Costco’s long-talked-about Franklin warehouse just moved from rumor mill to reality check. The retailer has officially closed on roughly 20 acres at the northwest corner of South 27th Street and West Drexel Avenue, locking in a prime site next to Northwestern Mutual’s Franklin campus and pushing plans for Milwaukee County’s first Costco well down the field.
The deal follows months of city planning and rezoning work to carve the site out of Northwestern Mutual’s larger property. With those local approvals in place, the land sale removes one of the biggest remaining obstacles between Costco and a grand opening on the county’s south side.
On May 4, 2026, Milwaukee Business Journal reported that the purchase had officially closed and identified Northwestern Mutual as the seller. The outlet noted that the transaction completes a parcel split city staff had been preparing for development and that the Franklin site is one piece of a broader Costco push to add new locations across southeast Wisconsin.
Site Details, Approvals and Scale
According to City of Franklin plan materials, the Costco site is part of 2710 W. Drexel Avenue and was pitched to the Plan Commission as the future home of an approximately 168,000-square-foot warehouse. Plans call for a fueling station on-site along with room for outlot development…