental Decade before winning the first of four elections for executive.

Hundreds of thousands of drivers travel Beltline lanes every day, and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation said the overcrowded Fish Hatchery Road interchange needs an overhaul. wider bridge, turn lanes, a new ramp configurations and a whole new frontage road are all part of the plans that could have drivers traveling easier by 2013. Project managers outlined plans for the project at a meeting Wednesday night. "We have a lot of congestion and accidents on the Beltline, basically due to people getting on and off," said Gary Sassman, of the Wisconsin DOT. Whether it's a crash or congestion causing the trouble, the DOT has a $6 million plan to ease the pain, including cutting out the cloverleaf onramp headed west and replacing it with a straight path onto the roadway. Business owners getting their first look at the plans Wednesday noticed that the project calls for the new onramp to run right through the popular Perkins restaurant. The DOT said it has plans to buy out the Perkins. "We were just concerned for if we would lose any businesses if this would take place, and it looks like there is some concern there," said Jim Garner, of the South Metropolitan Business Association. Three separate scenarios exist for a new frontage road -- and all will impact area businesses in different ways, WISC-TV reported. But the ideas for changes are getting the approval of some drivers who spend a lot of time on the Beltline.

Plans to upgrade UW-Madisons Charter Street Heating Plant to burn biomass and natural gas instead of coal got the blessing of the citys Urban Design Commission Wednesday night, while a separate university proposal to build a laboratory building was referred to a later meeting, according to UDC member Ald. Marsha Rummel, 6th District. Under a 2007 court settlement, the Charter Street plant must be brought into compliance with the Clean Air Act. Construction is expected to start in August and cost about $245 million. The first phase of the Wisconsin Energy Institute is planned for 1552 University Ave. and would require the demolition of an existing university building. The institute would serve a center for research into alternative energy sources. Rummel said the commission asked the university to find ways to de-emphasize the bulk of the five-story building and referred it to a future meeting.

Home sales in metropolitan Milwaukee rose in May 26.8 percent from the same month a year ago, according to the latest report by Metro MLS Inc. All four metropolitan counties saw significant increases in sales. Ozaukee County led the way with a 52.5-percent increase, followed by Washington County with a 51.5-percent increase, Waukesha County with a 44.2-percent increase and Milwaukee County with a 14.7-percent increase. The three suburban counties saw much more dramatic increases in the percentage of business because their sales in 2009 were so anemic, according to the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors (GMAR). Those counties added to their inventory of “move-up” houses during the recession, and the $6,500 homebuyer tax credit targeted at that market segment helped to boost sales. Brokers are reporting that accepted offers slowed down and the market has taken a breather from its hectic pace this past spring. However, with consumer confidence rising, extremely favorable interest rates, low house prices, and plenty of inventory, the GMAR expects the rest of 2010 to be “fairly decent” for home sellers, but will remain a buyers’ market.

Trek Bicycle Corp. didnt just give Ray Petro a little boost to ensure he would be able to open a Rays Indoor MTB Park for riders in Milwaukee. The Waterloo-based company bought Rays business. That was the news in a release sent out promoting the expected opening of a Rays in a shuttered Menards store at 8365 N. 76th St. in November. With a background in construction, Petro opened what is described as the world’s only indoor mountain bike park in Cleveland in 2004. He ran into a problem with financing for the new location in Milwaukee - after announcing the plans in March - and Trek recently stepped in to ensure the project would flourish. “Without Trek, Ray’s Milwaukee could not have happened,” Petro said. While owned by the bicycle company, Ray’s will operate as a separate division, according to Dean Gore, Trek’s director of marketing. “Trek wants to free Ray from the day-to-day business of chasing sponsors and stitching together financing to allow him to focus on making mountain biking a year- round sport in our area,” Gore said. “We have been to Cleveland and seen the fun that Ray has brought to the mountain bike world. Milwaukee is going to be addicted.”

I think it's safe to say that Milwaukee development officials didn't foresee this use for the former Tower Automotive site: a backdrop for a major Hollywood film. The Tower site, on the north side, and the Milwaukee Art Museum will both be featured in scenes from the upcoming movie "Transformers 3," it was announced Friday by Visit Milwaukee. A cast and crew of about 150 will come to Milwaukee the week of July 12 to film what Visit Milwaukee calls "a pivotal scene" at the museum. "Some of the stars from the film may be in town for the shoot," the release says. The majority of the July shoot will happen at the museum, which will be closed for one day to accommodate the filming schedule. The Tower Automotive site will also be used. All filming locations will be closed sets, and not open to the public. Visit Milwaukee estimated the film will generate more than $1 million in local spending on salaries, hotels, food, fuel, and miscellaneous equipment, supplies and rentals. It is expected that some local students will be hired as production assistants during the time the film is in Milwaukee. “Transformers 3” is the second major Hollywood feature to shoot in Milwaukee in recent years. Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies,” starring Johnny Depp, shot at various locations around town in 2008.

There's a new development in the on-going crematory controversy, in Waukesha County. A developer has withdrawn a request to build a crematory in a Stone Bank cemetery, but now wants to build it in Hartland, in the village-owned cemetery on Capitol Drive, reports Livinglakecountrynow.com. That means there are now two active proposals to build crematories in Hartland, says the article, by reporter Jill Rick.

The decision on which lower income apartment projects, including a controversial New Berlin proposal, will receive federal tax credits will be announced Friday. That's the word from Kate Venne, spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority. The agency is responsble for deciding which Wisconsin projects receive the federal credits, which are given away annually in a competitive process. Along with the New Berlin project, there are several other apartment developments proposed for the Milwaukee area that have applied for the credits. Developers sell the credits to raise equity financing. In turn, they rent the apartments at below-market rates to singles and families earning no more than 60% of the local median income. Receiving the credits doesn't guarantee the project will get built. Along with selling the credits, developers also have to borrow money to complete their financing packages. Also, developers that don't get credits are able to reapply in future allocation rounds. By the way, Mark Schaaf, of Greenfieldnow.com, has a story about an affordable apartments development proposal that got the "thumbs down" from the Greenfield Plan Commission. Read about it here.

