Home Depot is washed out in Waukesha. A Waukesha County Circuit Judge has upheld a decision by the Waukesha Board of Zoning Appeals that rejected a Home Depot store proposed for Blue Mound Road. The Waukesha site was zoned for industrial and warehouse use. City officials said that Home Depot, although it looks like a warehouse, did not meet the definition of industrial use and was mainly retail in nature. Home Depot appealed the town ruling, and at the same time, moved its interest to a site about a quarter of a mile down Blue Mound Road in the town of Brookfield (see related entry). According to newspaper accounts, Home Depot was prepared to pay $380,000 to $443,000 per acre for the Waukesha land, which is roughly four times what the site would fetch as an industrial site. The Court’s rejection of Home Depot means the retailer is probably all washed up in Waukesha.
Remind local officials that Home Depot can be defeated, as noted here in the cases of Waukesha and Brookfield, and other towns listed in this website.