Selling South Milwaukee: Here’s Hoping That What Happens in Vegas Doesn’t Stay in Vegas

South Milwaukee is joining other area communities to put our best foot forward with real estate professionals at the industry’s largest leasing event starting this Sunday in Las Vegas.

City Development Director Danielle Devlin is attending the International Council of Shopping Centers convention to promote our city-owned development parcels and other redevelopment opportunities in South Milwaukee.

It’s part of a larger effort to promote the area around Mitchell International Airport via the Airport Gateway Business Association.

Learn more in this Journal Sentinel story. From the story:

Representatives from Milwaukee and some of the suburbs that are members of the Airport Gateway Business Association are cooperating to staff a booth at the convention to promote the area within a 15-minute drive of the airport as a place to do business.

Efforts to promote urban airport complexes – dubbed aerotropolises – have been around for years at a number of cities across the U.S. The local effort focuses on cooperation among eight municipalities near the airport: Milwaukee, St. Francis, Cudahy, Oak Creek, South Milwaukee, Franklin, Greenfield and Greendale. Most of them will have at least one person at the International Council of Shopping Centers convention, said Tom Rave, executive vice president of the Airport Gateway group.

But they will not be promoting any particular retail venue, Rave said. With 15-minutes-from-the-airport as the defining criteria, the effort would include Milwaukee’s Third Ward as well as the downtown, where retail vacancies abound, particularly in the Shops of Grand Avenue. In Greendale, Southridge has lots of space looking for tenants at the south end of the mall.

I’m glad South Milwaukee is a part of this effort. I’ve said since my campaign that we need to do a better job of selling ourselves as a city, and this is a great way to do it. We have a great story to tell, and we’ll be telling it in the City of Lights.

Good selling, Danielle!