By Mike Dries – Special to the Milwaukee Business Journal
Apr 29, 2021, 5:00pm EDT

Baseball legend Satchel Paige once advised: “Never look back because there’s always someone gaining on you.” While he was referring to maintaining his own status as one of the craftiest pitchers in the game, he might have been talking about any number of things, including shopping centers.

The combination of online alternatives and, at this particular time, a once-in-a-century pandemic, has presented unique challenges to what today are more likely to be called malls, town centers or villages. The idea of simply assembling a cluster of retail stores is a reminiscence, not a viable business model. Customers want a multi-dimensional experience.

Glendale’s Bayshore now provides just that.

In 2018, city of Glendale officials retained Dallas-based Cypress Equities to create a transformative vision for what was then called Bayshore Town Center, today simply Bayshore. The result is an open-air, mixed-use complex that includes restaurants, offices and residential units, as well as more than 60 retail stores, including Kohl’s, Barnes & Noble, and one of the area’s two Apple stores. Development of a new Target store in what had been a Boston Store is underway.

A central theme of Bayshore’s redevelopment is the creation of functional, open spaces for people to come together and enjoy themselves. Following the plans Cypress Equities developed, the former Town Square was converted to an upgraded central courtyard called The Yard, which includes a 20x36-foot LED Marquee screen that features specialty programming. In addition, the rotunda was redeveloped to include new escalators for guest convenience. Improvements that were made throughout Bayshore include upgraded walkways, landscaping and lighting.

As part of the overall redevelopment project the former food court and interior mall were demolished to make way for the new east extension of Town Center Way, which leads to increased parking and an improved entrance to the rotunda on the east side of the property.

The reanimated Bayshore is attracting new businesses. In 2020, Total Wine & More moved in, as did Erik’s Bikes. Cypress Equities also has entered into a leasing agreement with Milwaukee’s Fresh Fin Poke to open a restaurant at Bayshore.

The general contractor for the Bayshore redevelopment project was Brookfield’s Hunzinger Construction Co. The Minneapolis office of RSP provided architectural services and Milwaukee’s Graef provided engineering services. The cost of the project was not disclosed.

PROJECT CREDITS

Bayshore

5800 N. Bayshore Drive, Glendale

Owner/developer: Cypress Equities

General contractor: Hunzinger Construction Co.

Architect: RSP

Engineer: Graef

Lead legal council: Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren SC

Completion: December 2020

Project cost: NA