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Ten years ago, developer Peter Bell began work on a massive mixed-use development in Waukesha County. The plans included a significant retail development intended to make the project a regional destination.

Bell's grand vision was to develop the sprawling Pabst Farms site with one master plan, rather than piecemeal by parcel.

However, since the onset of the Great Recession five years ago, the Pabst Farms development has ground to a halt. Huge portions of the site remain vacant. Perhaps most noteworthy, the retail development planned for Pabst Farms has fallen far short of expectations.

A strip mall anchored by a Pick 'n Save store was completed prior to the recession. But the regional shopping center planned at Pabst Farms never materialized. Plans for the 1 million-square-foot regional shopping center at Pabst Farms have been altered to add a heavy emphasis on big-box stores, but even that redesigned plan has failed to move forward.

Through a spokesman, Pabst Farms executives declined to comment for this story.

"I don't know that we really have much to say," said Pabst Farms spokesman Thad Nation. "We're kind of in status quo."

With the Pabst Farms project stuck in neutral 10 years after it began, another major development is planned in Waukesha County in hopes of creating a regional shopping destination. But The Corners, planned by The Marcus Corp., is a very different project at a very different site than Pabst Farms.

The Corners is a $150 million retail and residential development planned for the former West Point Cinema site and the former Menard's store site at the intersection of I-94, Barker Road and Bluemound Road in the Town of Brookfield. The project will consist of a 140,000-square-foot Von Maur deparment store, another 200,000 square feet of retail space, 30,000 square feet of restaurant space and 120 apartment units. Office space that was originally planned for the project will likely be scrapped, said Katie Falvey, director of real estate for Marcus Corp. The Corners will be built in a town center format with a central park, similar to the outdoor portion of Bayshore Town Center in Glendale. Most of the 2,000 parking spaces will be located underneath the town center shopping area.

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