For more than a decade, Paul Schlagenhauf has faced the prospect of being forced to move his business to make way for Interstate 94’s expansion on Milwaukee’s west side.
That’s how long the freeway project has been planned — including a period where the proposal seemingly died due to a lack of funding before being revived.
Now, with funding and federal approval secured, the I-94 project is proceeding to an expected late 2025 construction start. That means Schlagenhauf’s Badger Ford Truck Center and a handful of other business properties — as well as one house — will be acquired by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and demolished over the next year or so.
“We dodged the bullet a number of years ago,” said Schlagenhauf, president of Badger Truck, a commercial truck dealership and service center at 2326 W. St. Paul Ave. “It would have been great to dodge it again. But that wasn’t in the cards.”
Badger Truck, with a 4-acre site and around 35 employees, is the largest business that needs to relocate. Schlagenhauf has yet to find a new home — a search complicated by Ford Motor Co.’s franchise rules requiring dealerships to avoid being too close to one another.
Meanwhile, relocation plans are proceeding for other businesses — all now based near the I-94 interchange at North 26th St./North 27th Street and West St. Paul Avenue.
This mom searches for a new home for her family
Also, a family living on Milwaukee’s far west side is looking for a new home because of the freeway project.
“It does suck that I’m losing my place,” said Valerie Wright, who lives with her four children in a house she rents in the 100 block of South 66th Street.
Wright’s family has lived for around five years in a ranch house just south of I-94. She enjoys the house and the neighborhood despite the continual sounds of cars speeding past.
Still, Wright says WisDOT is giving her family enough time to move. That relocation comes with financial assistance — standard practice for both residents and business operators who are displaced by freeway projects.
“They’ve been wonderful about it,” Wright said.
The house’s owners, Thomas and Jane Abshire, of New Berlin, didn’t respond to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s request for comment.
Central Bark doggy day care is looking for new site near I-94
Businesses that are relocating include Central Bark, a doggy day care center at 333 N. 25th St.
Owner Esther Devine has been looking since 2023 for a new location. She’s owned the business, which has four employees, since 2019.
As with Badger Truck, her search is made more difficult by franchise rules that create defined territories for each Central Bark location.
Devine wants to keep her business near I-94 for customers dropping off and picking up their dogs while driving to and from their workplaces. But she cannot be too close to other Central Bark centers in the Walker’s Point neighborhood and Wauwatosa’s east side.
“It’s really a pretty small pocket,” said Devine, who’s looked in such areas as West Milwaukee’s Miller Park Way as well as Milwaukee’s near west side and the Menomonee Valley.
Another issue: a business with barking dogs is “not everybody’s favorite tenant,” she said.
“Obviously, you don’t want to put a masseuse next to a doggy day care,” Devine said. “We’re not very relaxing.”
The building that houses Devine’s business also is used by the Milwaukee Dog Training Club as an indoor training facility.
The club plans to buy a 12,000-square-foot building, at 2116 W. Cornell St., for $350,000, according to its July newsletter.
Auto salvage yard, tannery storage site to be razed
Other businesses being displaced include MKE Junk Junkies LLC, an auto salvage yard at 2640 W. Greves St.; D.R. Diedrich & Co.’s tannery storage building at 2612 W. Greves St. (although the tannery itself, at 2615 W. Greves St., is unaffected), and a storage building operated by Sylvan Holdings LLC at 2620 W. St. Paul Ave., according to WisDOT.
The operators of those businesses didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Those six commercial relocations, and one residential move, are needed to widen I-94 from six lanes to eight lanes between 16th and 70th streets.
The $1.74 billion reconstruction project is expected to run from late 2025 to 2032. The amount for property purchases and relocation assistance isn’t yet known because most of the property sales haven’t been completed, said Trevor Fannon, WisDOT southeast region communications manager.
The department uses a third-party appraisal and negotiates in good faith on a purchase price, Fannon said. Property owners have the right to obtain their own appraisals, with those fees reimbursed by WisDOT, he said.
Also, WisDOT reimburses property owners and renters for their relocation costs, Fannon said.
WisDOT announced March 8 the project had received final approval from the Federal Highway Administration, with U.S. taxpayers providing most of the funding. The exact split between federal and state taxpayers hasn’t yet been disclosed.
Gov. Tony Evers’ administration revived the project in 2020.
A previous plan, under Gov. Scott Walker, won federal approval in 2016. But it didn’t proceed because of a lack of state funding.
That earlier plan called for 11 commercial displacements and the relocation of eight housing units before WisDOT revised the proposal.
Badger Truck considered a site — before Brewers bought it
Badger Truck has been targeted for more than 10 years.
Schlagenhauf’s father, Edward, launched the business in 1965 with a high-profile, easily accessible location along I-94 — opening just a few years after that stretch of the freeway was built.
The location has been a good one for Badger Truck’s customers and employees, Schlagenhauf said. The search to replace it has been frustrating.
Schlagenhauf at one point looked at a site near American Family Field. But the Milwaukee Brewers in November bought the 1.8 acre site, at 600 S. 44th St., for $2.1 million. It includes a warehouse that the ballclub is using for storage.
A consulting firm, hired by WisDOT, thought it found a good location in Milwaukee’s Piggsville neighborhood. But it’s too close to homes for a business that involves noise and heavy truck traffic, Schlagenhauf said.
“We believed there was no way it would work,” he said.
That 4.8-acre site, at at 3901 W. Blue Mound Road, is being sold to Meta House Inc. That nonprofit organization in March received city approval to develop there a $30 million residential substance abuse center for women.
That leaves Schlagenhauf considering other plans, which he declined to discuss.
“We’ve just not been able to come up with viable alternative options,” he said.
Tom Daykin can be emailed at [email protected] and followed on Instagram, X and Facebook.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: I-94 widening will force these businesses, and one family, to move
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