In case you missed it, my colleague Tom Held blogged Tuesday about plans to build an indoor mountain biking facility at the former Menards store at 8365 N. 76th St. It sounds like a very cool project. Tom has the details here, at his Off the Couch blog.

The continuing effort to redevelop roughly 80 acres of Menomonee Falls into a mix of retail, housing and other new uses apparently will include the relocation of a We Energies facility. We Energies has applied to the state Public Service Commission for permission to move its Menomonee Falls service center, located just east of Water St. and one block north of Pershing Ave., to an 8.3-acre site east of Lily Road and south of Warren St. The utility, in its letter to the commission, says it has agreed to transfer ownership of its current service center site, totaling 6.7 acres, to development firm Cobalt Partners, in return for Cobalt developing the new facility. The letter says Cobalt has been working with village officials on efforts to create the mixed-use development. The area to be redeveloped is bordered by Highway 45, Roosevelt Drive, Pilgrim Road and Water St.. The effort includes plans to demolish and do an environmental cleanup of the 17-acre former Stolper/Western Industries facility, which the village would help finance. Money spent by the village would be repaid through property taxes generated by new development in the area. The village also has received a state grant to help with the cleanup. Demolition and cleanup work at the Stolper site is expected to begin this summer, said Village Manager Mark Fitzgerald.

A neighborhood strip retail center on Milwaukee's Brady St. has been sold to a Chicago investment group for $6.4 million, according to documents filed with the Milwaukee County Register of Deeds. The 24,000-square-foot center, 1414-1438 E. Brady St., was sold by East Towne WI LLC to Brady Street Partners LLC, an affiliate of Chicago-based retail property developer and investor Monroe Investment Partners LLC. Monroe owner Donald Allen couldn't be reached for comment. The seller is affiliated with New York-based lender Greystone Business Credit II LLC, and acquired the retail center in November. No money was exchanged for the property in that November transaction, according to assessment records. Greystone last year filed a foreclosure suit against Sierra Center Twenty Five LLC, which then owned the retail center. Greystone dismissed its suit in December, according to online court records, after Sierra transferred ownership of the property to Greystone's affiliate. A suit filed by Sierra against Greystone also was dismissed. The Brady St. center was built in 1986 by former Milwaukee shopping center developer Frank P. Crivello. Its tenants include Walgreen, Subway and Papa John's. The lawsuits involving Sierra and Greystone last year led to attempts by both parties to collect rents from tenants at the Brady Street center, and at another strip center at 3951 S. 76th St. The sale was brokered by Siegel-Gallagher/Oncor International, which says the Brady Street center is over 90% occupied. Monroe plans to make "cosmetic upgrades"' to the center, according to a Siegel-Gallagher statement.

Helios USA has signed a lease for 37,594 square feet of industrial space at the Canal Street Commerce Center, 1301 W. Canal St., according to broker Steve Sewart, of Inland Cos. Helios is a start-up manufacturer that plans to produce and sell solar energy panels for homes and businesses. It was announced in December that Helios was getting $1 million in federal stimulus money aimed at developing jobs tied to renewable energy. Supporters of those loans say investing in companies such as Helios will help create jobs, while also reducing carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. Critics say they amount to the federal government playing an overly intrusive and expensive role in the private market.

A deadline to begin work on an apartment development proposed for downtown's Park East area would again be extended under a recommendation made Monday by the County Board's Committee on Economic and Community Development. If approved by the full board, excavation work on Park East Commons would have to begin by Sept. 30. The previous deadline was May 31. CommonBond Communities Inc. has agreed to buy a portion of the site, bordered by N. Milwaukee, N. Jefferson and E. Lyon streets and E. Ogden Ave., from an investment group led by Chicago developer Rich Curto. CommonBond plans to build a five-story building with about 85 apartments and 12,000 square feet of street-level retail space. Park East Commons would include 61 spaces of underground parking. CommonBond is seeking federal affordable housing tax credits to help finance the project. In return for the credits, which are sold to raise equity financing, developers must lease apartments at below-market rents to people whose households earn no more than 60% of the area's median income. The monthly rents for units, with one to three bedrooms, would range from around $420 to $920. The site is the only Park East lot so far sold by the county. Curto's group bought it in December 2007 with plans to build hotels, and later apartments. But the recession and credit crunch brought delays and changes in the plans.

A lot has been reported lately about the controversial proposed New Berlin apartment development that would be financed with affordable housing, or low-income, tax credits. Amy Roden, of the American Enterprise Institute, recently wrote a paper that suggest changes to the federal program, which has existed since 1986. The program gives tax credits to developers who rent all, or some, of the units in an apartment building at below-market rates to people earning no more than 60% of the area's median income. Roden's recommendations include limiting the number of units with below-market rates in a project. That would promote more mixing of tenants with different types of incomes in the apartment development, she says. Roden also recommends changes that could reduce the tendency to develop the apartments in high-poverty areas. You can read the paper here .

Wisconsin has won $7.9 million in stimulus funding for development of energy-efficient building technologies as well as training programs designed to help eliminate energy waste and reduce energy costs in buildings. Projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy include two by Johnson Controls, one by Eaton Corp., two by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one by Milwaukee Area Technical College. Wisconsin snared more than 10% of the $76 million awarded nationwide, according to the Department of Energy. Johnson Controls was awarded $4 million for two different energy-efficient building technology projects, including one that would help building owners receive and respond to real-time pricing signals to minimize energy costs when power prices are high. Eaton Corp. also was awarded $2 million, to develop technologies that can reduce building energy consumption by providing detailed information about energy usage and safety protection for commercial and residential buildings. The goal: to create a “smart eOutlet,” an advanced power outlet strip that would be linked to building management systems. UW-Madison will receive $246,249 to develop a high performing non-vapor compression cooling system. The $7.9 million for Wisconsin includes $1.6 million for training projects funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. That includes $934,712 for a UW-Madison initiative to develop an energy and environment and asset management curriculum designed for building operations staff. In its $740,364 project, MATC will work to further develop its training program for commercial energy commissioning agents and energy auditors. MATC will work with UW-Milwaukee to develop a career ladder for MATC graduates to continue their education at UWM, preparing students to advance to engineers and managers. The project will include installation of an intelligent lighting laboratory, a microturbine and solar thermal heating devices to provide students hands-on experience with new technologies.

