Jenison, Mich.-based Rookus Group wants to build a 100-room boutique hotel and spa southeast of Black Church Road and Fontana Ridge Road, just outside of the Village of Fontana in Walworth County.

The site is in the Town of Walworth, but it also lies within Fontana's extraterritorial zoning area so the village must approve the development even if the property is not annexed to the village, Fontana village administrator Kelly E. Hayden-Staggs said.

The property is zoned for business use, so a hotel would be permitted there, Hayden-Staggs said. However, the developer still needs to submit more details about the project and must work out parking, traffic and other engineering issues with the village, she said.

"At the size that it's proposed right now, there are a lot of issues," Hayden-Staggs said.

The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater recently reopened its James R. Connor University Center, following a $20.4 million renovation project.

"The campus community has been without its central gathering place for the last year-and-a-half, and I commend the students for their adjustments during this time," said Steve Summers, deputy assistant chancellor of student affairs. "Having the UC open again brings their gathering place back."

The project added an expanded art gallery, a convenience store, a coffee shop, a new student involvement complex, a recreation center, an auditorium, a ballroom, study spaces, state-of-the-art meeting rooms and an additional 6,000 square feet.

"I'm excited about the positive impact having the UC back on-line is going to have," said Bob Barry, director of the University Center. "Earlier last semester, we were giving some student groups tours of the new building. Even though the building was far from completed, the students could see its potential and were excited about it."

The University Center is supposed to serve the needs of the students, but in many ways it wasn't prior to the year-and-a-half renovation, university officials said. More than half of the student organizations had to hold meetings in academic buildings because of the lack of large meeting rooms in the UC. The infrastructure and meeting room technology needed major upgrades, officials said.

Sussex-based Quad/Graphics Inc. is making plans to build a $14 million, 225,000-square-foot expansion of its 900,000-square-foot plant in West Allis at 555 S. 108th St. The project was recently approved by the city's plan commission.

However, the company also is considering expansion of its plants in Virginia and Nevada and may expand one of those facilities instead, said Quad/Graphics spokeswoman Claire Ho. A decision will be made in the next month about which facility to expand, she said.

The company's West Allis facility is located northwest of Highway 100 and Theodore Trecker Road, just south of a Colder's store and is near the Zoo Interchange. The building addition would be used for production and warehousing, with some space for offices, mechanical support equipment and finishing and printing operations.

Quad would add an additional 80 employees at the plant if it is expanded.

Truck traffic at the building is expected to increase by about 15 percent if the facility is expansion.

If the project moves forward, construction for the addition would begin in the spring. The project would consist of a 195,000-square-foot, 35-foot high addition with a mezzanine, bringing the total size to 225,000 square feet. The addition would also have a 40-foot high penthouse on top of the north end of the building, with a total height of 75 feet, the equivalent of a seven-story building.

Pabst Farms and its regional mall developer, Beechwood, Ohio-based Developers Diversified Realty Corp., recently submitted new plans for the retail development in an attempt to address concerns of city officials.

The biggest change is the addition of landscaping, a small pond, a water feature and a monument sign/wall that would block the view of the backs of the large retail buildings at the corner of Highway 67 and I-94. City officials see that as a key gateway to Oconomowoc and they do not want people to see the backs of buildings as they drive in off the freeway.

The updated plans also eliminate two, 150-room hotels and trimmed the amount of office, residential and retail space bringing the total square footage for the regional retail development down to just more than 2 million square feet from about 2.4 million square feet in the original plans.

The updated plans also provide more details about the layout of 600,000 square feet of big box stores on the east end of the site.

The project still includes a 16-screen movie theater complex, a 30,750-square-foot bookstore, several restaurants and four anchor stores (one 165,000 square feet, one 137,000 square feet, one 96,000 square feet and one 53,000 square feet).

Construction for the Pabst Farms regional mall is expected to begin this year and be complete in 2010.

Fairfax, Va.-based Crescent Hotels & Resorts recently completed a $10 million renovation project for its Sheraton Milwaukee Brookfield Hotel at 375 S. Moorland Road, Brookfield. The project took about a year to complete. The Sheraton is the latest of several hotels in the area to be remodeled. All of the hotel's 389 rooms were remodeled and flat panel televisions were added. The hotel's 19,000 square feet of meeting space was refurbished. The pool, lobby and public areas were remodeled. The project also added a new business center with computer work stations and a new fitness center.

The hotel, the largest in Brookfield, also recently named a new general manager, Gerald Rappaport, who was the general manager of the Hilton Milwaukee City Center for several years.

"It's been a lot of fun watching this hotel transform significantly over the past several months and we couldn't be more pleased with the final results," Rappaport said. "With our exciting renovation now complete, we should really be among the first places considered by anyone planning a special event or meeting here in the Milwaukee area. All of our banquet and meeting spaces are entirely new, and we have a team in place dedicated to ensuring that any event here is stress-free, memorable and extremely enjoyable."

Waukegan, Ill.-based Coleman Cable Inc. will lease a 502,000-square-foot industrial building that is being built, on speculation, in Pleasant Prairie by Oak Brook, Ill.-based CenterPoint Properties.

The building is under construction and is located at 11290 80th Ave. in the LakeView Corporate Park. Coleman Cable plans to move into the facility by April 1, and plans to have 75 employees working in the facility by the end of the year.

Coleman Cable is a manufacturer and innovator of wire and cable products, servicing the electrical, electronic and automotive markets. The company will maintain its headquarters in Waukegan and will use the Pleasant Prairie facility for warehousing and distribution. Coleman Cable will consolidate its existing warehouse and distribution facilities in Indianapolis, Gurnee, Ill. and Waukegan, Ill. at the Pleasant Prairie facility, which has 490,000 square feet of warehouse space, 12,000 square feet of office space and 56 exterior truck docks.

"The Pleasant Prairie location is needed in order to meet growing demands due to the company's increasing sales and continued growth," said Gary Yetman, president and chief executive officer of Coleman Cable. "This will mark another important milestone for Coleman and should enable us to be more efficient in our distribution operations, to take advantage of recent developments in supply chain systems, and, ultimately and most importantly, to better serve our customers. At the same time, the pleasant Prairie location will allow the company to consolidate distribution facilities and reduce costs, while simultaneously establishing a platform to continue our track record of providing first-in-class logistics, delivery and customer service."

Kenosha County has attracted several distribution centers in recent years, including many that are used by northern Illinois firms that are having trouble finding land for industrial development in the Chicago area and are taking advantage of lower costs in Wisconsin.