Former Northridge Boston Store will be demolished to make way for future development

Tom Daykin
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The former Boston Store at Milwaukee's dead Northridge Mall is to be demolished to make way for future development.

The former Northridge Mall Boston Store will be demolished to make way for a future light industrial development, or other new use, under a proposal from city officials.

The city will seek a $250,000 grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. to help finance the demolition under a plan that's being reviewed Thursday by the Redevelopment Authority board.

If the city receives the grant, officials would need additional money sources to demolish the 153,000-square-foot building, said Jeff Fleming, Department of City Development spokesman.

Department officials don't yet have a timeline for the project, Fleming said.

Penzeys Spices owner William Penzey gave the former Boston Store property to the city in 2017.

City officials said the former department store and its parking lot could eventually have three light industrial buildings, totaling around 300,000 square feet.

Since then, department officials have determined that it makes more sense to demolish the building, and use its land, rather than renovate it, Fleming said.

No specific plans have yet emerged for the site. 

But other former retail buildings near Northridge have been converted to light industrial space. 

Those projects include the conversion of the former Target store, 8501 W. Brown Deer Road, into a distribution center for Midwest Refrigerated Services Inc.

The rest of the former mall is owned by China-based U.S. Black Spruce Enterprise Group Inc.

Black Spruce has not proceeded with plans to redevelop the mall into a trade mart for Chinese manufacturers to sell their toys, furniture, clothing and other goods to North American vendors.

Penzey gave the former Boston Store to the city after dropping plans to convert the building into office, assembly and distribution space for his spice business.

Tom Daykin can be emailed at tdaykin@jrn.com and followed on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.