Excerpted from Wisconsin State Journal

Madison-based Bell Laboratories — the maker of rodent poisons, bait stations, glue boards, mechanical traps and attractants under the Tomcat brand name — plans to build a 300,000-square-foot facility on a 32-acre parcel in the North Towne Corporate Park in DeForest.

In October, global lawn and garden products marketer Scotts Miracle-Gro bought the consumer rodent-control business from Bell.

The new facility will meet the company’s growing need for additional shipping and receiving, warehouse and manufacturing space, as well as provide room for future expansion. Bell has corporate offices at 3699 Kinsman Blvd. on Madison’s East Side.

“Building plans are now in the operational phase, including determining how many people will be located at the new facility,” Levy noted in a news release. Bell currently employs about 350 people. No cost estimate for the new facility was provided.

With a groundbreaking expected as early as spring, Levy said Bell is looking forward to having a physical presence in DeForest. “We appreciate all the support we’ve received from the village of DeForest. They have been very responsive and helpful,” Levy added.

In a statement, village President Judd Blau said “the growth, creativity and stability of Bell Laboratories Inc. make it a perfect partner to join with DeForest to grow its economy.”

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Excerpted from wisbusiness.com
By Brian E. Clark

It’s nearly impossible to grow a start-up food business without access to a commercial kitchen.

So says Karen Bassler, executive director of the Madison’s North Side Planning Council, which launched FEED Kitchens on Madison’s North Side in November. FEED stands for “Food Enterprise and Economic Development.”

Bassler said the $1.57 million food business incubator was funded with hundreds of donations, small private investments, a $500,000 grant from the City of Madison and a $400,000 loan from Forward Community Investments, a Madison-based lender that funds non-profits and cooperatives.

“FEED Kitchens is the brainchild of a number of people who had been thinking for years that we needed some place in Madison where we could kick start businesses for people who could not invest in a whole kitchen of their own,” said Bassler.

According to its website, the project’s mission is to create an enterprise that supports local food entrepreneurs and the development of food-related employment by providing five commercial kitchen spaces for food processing… increasing the availability of local, healthy and affordable food in the greater Dane County area.

Bassler said FEED Kitchens was established primarily for the entrepreneur who wants to start or grow a food business, such as food cart vendors or caterers. But as the conversations over the project continued, Bassler said backers realized the facility also could help non-profits get fresh vegetables and produce to schools for healthy snacks and salad bar items.

The location of FEED at a North side shopping plaza near a bus line helps the facility also serve as a community center, where local groups can do food preparation for fundraisers, and as a job training site for the unemployed and former inmates. One initiative works with local restaurants to develop an internship program that could lead to full-time employment.

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Excerpted from Wisconsin State Journal
By Barry Adams

Dane County officials unveiled a $20 million plan Thursday to add more parking at the Dane County Regional Airport.

The project, scheduled to begin this spring and completed by December, would add three levels of parking to the existing parking structure at the airport, add 1,500 parking spots and bring the airport’s covered parking capacity to 3,489 spots.

In 2013, 1.68 million passengers passed through the terminal, the second highest ridership rate in airport history. The project, paid for through parking revenue, is seen as instrumental in making not only the airport an easier place to use and navigate but as an economic development tool for the region.

“When you think about comparing the experience here to some of the larger airports in the Midwest, it is frankly very easy to fly in and out of,” said County Executive Joe Parisi. “You can park your car and you can be within yards of the front door and we want to make sure that experience remains the same for our passengers.”

Parisi was joined at the announcement by Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, and Paul Jadin, president of the Madison Region Economic Partnership, an economic development organization for an eight county area of southern Wisconsin.

The pair highlighted the use of the airport by growing technology companies like Epic Systems in Verona and Promega in Fitchburg and in its role of keeping emerging companies in the region.

“This is a wonderful addition to the Madison region economy,” Jadin said. “When you have a quality airport and the amenities that come with this kind of quality airport, it is much easier for us to lure business.”

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Excerpted from Janesville Gazette
by Jim Leute

Rod Gottfredsen vividly recalls the day in 1986 when he and seven other people met in his one-chair barbershop in downtown Beloit.

The topic at hand was the state of downtown.

“Not only were some of the buildings without upstairs windows that pigeons were flying in and out of, but many of the lower windows were boarded up as well,” Gottfredsen said. “Things were looking pretty shabby.”

Gottfredsen, owner of Austin’s Barber Shop at 316 State St., helped form a Business Improvement District that launched downtown Beloit on its road to recovery.

Surveying the downtown landscape nearly three decades later, Gottfredsen is simple with his assessment: “I’m elated.”

