A new light industrial building could be coming to Century City Business Park. It would be developed by a Milwaukee craft brewery executive.

Updated by October ,15, 2021

A new light industrial building could be coming to Milwaukee's lagging Century City Business Park — to be developed by a local craft brewery executive.

Good Opportunity Fund II LLC, led by Good City Brewing LLC founder Dan Katt, wants an exclusive right to negotiate the purchase of a 4.7-acre parcel at Century City.

That's according to a proposal that surfaced Friday.

Katt's group is interested in a vacant lot owned by the city Redevelopment Authority at 3055 W. Hopkins St.

It is just south of the Century City 1 building, at 3945 N. 31st St., which another investors group led by Katt bought in 2018.

That North 31st Street building is the only new building developed so far at Century City, which is south of Capitol Drive and mostly west of Hopkins Street.

The Redevelopment Authority developed the business park on a portion of the former A.O. Smith Corp./Tower Automotive Inc. complex.

But, so far, the only businesses include Talgo Inc.'s rail car refurbishing operation in a former Tower Automotive building, and five firms in the North 31st Street building.

That 53,400-square-foot building is anchored by Good City Brewing's office and distribution center.

It also includes a spinoff, Craft Beverage Warehouse LLC, a Milwaukee-based distributor of packaging materials to craft beverage makers. Other tenants are Hundred Acre urban farm, Klein-Dickert Glass and B83 Testing and Engineering Inc.

With that building now fully leased, Katt's group is interested in developing a second light industrial building for additional tenants, according to a proposal pending before the Redevelopment Authority.

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“We are continuing to have conversations with companies interested in relocating or adding operations at Century City," Katt said in an earlier statement about the current building being fully leased.

The board is to vote Thursday on granting the exclusive right to negotiate the lot's purchase.

That right to negotiate would help Good Opportunity Fund secure tenants and obtain financing for a new building. Any land sale would need Common Council approval.

Along with co-founding Good City Brewing in 2016, Katt in 2013 launched Craft Development LLC. Craft Development's projects include Saz's Hospitality Group's facility, 201 W. Walker St., and Bray Architects Inc.'s headquarters, 829 S. First St..

Mayor Tom Barrett and the Common Council in 2009 approved a $35 million redevelopment plan for Century City, including $9 million in state and federal funds.

That money has paid for acquiring the property, demolishing several buildings, doing environmental cleanup work, and building new roads, sewers and other public improvements.

But Century City has attracted few businesses — due in part to its location 1.5 miles west of the nearest freeway interchange.

Barrett and the council in 2020 approved a $13.4 million public bailout for the business park.

It uses property tax revenue generated by three downtown tax incremental financing districts to help pay down the $24.7 million in debt owed by Century City's tax financing district.

That came after Strauss Brands Inc. in 2019 dropped plans to relocate its slaughterhouse and meat processing operations to Century City from Franklin.

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