ZBB Energy Corp. said Wednesday that it has entered into a $10 million securities purchase agreement that the company said will allow it to invest in development of energy-storage systems. Socius CG II Ltd., an arm of Socius Capital of Denver and San Francisco, would buy up to $10 million of either debentures or preferred stock in the Menomonee Falls energy storage firm, under the agreement, according to ZBB. The move come as ZBB has been looking to secure financing to help it ramp up production of its energy-storage systems that are compatible with renewable energy. “The flexibility of this investment allows us to access capital only as needed,” said Eric Apfelbach, ZBB president and chief executive, in a statement. “Upon closing of this agreement, ZBB will have cash and availability in excess of $14 million. We now have the financial runway that will allow us, over the next two years, to accomplish the significant milestones in our business plan.” ZBB told investors in its quarterly filing in May that it would be in need of capital to continue financing its development of energy-storage systems. Days later, the company filed a prospectus for a registration statement to raise $10 million. Finalizing the agreement with Socius is subject to a number of conditions, ZBB said, including the effectiveness of the registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commisson.

President Barack Obama's call on Congress to move forward with a clean energy bill in the wake of the Gulf oil spill came as time is short for Congress to act, an energy and environmental policy analyst said Wednesday. The White House hasn't backed off its goal of passing an energy bill that also takes steps to put a price on emissions of greenhouse gases, said Christine Tezak, an energy and environmental policy analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co., Milwaukee, in a research note. But Tezak said the most likely outcome is a bill focused squarely on the oil industry -- with changes to liability provisions for offshore oil drilling. A climate change bill is still very much in play, she added. "We believe the best chance to move climate change legislation remains in 2010 given the likely attrition of the Democratic majority in Congress," Tezak said. "The window is narrow," she added, saying the Senate would need to pass a bill by the congressional recess slated to start Aug. 7. Obama praised the climate and energy bill that passed a year ago in the House of Representatives and called on the Senate to pass policies that would make "clean energy the profitable kind of energy for America's businesses." Republicans have warned that the bill would lead to higher energy costs by putting a price on carbon. The Environmental Protection Agency issued an analysis Tuesday claiming the costs of the bill would be moderate.

The Madison Water Utility just made the front page of Sunday's newspaper and, no, it wasn't for messing up. This is progress. It's good to see the once-embattled utility earning attention and respect for the hard work it takes to provide clean water to our growing city. Utility director Tom Heikkinen is completing his second strong year in charge of Madison's waterworks. The utility seems to be keeping city residents better informed and involved in big decisions. It seems to be more disciplined about properly treating water and fixing problems. Yet city leaders - particularly those who sit on the Water Board - can't let recent success lull them into complacency. Providing clean and plentiful water to Madison homes and businesses is a core city service that demands vigilance. It was only a few years ago that manganese pollution in tap water on Madison's West Side prompted a scare that led to scrutiny of the utility and worry over its performance.

Philanthropy takes many forms, from the major donation of a huge foundation to the quarter tossed in a donation jar for some worthy charity. In Madison for the better part of a half century, philanthropy had a name and a face -- or, to be more precise, a name and two faces. Robert and Irwin Goodman, the humble jewelers from State Street, gave and gave and gave. In fact, even after the passing of these two fine men, they are still giving. On Friday afternoon, Madison officials and citizens will celebrate that giving at the site of the greatest of their contributions: the Goodman Community Pool. The pool, which opens Friday for the summer season, was made possible by donations from the Goodmans. And thousands of children are able to learn to swim and swim free thanks to the ongoing Goodman Scholarship Program. When Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and others gather Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. to recognize the late philanthropists, they will kick off Goodman Weekend, when the many gifts donated sometimes publicly, sometimes anonymously, by these two modest men will be recalled. If you can, stop by, hail the Goodmans on this warm afternoon and then take a dip in the pool they gave Madison. If you can’t make it Friday, consider emulating the Goodmans with a gift, however big or small, that serves the community. Let’s not just keep the memory of the Goodmans’ generosity alive -- let’s extend their legacy of giving.

Madison area hit hard by job losses

Construction of the Edgewater Hotel or Amtrak train station can't come soon enough as a new report shows Madison ranking in the bottom half of U.S. metro areas for job losses in the past year. The latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show the Madison MSA -- which includes Iowa and Columbia counties -- lost 5,900 jobs in the April 2009 to April 2010 period. That's a 2.32 percent loss in the total number of jobs, putting the Madison area 67th worst out of the 100 largest U.S. metro areas. It's not much better 70 miles east. The Milwaukee metro area shed 19,000 jobs over the past 12 months, a 2.68 decline in total employment. That is 78th worst among the 100 largest metros. Not surprisingly, the latest numbers show consumers have taken a step back facing increases in financial difficulties and a soured employment picture, according to Consumer Reports Index June report. The Index measures financial difficulties faced by consumers in the past 30 days. The June Trouble Tracker worsened, rising to 63.5 from 53.0 in May. The most troubling increase is in missed mortgage payments, which reached 3.9%, its highest level since tracking began in April 2009, and is up significantly from May (2.5%).

Foreclosure filings in Dane County in May were up 20 percent from a year ago, with 128 new filings compared to 107 in May 2009, according to court records compiled by DaneCountyMarket.com. Statewide, foreclosures increased 7 percent in May, with 2,366 compared to 2,202 a year ago. Year-to-date through May, filings in Dane County increased 14 percent, with 740 filings compared to 650 in the same period in 2009. Statewide, filings increased 4 percent through May, with 12,767 filings compared to 12,285 a year ago. Dane County foreclosures have steadily increased over the past five years. The 1,695 foreclosures in 2009 were up 302 percent from 422 in 2004. Foreclosure increases in Dane County also have outpaced growth at the statewide level for four of the last five full years, with 2007 the lone exception.

