Purple Door to join Mequon Public Market

By Gary Achterberg - News Graphic Staff

Steve and Lauren Schultz will open a second location of Purple Door Ice Cream in the Mequon Public Market.
Submitted photo

MEQUON — The tenant list for the Mequon Public Market took another step forward with Friday’s announcement that Purple Door Ice Cream is joining the venture.

The Mequon Public Market – patterned after the Milwaukee Public Market on the south edge of downtown Milwaukee – will have approximately 10 vendors. It is part of the Spur 16 development, the second phase of the Town Center neighborhood.

“Purple Door is thrilled to be a part of the Mequon Public Market at Spur 16,” owners Lauren and Steve Schultz said jointly in a news release. “This is Purple Door’s first footprint expansion into the greater Milwaukee area.

“We love the restoration of the old Public Works building and being involved with a new piece of Mequon history,” they added. The first Public Market tenant, a café operated by Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co., was announced in late February as the first tenant for the Mequon Pubic Market, 6300 W. Mequon Road. It will be located next door to St. Paul Fish Co., which will open its second restaurant in the historic “smokestack building” that is part of the planned 13.4-acre Spur 16.

St. Paul Fish Co. and Anodyne both are in the Milwaukee Public Market. Purple Door has a shop at 205 S. Second St. in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood.

Cindy Shaffer, the developer of Spur 16, said residents have specifically asked for Purple Door Ice Cream. She said many told her they travel to their current store and find a line that runs out the door.

Purple Door started as a wholesale company in 2011, selling its product to local grocers and restaurants. Since then, it opened the storefront and expanded its distribution footprint. Purple Door makes more than 180 flavors. Its Milk for Milwaukee program, which provides fresh milk to area shelters, recently surpassed 10,000 gallons of donated milk.

Plans for Spur 16 are coming into sharper focus. Shaffer said recently that she expects the project to begin moving quickly after she receives city approval of the storm water management plan. In addition to the recent announcement of tenants, Shaffer has scheduled an invitation-only “sneak peek” open house Thursday evening.

Spur 16 is being developed along Mequon Road just west of the railroad tracks and the Ozaukee Interurban Trail. Much of the site was previously used by Mequon’s Public Works operations. The city purchased a property along Mequon Road to complete the parcel.

The Common Council selected Shaffer, a co-developer of the Mequon Town Center’s first phase, from several applicants to develop the site. The city sold the property to her for $1 plus the $60,000 broker’s fee. When fully built out, the site is expected to generate $387,000 in property taxes annually.

Spur 16 is the latest step in the development of the Town Center. Other projects that are recently finished or nearing completion are The Reserve, an 81-unit apartment development at 6835 W. Mequon Road and the 33-unit Dermond Property Investments project at 11130 N. Buntrock Road.

A multi-faceted Foxtown development on the south side of Mequon Road will include a renovated brewery, other restaurants, apartments and free-standing homes. The initial phases of that project also are close to breaking ground.