1750 Ohio Street (Racine, Wisconsin)

1750 Ohio Street is a building in the city of Racine, Wisconsin, on the southwestern corner of Byrd Avenue and Ohio Street. Built in 1976 to house Racine's first Kmart store, the building is currently home to the headquarters of Rogan's Shoes, a local footwear retail chain.

History
The area surrounding 1750 Ohio Street was annexed by the city of Racine in 1959. The S.S. Kresge Company, owners of the Kmart chain, stated in 1971 that they were considering opening a store in Racine. In March 1974, Schostak Brothers and Co. proposed building 140,000 square feet of retail space at the site. Schostak's proposal included a supermarket and an 84,000-square-foot space for a discount department store. The Racine Journal Times speculated that Kmart was planning to fill that space, which the S.S. Kresge Company did not deny.

Schostak's initial plan for the site was to be built on a 15-acre plot, which included roughly 13 acres already zoned for light manufacturing (M-1) and 1.7 acres zoned for multiple-family residential housing (R-4). The City Plan Commission rejected Schostak's proposal to rezone those 1.7 acres so that it could be part of their shopping center, saying that the area was zoned residential by the county before it was annexed by the city, and "had been set up as a buffer between residents to the north and the light manufacturing area to the south." Schostak revised its plans to avoid using the 1.7 acres, which are now the site of Chateau I and II Apartments. Local residents opposed to the development proposed in June 1974 that the city's zoning ordinances should be changed, so that shopping centers could no longer be built in areas zoned for light manufacturing.