Virent Energy Systems Inc. of Madison is looking to accelerate its development of renewable fuels after it raised $46.4 million in its latest financing round. The closing of Virent's third round of funding deepened the company's ties to Royal Dutch Shell PLC. The global oil company has been a research partner with Virent for several years and now has taken an equity stake that gives Shell one of seven seats on the Madison-based biofuels firm's board of directors. In March, the companies announced the start-up of the world's first biogasoline production plant, which can generate more than 10,000 gallons per year of biogasoline. "Virent has a competitive advantage from our strong relationships with two premier, global companies, Shell and Cargill. Their significant capabilities and expertise across the value chain will be essential to accelerating deployment of Virent's BioForming technology at commercial scale," said Lee Edwards, Virent's president and CEO.

Outdoor recreation opportunities in Dane County are about to get a big boost. A decadelong quest to develop a master plan for the wetlands, hills, trails, conservancy and parkland south of the Beltline is almost over, with the pending passage of the master plan by the Dane County Board. The board is expected to affirm the Capital Springs State Recreation Area master plan at its June 17 meeting in the wake of approval by its natural resources committee on June 1 and an expected OK from its finance committee. The plan will be the guide for making improvements in eight contiguous areas owned by eight governmental bodies, spread over 2,500 acres stretching from Upper Mud Lake south of Monona to Fish Hatchery Road in Fitchburg. Work on the master plan started in 2002, building off of the Nine Springs E-Way, which was first established in 1969, and the creation of the state recreation area and Capital Springs Centennial State Park in 2000. Now, the dream is almost reality.

From watching the discussion of the proposed BioLink business incubator at Monday's Board of Estimates meeting and Wednesday's Madison Development Corporation board meeting, it's almost as if the people involved were talking about two completely different projects. At Monday's meeting with city officials, the tone was tense, with strong advocates and skeptics weighing the proposal's economic development potential with the risks in relaxing another requirement of the city's financial aid policy for it. The BioLink incubator is a proposal for the city's southeast side that would bring 31,000 square feet of specialized incubator space for fledgling bio-agriculture businesses, including shared lab and greenhouse space. What is bio-agriculture, you ask? According to some, a promising future industry that marries the interests of agriculture, biotechnology, sustainability and food science to create a variety of new products and technologies. The incubator would be part of a larger BioAg Gateway planned for 27 acres of city-purchased land to bring together the knowledge and technology skills of nearby UW-Madison and Madison Area Technical College, among other academic and government institutions, with the high-powered agriculture industry of the Dane County region. The incubator has a lot of potential positives for jump-starting that connection, with city economic development staff calculating that at least 50 direct jobs and 100 indirect jobs could come from the facility in its first three years of operations.

A business incubator on Madison’s Southeast Side is still in line to get $2 million in city loans after the Board of Estimates recommended Monday to remove a requirement that half of the facility space be pre-leased before loaning the money. The city committed the money to the Midwest BioLink Commercialization and Business Center — a 31,000-square-foot facility that now is only 16 percent pre-leased — in March 2009. The facility, which would be built in the BioAg Gateway industrial park, received a $4.5 million federal grant last month that is contingent on the city’s tax incremental financing money. “We’ve got a borrower that does not have financial resources,” said city TIF coordinator Joe Gromacki of Madison Development Corporation, which will develop the incubator. In a memo Monday to board members, Gromacki warned any setbacks, such as the loss of a tenant, could be devastating because MDC has no financial backing to pay for shortfalls. He said MDC’s rescue strategy, cutting staff, wouldn’t work because not enough cash flow would be recovered to replace them. Council President Mark Clear, one of the amendment’s sponsors, said voting against the amendment would have stopped the whole project in its tracks. “I think it’s going to be exactly the kind of incubator for start-up firms that we need in this area and in the country,” he said.

Construction of the Edgewater Hotel or Amtrak train station can't come soon enough as a new report shows the Madison area is still losing jobs. The latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show the Madison MSA -- which includes Iowa and Columbia counties -- lost 5,900 jobs in the April 2009 to April 2010 period. That's a 2.32 percent loss in the total number of jobs, putting the Madison area 67th worst out of the 100 largest U.S. metro areas. It's not much better 70 miles east. The Milwaukee metro area shed 19,000 jobs over the past 12 months, a 2.68 decline in total employment. That is 78th worst among the 100 largest metros. Not surprisingly, the latest numbers show consumers have taken a step back facing increases in financial difficulties and a soured employment picture, according to Consumer Reports Index June report. The Index measures financial difficulties faced by consumers in the past 30 days. The June Trouble Tracker worsened, rising to 63.5 from 53.0 in May. The most troubling increase is in missed mortgage payments, which reached 3.9%, its highest level since tracking began in April 2009, and is up significantly from May (2.5%).

It's not that anyone at Whispering Woods Condominiums is happy about the way prices on their properties have plummeted over the past few years. Far from it. Most of the current owners at this seven-building property off Highway 51 and Pflaum Road on Madison's Southeast Side were the original purchasers of their units when the former apartments were converted into condos five years ago. Most of them also are first-time homeowners, and they had hoped to do better than this. Property values at the complex are down about 30 percent, condo association secretary-treasurer Ryan Kelley said, noting most owners, if they have the stomach to look at it, are "technically underwater on their mortgages," meaning they owe more than their properties are worth. But that's not what Kelley, condo association president Kris Eckles and several other owners are focusing their energy on these days. In part because many couldn't move now if they wanted to, residents at Whispering Woods are working together to make the place more of a home.

