A new development in The Park at High Crossing business park isn’t the best publicized renewal effort in Madison, but it could well contribute to a vital live, work, and play community that’s in the formative stages just off Hwy. 90/94 on Madison’s east side.
The developers do not have grandiose plans for luxury apartments, although additional multifamily units could follow in the same area, but they are building two industrial flex buildings in the Nelson neighborhood of Madison that will serve the other live, work, and play components.
Patrick Carroll, vice president of development and acquisitions and general counsel for Investors Associated LLP, already has one confirmed tenant even though the buildings along City View Drive won’t be finished for a couple of months. The site — situated just north of a Veridian Homes residential development — is being marketed to prospective tenants.
“We’ve said this site is a good opportunity and area of the community to have a node of live, work, and play,” Carroll notes. “Veridian is building a significant part of the ‘live’ piece to the south. We have the work piece established, and we have an opportunity with what’s left here to blend the two into work and play as well as some opportunities to house additional people.”
As Carroll suggests, the play aspect is still to be determined, but it’s part of the long-term view of what this site can be. An updated neighborhood plan contemplates the site could include 500 additional apartment units, and when fully built out, the area should have enough rooftops to entice a restaurant or a small grocery development. “When you start to factor in the people and the roads and the parking, the question is how will you service them outside of work hours?” Carroll notes. “We’ve had preliminary discussions about how to activate this site beyond the workday.”
Invested development
Investors Associated is the parent company of IA Management LLC. IA Management is the company that manages, leases, and maintains the properties — IA Management’s Chief Operating Officer and Corporate Counsel Rachel Govin and its Madison team are focused on these efforts — while Investors Associated manages the overarching portfolio and is focused on identifying development and acquisition opportunities to grow its portfolio of real estate investments.
Carroll, however, oversees this particular development project. It will contain two buildings, 55,000 square feet in total, on the far south side of the project, where Investors Associated has 40 acres left to develop. “It was a relatively small site and we had to find the best use for it,” Carroll notes. “There certainly has been a demand for flex-industrial space. We talked to people in the market and looked at other properties in the area. Given the size and restrictions to this relatively small site, that seemed to be the best opportunity.”
The mix of uses already includes traditional offices, and the neighborhood plan anticipates that at some point in the future there will be approximately 30 units per acre of multifamily housing and some retail. The play component in live, work, and play is still to be determined, but there should be enough housing in the area to attract restaurants or a small grocer. “We’ve tried to think outside the box about what this will look like in 10 years and how we get there,” Carroll states. “It’s a little chicken-and-egg question where a restaurant doesn’t necessarily want to move in until they see proof of rooftops but being close to the Veridian development and having that be a successful project and a good neighbor, you’re starting to see some of that momentum.”
A rail line separates the Investors Associated property from residential subdivisions to the south, where Veridian Homes has roughly 4,000 residential units — multifamily, townhomes, and single-family homes — either developed or under development, according to Carroll. He notes the Veridian subdivision is large but well built out, and the advantages of an east side location along the freeway make Carroll very bullish on his firm’s development site and this section of Madison. “If you step back and look at the region as a whole, three of the five fastest growing communities in the state are Sun Prairie, Fitchburg, and the Greater Madison area in general,” he notes. “If you look at where we are on a map, we’re almost dead center between those three communities, and we think over the long term, this will become kind of a center point for those communities.”
There is even the potential for an impressive view from a hill where people can begin to see the Capitol, downtown Madison, and perhaps Lake Mendota if developers were to build a four-story multifamily structure there, but that’s not the only site advantage. “It has some great visibility off the freeway, great connectivity to Hwy. 151, to Lien Road, down High Crossing Blvd., and to East Town Mall,” Carroll notes. “We’re in close proximity to the airport, and then the Badger Interchange — where Hwy. 30 ends at its junction with Interstates 39, 90, and 94 — is the way to get to Milwaukee, Chicago, and Minneapolis. So, from our perspective, this is where to be in Madison — within 10 minutes of the [Capitol] Square, but also have the ability to be an hour from Milwaukee.”
The new commercial buildings, which will feature tilt-up construction from Madison-based Newcomb Construction, may house a local roofer, plumber, or maintenance/utility team to serve future residents, or a local brewery that wants to put its name along the freeway. Industrial space in Madison has been very tight market, and Carroll notes there has been more demand for space like this.
The intent is to build for a wide variety of tenants within the zoning code. The front face of these buildings will be well preserved with storefront glass, and the objective is to provide different opportunities to build out the space. On the face of the building, designers allow in a lot of natural light, and with the storefront glass, it could be a showroom, it could be an office space in front with industrial behind it, it could be a tap room for a brewery, or it could be lab space. “It gives you a lot of flexibility, depending on what your needs are,” Carroll states, “and the face of the building is an effort to blend in with some of the newer projects we’ve done in the park and make it somewhat unique and not just your usual industrial space.”
The timetable for completion is January 2023, and IA Management has started to market the property to anyone who wants to tour the site. “What we tried to do is build something that will stand the test of time and have the flexibility to not only meet the demand of today, but potential future uses,” Carroll says. “It will serve the immediate area well in terms of the residential that is growing up around it, and it’s a great opportunity for a local tenant to put their name on the highway and get some recognition.”
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