Much of Gottfredson’s excitement can be traced to several ongoing and recent projects in downtown Beloit.
It would be an overstatement to say Beloit is rejuvenating or revitalizing its downtown. It started that process more than 25 years ago when it was one of the first communities in Wisconsin accepted into the state’s Main Street program.

What’s happening instead in Beloit is a continuing evolution that observers say is necessary to keep the downtown relevant.

“It’s an ongoing process,” said Shauna El-Amin, executive director of the Downtown Beloit Association, a collaboration of property owners, business people and community volunteers committed to Beloit’s central business district.

The last of the most significant vacancies—a stretch of East Grand Avenue that was once home to Wagner’s Office Supply and other businesses­—was demolished last year.

Under construction in its place is the Phoenix Building, a four-story retail and apartment project of nearly 40,000 square feet. The first floor will be a mix of offices, retail and restaurants. The top three floors will include 27 market-rate apartments.

The Phoenix Building is a project of Hendricks Commercial Properties, a Beloit-based company that manages and owns more than 15 million square feet of real estate properties in 39 states. Diane Hendricks, co-founder of ABC Supply, owns the company.

“This is a very enjoyable project in our own backyard,” said Rob Gerbitz, the real estate company’s president and chief operating officer. “A lot of times, us building a Wal-Mart somewhere is about making money.

“A project like this is a long-term investment in the community, and Diane has been adamant that we think long-term when it comes to Beloit.”

Andrew Janke is now Beloit’s economic development director. Back in the late 1980s, he held El-Amin’s position with the downtown association.

“Back when we started this and became one of the five inaugural Main Street communities, we understood it would be long-term process,” Janke said. “We weren’t expecting a home run with one or two projects.

“We understood that to be successful it would take time and be something that needs continual attention, and that’s proven to be the case. That’s a testament to the support of downtown business owners, volunteers, board and committee members, as well as the support of the city.”

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Excerpted from Janesville Gazette
By Neil Johnson

“Development Mania” might be an overstatement, but Milton City Administrator Jerry Schuetz said he’s seen a recent jump in interest from companies seeking to build or expand in the business park along the new Highway 26 bypass.

In the four months since the bypass was completed, the city has entered into talks with six commercial and industrial developers eyeing parcels along the bypass, Schuetz said.

At a time when construction of new commercial properties seems to be picking up throughout the area—particularly along the Highway 14/Highway 26 corridor on Janesville’s north end, Milton is starting to feel the local economic pulse quicken.

Right now, Schuetz said, the city has at least three local companies eying land for business expansions in the 400-acre Crossroads Business Park, which extends from the Highway 59/Highway 26 Bypass corridor north along Janesville Street on the city’s east side.

Add that to the city’s ongoing study and recruitment effort for a potential hotel where the new bypass bends east around Milton and a handful of prospects for commercial development in that same area.

When the Highway 26 bypass opened to traffic, the city’s phone lines began ring with developers at the other end, Schuetz said. That could be a sign of economic recovery, but Schuetz believes it’s also because a major arterial roadway that was torn up for months is now completed and reconfigured.

People can see how the new alignment of Highway 26 operates and how it connects to undeveloped portions of the city, including the Crossroads Business Park.

“It’s all in 3-D now. What I see, now, from my perspective, is recognition that commerce in the region is really well-positioned because of Highway 26 and Highway 14—state highways where there is an awful lot of traffic.” Schuetz said.

Traffic estimates from the DOT suggest between 16,000 and 19,000 cars a day pass Milton on the bypass.

“In Milton, that presents new opportunities. The roadway is repositioned. People want to be there. They want to be where the cars are going and coming,” Schuetz said.

“The phone is ringing, now. And when it does, it’s not surprising when it’s a developer. It’s getting to be that City Hall staff all knows their (developers’) names because of the frequency with which they’re calling. They dial in to me and say, ‘Jerry, this one’s important,’” Schuetz said.

One surprise, Schuetz said, is the uptick in Milton business seeking land in the Crossroads Business Park to expand. That interest has come since the bypass opened, he said.

Schuetz argues that a few projects recently completed or in the works might be driving interest in new developments.

He said investors and companies are perking up over new developments in Milton, such as the Parker YMCA, a $4 million privately funded facility completed last fall.

This fall, a former manufacturing facility on Plumb Street on the city’s east side will house Blackhawk Technical College’s new Advanced Manufacturing Training Center.

Schuetz said industries looking to develop in Milton are taking notice of the new training center because it would provide a nearby supply of specialized, trained workers.

“That (the manufacturing training center) is a big boost for the region, but it’s huge for Milton. You talk to industrial developers, and it’s exactly what they’re looking for.” Schuetz said. “It’s something that really sets us apart from our competition.”

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