Madison Gas & Electric is getting a $5.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to help pay for three projects: A test run of a new type of metering system. Upgraded system software to help MGE reroute power if there's an outage. Installing up to 18 public and 25 residential charging stations for electric vehicles. The Madison utility company wants to install advanced meters that can send readings over the cellular telecommunications system. Right now, MGE workers electronically read usage meters by driving past customers' homes and businesses. About 5,000 of the new meters are expected to be installed by the end of 2011, at commercial and industrial sites and at some homes, said Peter Waldron, MGE vice president and operations officer. "We want to try to understand (how much) energy our customers are using and when they're using it," Waldron said. The information can help MGE educate consumers about energy conservation and allow the utility to test rate designs for different times of day, he said. The meters would also tell the utility if the power goes out, without requiring the customer to make a call to MGE's emergency line. MGE also wants to expand its network of charging stations for electric vehicles - currently at two, at MGE headquarters, 133 S. Blair St., and at the Willy Street Co-op, 1221 Williamson St. - to 45 by the end of 2011.

Tell home owners these days that their taxes are going to increase to support this or that, and many reflexively cry foul. But on Wednesday night, not a single person showed up to comment when Madison Area Technical College hosted a public hearing on its proposed 2010-11 budget. With no concerns to address, officials quickly moved on to the monthly MATC District Board meeting, where the $266.6 million budget -- an increase of $5.3 million over the current fiscal year -- was promptly passed for 2010-11. As things currently stand, this budget will increase the tax levy by 8.94 percent for area home owners. According to MATC figures, that means taxes on an average single-family home in Madison, valued at $242,970, would be $347.54 -- an increase of about $25 over last year. Those numbers don't include other portions of a home owner's tax bill, such as local K-12 schools, the City of Madison and Dane County. Virtually every home owner in the area helps pay for the college, as the school's district includes most of Columbia, Dane, Jefferson, Marquette and Sauk counties, and parts of Adams, Dodge, Green, Iowa, Juneau, Richland and Rock counties.

Despite appearing ready to fire its four-year village administrator Wednesday night, the Mount Horeb Village Board instead tabled a decision on the matter after hearing pleas from his supporters. In comments following a lengthy closed session, five of the seven board members cited Larry Bierke’s poor communication with the board and his pro-development philosophy as among the reasons to terminate him. “Bottom line is, I don’t believe the taxpayers of this village can afford his vision,” said board member Steve Haroldson. But board members David Becker and Randy Littel said nothing the other five alleged was serious enough — or even true — to get rid of an otherwise talented manager and tireless advocate for Mount Horeb. “Without just charges, the only conclusion I can come to is personal vendetta,” Becker said to loud applause. Under state statutes, deliberations on personnel matters can be done in closed session, and almost always are. But Bierke opted to have his fate discussed by the board in public. He defended his efforts to get board members information quickly and said he takes his cues from the village’s comprehensive plan, which the board can always change. Enacting a downtown TIF district is part of that plan, he said. But once newly elected board members made their opposition to the district clear, he dropped it.

That's a big question, with probably as many answers as there are points of view and different experiences out there. But when Property Trax posed that question to Bill Kessler, president of Century 21 Affiliated and a 30-year veteran of the local housing market scene, he managed a pretty succinct response. He noted five main characteristics of the current market, starting with the existence of "isolated, random, huge bargains" and ending with what he described as "slightly increased" consumer confidence in the market. In between he noted his finding that "normal homes" are now selling for 85 percent of 2006 prices, while "tons of back-logged foreclosure inventory" are still waiting to be "dumped on the market." Anyone who doubts that need only look at monthly foreclosure filings in Dane County, and the fact that they've been up - sometimes at record-setting levels - from the previous year nearly every month since the summer of 2005. Kessler's last point was a more hopeful one, as he noted the recent return of "non-investor buyers" and "non-distressed sellers" to the market. In other words, he's seeing more regular people who are buying and selling homes for the usual reasons, such as the need for more space or a recent promotion or the desire to change school districts.

The city of Madison paid more than $15 million in extra earnings to employees in 2009, with 49 workers taking home more than $25,000 above their base pay last year, according to a Wisconsin State Journal analysis of city records. About half of the extra pay came in overtime, the newspaper's analysis showed. But the city also paid out about $2 million last year to employees who banked sick days and more than $1 million for workers who cashed in vacation time - practices less common in the private sector. The newspaper first revealed in February how experienced city bus drivers took advantage of generous overtime rules to jack up their pay and pad their pensions. The new analysis dissects the city's $175 million full payroll, a database obtained under the state's open records law. You can drill down into the topic along with us, and find out what city officials and experts think about it, in the exclusive series "City Salaries: Cashing In" in the Sunday and Monday newspapers.

Monique Metcalf couldn’t sleep at night when she first moved to her north-side Madison apartment, she recalls. It was too quiet. Missing on Vera Court were the shouting matches, the smashing glass, and the gunfire that punctuated the night in her old Milwaukee neighborhood, she says. It took some getting used to. Six months later, Metcalf, 40, is comfortable with the relative quiet, and she’s happy in a three-bedroom apartment she shares with her two daughters, ages 14 and 4. But the road to peace and quiet has had its bumps. Metcalf and her daughters spent three months in a homeless shelter program before moving in November into housing owned and managed by The Road Home Dane County, a Madison nonprofit organization. Buying real estate last year to provide affordable housing for low-income families was a big move for The Road Home, an agency previously known as Interfaith Hospitality Network. So far, officials say, it’s working well. Founded in 1997, the agency works with communities of faith to provide shelter to the homeless and to help those families get housing and stay in it. The organization’s goal in owning its own property is to give clients worn down by homelessness a stable base from which to change the circumstances that led them there. “Every time I go over there, it’s literally a dream come true. Fifteen families who would have left shelter for homelessness are in housing and creating their lives,” says Rachel Krinsky, executive director of The Road Home. Shelter provides a safe place to bed down, but it’s difficult to get a foothold to a more stable life. “People in shelter are in crisis mode,” says Kristin Rucinski, the on-site case manager at The Road Home’s new housing on Vera Court.

