A Whole Lotta Diggin' Goin' On in SE Brookfield

If you haven't had occasion to travel on Bluemound Road on Brookfield's southeast side lately, you might not know that there's A Whole Lotta Diggin' Goin' On down here!

If traveling from east to west, the former Quebecor site is getting its clean up in preparation for Underwood Crossing, where the Target store slated for opening in fall of 2012. (The dirt heap has grown considerably since I snapped this pic in July.)

If you recall, there was a mixed use plan for the site proposed back in 2007. This included apartments and lots of small shops.



Next stop: the intersection of Bluemound and Elm Grove Roads. Here the DOT is carving out new right turn lanes on both northbound and southbound Elm Grove Road and improving the turn lane into Bishop's Woods from Bluemound. I pity the first home on the southeast corner. It is a relatively new home, where the reality of a busy Elm Grove Road just hit a little closer to home.






Saving the best, or maybe I should say biggest for last, the intersection of Sunnyslope Road and Bluemound gets yet another major redo. This time, new right turn lanes are carved out--literally--from the Bishop's Woods office park.

For weeks, we didn't quite know what they were up to, but now it is clear: they excavated the hill to widen Sunnyslope. This new arrangement requires a sizable retaining wall.

Longtime residents in the area will remember they drastically altered this intersection once before. That time they lowered the elevation of the hill, in an effort to level out Bluemound Road at the intersection.

Since the diggin' continues on into Wauwatosa, motorists just might want to avoid the area from Moorland Rd. to Hwy 100 completely until late November 2011, when they hope to be finished. And the price tag? $11.6 million out of our State and Federal pockets, and I am thinking a bit from local Elm Grove (?) pockets too for the new north side of Bluemound sidewalk.


Past Posts: Can it be? A Target in Brookfield? How about a Trader Joe's too?
Brookfield's proposed Target Store Public Hearing

Links: Practically Speaking, Fairly Conservative, RandyMelchert, Betterbrookfield, Jay Weber, Vicki McKenna, CNS News, Mark Levin, Breitbart BigGovernment, The Heritage Foundation