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.

Regardless of zoning issues, the proposed development was unpopular among local residents. The Racine Unified School District wrote to the city plan commission in opposition, saying it was concerned that a shopping center at the location would create problems for the nearby Giese Elementary School and Starbuck Junior High School. City director of planning Thomas Wright described the site as "the worst place in the world for a commercial enterprise", and the city plan commission rejected the proposal in a 4–3 vote.

Schostak returned to the city plan commission in September with a modified version of the proposal. The new plan downsized the building from 140,000 to 114,000 square feet, removing the smaller retail spaces that would have been attached to the Kmart and the supermarket. While the revised plan did not eliminate the concerns of local residents, one previously skeptical member of the planning commission was convinced, and the new proposal was approved in a 4–3 vote. The Racine City Council protested the decision during their October 1 meeting, voting 11–7 in favor of asking the city plan commission to reconsider, which the commission later rejected.

As Schostak prepared to begin construction in June 1975, it stated that only the Kmart would be built at first, leaving the supermarket as a possible future addition to the west. On June 13, a subcontractor hired by grading contractor A. W. Oakes & Son illegally cut down seven oak trees along Byrd Avenue and Ohio Street, which Schostak had previously agreed to keep on the site. Schostak described the felling as an oversight caused by its failure to instruct its subcontractors to leave the trees standing, and agreed to replace the trees with "the best trees available" at any cost. Grading on the site was halted again at the end of June by a statewide strike of Operating Engineers Local 139, the construction equipment engineers' union.