Is an industrial park on the southeast side of Verona different from an office park near the Sugar River? The city could find out this week, when it goes before the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission for the third time in as many months in an attempt to expand its urban service area (USA). A USA is an area that can have connections to the metropolitan sewer district, therefore enabling most forms of development. CARPC is the appointed political body in charge of determining whether a given area is appropriate for development, specifically as it relates to water quality. Last month, Verona’s proposal to expand into what it called the Southwest Area was denied as a result of a 6-6 vote, two yeses shy of the required eight. There were significant questions over the impact development in that area would have on the Sugar River, just a few hundred feet to the west, and the Badger Mill Creek, which runs through part of the 265-acre area. In fact, the entire neighborhood – several hundred acres around the confluence of those two waterways – had been the centerpiece of a five-year political battle the city had been waging with the county executive over development there.

The eight-story Underwriters Exchange Building, one of downtown Milwaukee's older office buildings, is up for sale after undergoing foreclosure. The 37,100-square-foot building, 828 N. Broadway, is listed at $1.65 million by Wangard Partners. Built in 1924, it has an occupancy rate of just 37%. Associated Bank filed a foreclosure suit targeting the property in 2008. Associated last year was granted a $1.5 million judgment against a local investment group and investors who individually guaranteed the bank loan, according to online court records. The bank has hired Wangard Partners to sell the building.

Glorioso Brothers Co., a long-time Italian grocery on Milwaukee's east side, has filed its renovation plans for the former Brady Street Cafe building with the city Historic Preservation Commission. The commission needs to approve plans for the exterior work on the building, at the southeast corner of E. Brady and N. Astor streets. Interior demolition has already started, and Glorioso's contractor, Mehmert Store Services, plans to have the remodeling completed by Oct. 1, said Dan Prahl, project manager. The commission will consider the renovation plans at its Monday meeting. The Glorioso family last fall announced plans to move their store and deli, at 1018 E. Brady St., into the first floor of the former cafe building, which is just across the street. That will provide nearly three times as much space, with expanded deli offerings and a larger wine and spirits department. The existing store and deli will house Glorioso Brothers’ catering business and possibly cooking classes. The cafe closed after being unable to pay its bills. The business, operated by James Searles, started in 1983 and served as a neighborhood hangout. Glorioso's plans include demolishing much of the second floor, where Searles ran a small performing arts and exhibition space for theater, dance and film. Part of the space will be kept for grocery offices, with the new open area creating an atrium.

Associated Bank plans to build its business banking presence in the Chicago area with the addition of three senior-level managers. The hiring of the Chicago-area bankers is in line with one of the goals of new Associated chief executive Philip B. Flynn, who has said he wants to increase the Green Bay-based bank's commercial lending in venues outside the Fox Valley where Associated already has some operations. Currently, Associated is 23rd in deposits in the Chicago metro area, a fragmented market where no one bank dominates. "It's always made sense for them to try to make further inroads there," said Terry McEvoy, a bank analyst who covers Associated for Oppenheimer & Co. in Portland, Maine. Chicago is a big market with lots of lending opportunities, but "it's tough to differentiate yourself" there, McEvoy said. Associated said Wednesday it will try to grow in the market with the help of three people who have experience doing business there. Donna N. Smith, a former Bank of America and La Salle Bank executive, has been named executive vice president and commercial banking director for the south region. She will be responsible for overseeing the commercial and industrial business lines for the region, which includes Chicago, Peoria, southern Illinois and the St. Louis area.

Barbara Swan, president of Wisconsin Power & Light and executive vice president-general counsel and chief administrative officer of parent company Alliant Energy Corp., plans to retire Nov. 30, according to a filing with federal regulators. If Swan, 58, can accomplish certain goals by then, she will get a special incentive bonus of up to $275,000. The goals include “making substantial progress and, if possibly, concluding” a pending legal dispute over modifications made to three power plants and a lawsuit over Alliant’s pension plan. The power plant issue involves a notice of intent to file a civil suit by the Sierra Club. It claims WPL made major changes to three power plants — Nelson Dewey at Cassville; Columbia near Portage; and Edgewater at Sheboygan. The Sierra Club says WPL did not get appropriate permits in advance and did not install the best available emission controls to curb pollution. Last December, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent the utility a notice that it violated permit rules. If either the EPA or the Sierra Club is successful in proving a violation occurred, WPL could be required to pay civil penalties of up to $37,500 per day, Alliant said in its most recent quarterly report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

As the economy flashes mixed signals about the durability of the recovery, a widely watched employment indicator suggests that the jobs situation is stabilizing nationally - and that the outlook for the Milwaukee area is particularly upbeat. Job prospects in the four-county area that includes Milwaukee and Waukesha tied with two other U.S. metro regions for sixth best among the 100 largest metropolitan areas, according to Manpower Inc.'s quarterly survey of employer expectations. Employers in metro Milwaukee "expect to hire at a solid pace" in the July-September period, according to the Manpower outlook. On a national level, Manpower similarly sees the early stages of a jobs recovery. Of the 18,000 employers surveyed, 18% anticipate an increase in staffing in the third quarter, while 8% expect a decrease, resulting in a net national outlook of 10%. After adjustments for seasonal factors, such as weather and vacations, the outlook becomes 6%. Meanwhile, 70% of employers expect no change in hiring, denoting relative stability in the economy.

Calling it "reasonable and predictable," University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly is recommending a 5.5 percent tuition increase for the state's 13 four-year universities for 2010-11. The UW Board of Regents will vote on the increase at a meeting in Milwaukee on Thursday as part of the UW System's operating budget, which is expected to exceed $5 billion next year for the first time. This is the fourth consecutive year that Reilly has recommended a 5.5 percent tuition hike. "In the face of major financial challenges, we have successfully avoided double-digit tuition increases, across-the-board enrollment caps, and other drastic measures," Reilly said in a news release. It will mean tuition will rise $638 at UW-Madison, for an annual cost of $7,933. That rate increase — 8.7 percent — is because UW-Madison is in the midst of implementing a surcharge called the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates to pay for more professors and services. UW-Madison's tuition will still be the second lowest in the Big Ten conference, according to UW System documents.

Milwaukee alderman weighs in on New Berlin housing flap

Milwaukee Common Council President Willie Hines has weighed in on New Berlin’s controversial affordable housing project proposed for the Waukesha County suburb’s City Center. In a statement, Hines reminded New Berlin that part of Milwaukee’s agreement to provide New Berlin with Lake Michigan water required New Berlin to “take a hard look at housing demographics and public transportation alternatives.” The Milwaukee Common Council has an adopted policy that links water sales to affordable housing and public transit. That policy has Waukesha Mayor Jeff Scrima wary of obtaining Lake Michigan water from Milwaukee. Scrima has said he is worried that a water contract with Milwaukee would allow that city to intrude in Waukesha affairs. Waukesha is seeking a lake supply so that it can halt use of deep wells pumping radium-tainted water out of a sandstone aquifer. New Berlin residents are trying to kill a developer’s proposal for affordable housing in the City Center, which originally was envisioned as an area of upscale shops, galleries, restaurants and condominiums. New Berlin Plan Commission on Monday night rescinded parking waivers for the proposal and asked the developer to come back with revised plans in July.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, a Democrat, said Monday that he plans to "put Madison on a diet" as he unveiled ways to cut at least $1.1 billion a year in state spending. His opponents in the governor's race criticized his plans. Also, some of the proposed measures would be time-consuming and potentially difficult to achieve. At least one proposal - to save $1 million a year by eliminating the offices of the secretary of state and state treasurer - would require a change in the state constitution, a process that takes two years. So far in the campaign, Barrett has offered voters the most specifics on how he would manage state government. In addition to Monday's budget proposal, he unveiled a 67-page economic plan May 20. In other campaign developments, Republican strategist Jim Klauser circulated a letter to Republican Mark Neumann, a former congressman, asking him to give up his candidacy. Until late last year, Klauser, an aide to former Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, had been the most well-known supporter of Neumann's. But on Monday, he was sharply critical of what he said was the Nashotah businessman's negative attacks on fellow Republican Scott Walker, the Milwaukee County executive. As attention recently has focused on the battle between Neumann and Walker, Barrett has pushed policy pronouncements.

After the biggest downturn for Wisconsin factories since the early 1990s, Wisconsin manufacturers are turning bullish on the economy. Optimism about the state of the economy has reversed attitudes for Wisconsin business executives concerned about the state's business climate. A year ago at this time, top executives of large companies were expecting to cut jobs and reduce the size of pay increases for employees. But in a survey being released Wednesday, half of executives at companies that belong to Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce say they expect the economy to grow. "Things will be a little better in 2010 than they were in 2009, but not by a big stretch. We've got a long ways to go to get back to where we were, to production levels prior to the recession," said Michael Dougherty, owner of D&S Manufacturing, a metal fabrication firm in Black River Falls. WMC's surveys of its board of directors - who represent larger employers - as well as its broader membership, reveal optimism but also continued concerns about where the economy is headed.

Bryant & Stratton College, a for-profit school, wants to expand its downtown Milwaukee facility at Reuss Federal Plaza, 310 W. Wisconsin Ave., according to a filing with the Board of Zoning Appeals Bryant & Stratton leases 46,000 square feet at Federal Plaza, and wants to add around 9,800 square feet, the filing said. That expansion would add three classrooms, four offices and a student lounge at the 583,000-square-foot building, where Bryant & Stratton has operated since 2001. Bryant & Stratton last year opened a facility at Bayshore Town Center, in Glendale, and has another facility in Wauwatosa. It is among several for-profit schools that have been expanding in the Milwaukee area.

An applicaton for federal New Markets tax credits, to help finance building renovations to accommodate a for-profit school in the Historic Third Ward, won final approval Wednesday from the Milwaukee Economic Development Corp.'s Executive Committee.MEDC will provide $6.5 million in credits to U.S. Bank, which will sell them to investors who want to reduce their federal tax bills. Selling the credits will raise an estimated $1.7 million, which U.S. Bank and MEDC will lend to the Gardner famly trust, which owns the Dye House, 320 E. Buffalo St.. That loan will be repaid over 12 years, at an annual interest rate of just 2.5%. Gardner will invest an additional $4.8 million to convert storage space into the Art Institute of Milwaukee. The project will generate property tax revenue for the city and help create about 50 jobs within two years, according to MEDC. Michael Rosen, president of the union that represents Milwaukee Area Technical College instructors, objected to providing the credits. He cited investigations of Art Institute schools over their business practices, and lawsuits filed against corporate parent Education Management Corp.The Art Institute of Milwaukee will be one of more than 45 Art Institute campuses operated by Pittsburgh-based Education Management. The schools offer classes in such areas as graphic design, fashion design and culinary arts. The Milwaukee center will use 35,000 square feet of offices, classrooms and kitchen labs at the Dye House, and will open in September.

The Knickerbocker on the Lake condominiums and hotel, 1028 E. Juneau Ave., would get an adjacent 184-space parking structure, under a proposal filed with the Milwaukee Board of Zoning Appeals. The Knickerbocker condo association, which owns the building, says in the board filing that it needs a parking structure to shore up the value of the condos. The structure would be north of Juneau Ave. and east of Astor St., where the building has a parking lot. The lot has only one-third of the spaces needed for the 184-unit condo building, according to the filing. Most of the building's units are used by their indvidual owners, with about a dozen units rented out as hotel rooms, the filing said. It also said the $3.8 million parking structure would likely have some units available for customers of nearby businesses, such as Osteria del Mondo, The Knick, Astor Hotel and County Clare. That's because some of the building's condo owners live outside Milwaukee for several months of the year, and some own multiple units, the filing said. The structure would include underground and above-grade parking, and would be 19 feet above the street surface at the corner of Juneau and Astor. The height would rise to 32 feet at the parking structure's north end, which would have mechanical equipment on the roof. The condo association wants the zoning board to waive the requirement for a 10-foot setback from Astor St. Meeting that setback standard would require the parking structure to have more spaces underground, which would raise the costs by $1 million and make the project unfeasible, the filing said Charles Engberg, of Engberg Anderson Architects, which is designing the structure, told me the proposal is in the "exploratory phase." The board is scheduled to review the project at its June 17 meeting.

Johnson Controls Inc. will more than triple the amount of space it leases at Lydell Corporate Center, in Glendale, to accommodate its growing building efficiency operation. The company now leases 20,000 square feet at the building, 5055 N. Lydell Ave., and in July will lease an additional 50,000 square feet, said spokeswoman Angela Adams. That additional space will accommodate up to 330 employees who will move to Glendale from the company's downtown Milwaukee facility, 507 E. Michigan St., Adams said. The company has about 1,600 employees at the Michigan St. offices. The building efficiency operation is growing, and space at the downtown facility is limited, Adams said. She said the Glendale facility was the best choice for the growing business because Johnson Controls already has a presence at Lydell. The Lydell building is owned by real estate investor Frank Giuffre, who created office space there from the former Sunbeam-Oster manufacturing facility. Most of Johnson Controls' local operations are based at its newly expanded headquarters in Glendale, at 5757 N. Green Bay Ave.

A special zoning district for Milwaukee's East Village neighborhood should be dropped, the Common Council's Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee recommended Tuesday morning. Developments in the district, bordered roughly by Brady St., the Milwaukee River, Humboldt Ave. and Warren Ave., currently must follow special design and construction guidelines outlined in a "conservation district." The Common Council approved the district in 2004. Supporters, including then-Ald. Mike D'Amato, said the guidelines would prevent large condominium developments from being built in the neighborhood, which consists mainly of one- and two-story homes. Opponents argued that those guidelines were too restrictive and affected their property rights. Ald. Nik Kovac, who succeeded D'Amato, introduced legislation to repeal the conservation district after surveying neighborhood residents and property owners. A majority of the people surveyed want the district repealed, Kovac says. He also hopes to see people voluntarily agree to preserve older homes in the neighborhood. The committee voted 4-1 to repeal the district, with Ald. Robert Bauman the only member voting against the proposal. The full council is to consider the issue at its June 15 meeting.

Ever wonder what happened to various downtown Milwaukee office tower and residential high-rise plans over the years? Land & Space reader Walter Allen Majewski sent me a link to an Internet site that tracks such projects that never got off the drawing board, including some from decades ago. It's kind of a fun trip down memory lane. My favorite: the Tourist Tower, from 1964. You gotta love the name....

Up one day and down the next: America's economic indicators continue to contradict each other, signaling that the economy is grinding along without clear direction or momentum. A survey released Wednesday by Right Management, a subsidiary of Manpower Inc., told U.S. workers to brace for "more downsizing." Half of the 426 human resources executives surveyed expect their organizations to undergo a restructuring within the next half year, while one in five anticipate "a change in their organization's leadership" and 13% foresee possible mergers and acquisitions. "It seems likely that more corporate upheaval is ahead," said Lynn Clement, a vice president at Right Management, a national firm that offers career coaching services to workers who lose their jobs. In the wake of the recession of 2008-'09, the results might surprise those who thought the U.S. was getting out of the woods. But it's hardly the only instance of mixed signals. Only one day earlier, Milwaukee-based Manpower, a global job-placement firm and the parent company of Right Management, published its quarterly outlook, which painted a relatively upbeat picture for U.S. job prospects. Manpower's quarterly surveys of employers, carried out for the last 47 years, are deemed a credible forward-looking indicator of hiring trends.

The president of the Wisconsin State Attorneys Association is accusing the state Department of Workforce Development of not providing enough judicial manpower to meet the rush of appeals filed by unemployed workers or companies since the economic downturn began. Ken Duren, president of the union that represents administrative law judges in the unemployment insurance division, charged that the state had been slow to react to a ballooning caseload the state knew was coming. "Instead, it chose to address the coming wave of appeals by attempting to squeeze more legal widgets out of fewer and fewer attorneys," Duren said. "The result is the grown backlog of appeals and the growing waiting time for a decision to unemployed workers. That is the consequence of understaffing. Tell that to the person who has been waiting four months for their hearing." Duren said the state agency mismanaged the problem "and that has left people without benefits." The administrative law judges are attorneys who handle the hearings. They hear testimony and render a decision as soon as possible. Duren said Workforce Development was in the process of unveiling a new system in which every hearing on a jobless claim can only last either 30 minutes or 60 minutes. The system, he said, has to be collectively bargained with the union. This week, the Journal Sentinel reported that the average wait for an appeals hearing was 90 days. Workforce Development officials say they are bringing in new administrative law judges and support personnel to address the backlog, which they hoped to have cleaned up by the end of the year. By the time all of them are hired, the department will have 36.5 administrative law judges.

Marquis Yachts in Pulaski will receive up to $1.5 million in loans from the state's Community Development Block Grant program, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. The funding will help the company complete a $5.75 million acquisition that will create 315 full-time jobs in the Pulaski area, the agency said. Marquis Yachts builds yachts under the Carver Yachts and Marquis Yachts brands. Carver was established in 1954, manufacturing custom small boats, and expanding to offer larger cabin cruisers and yachts. Marquis was established in 2003 to produce larger premium yachts.

Japan PM warns of Greece-like debt crisis

Japan could face a financial mess like the one that has crippled Greece if it does not deal urgently with its swelling national debt, the new prime minister warned Friday. While Japan is on firmer financial footing than Greece because most of its debt is held domestically, Prime Minister Naoto Kan's blunt talk appeared designed to push forward his agenda, which may involve raising taxes. Speaking in his first address to Parliament after taking office Tuesday, Kan said Japan cannot continue to let government debt swell while state finances are under pressure from an aging and declining population. "It is difficult to sustain a policy that relies too heavily on issuing debt. As we have seen with the financial confusion in the European community stemming from Greece, our finances could collapse if trust in national bonds is lost and growing national debt is left alone," he said.