AMPLIFYING THE ATMOSPHERE
Titletown District attractions add to Lambeau Field experience
ASHWAUBENON – The Lambeau Field experience for Green Bay Packers fans attending home games this season will be embellished and expanded when the Titletown District’s park and plaza opens at the end of next week.
“I’m real excited for ... people in the community to get to see this,” Mark Murphy, president and CEO of the Packers, said Tuesday during a tour of the 10-acre park and plaza site.
Titletown District is a nearly 45-acre development bounded primarily by South Ridge Road, Lombardi Avenue, Brookwood Drive and Marlee Lane. Its anchors include Lodge Kohler hotel, Hinterland Brewery and Bellin Health Sports Medicine and Orthopedics clinic, all of which are open.
The park and plaza consists of the plaza, adjacent to South Ridge Road; an activity area that includes sections for horseshoes, shuffleboard, bocce, ping pong, bean-bag toss and other activities; playgrounds for three age groups; a 40-yard dash course with timer; a snow-tubing hill; an ice-skating pond and trail; and a fullsize football field.
An opening event is scheduled from 3 to 7:30 p.m. Sept. 15. It will include live music and an introduction of some of the programs that will be available on a regular basis.
The hill and ice skating pond will open about mid-November, when it will be possible to make snow and ice. When not used for skating, the cement-floored pond will be part of the plaza. The hill will be open in summer as well, though not this summer while grass is taking hold.
The football field is covered with a Nike Grind rubberized artificial surface made of recycled shoes and manufacturing scrap. The field will be open to the public but also could be used for youth football and youth soccer camps and clinics, said Ed Policy, Packers vice
president and general counsel, who spearheads the Titletown project.
The Packers on Tuesday introduced Jackie Krutz, the new program and events manager for Titletown District. She did similar work with Brookfield Residential in Los Angeles.
“She’ll be in charge of keeping the park active and programmed on a full-time basis,” Policy said.
Those activities could include exercise and wellness classes, chess lessons, children’s activities and more.
The opening will mean that most of the first phase of the 45-acre district is complete. A commercial building, immediately west of Hinterland Brewery, remains to be built in Phase 1. The Packers said they are speaking with several potential tenants but have nothing to announce.
The second phase will include up to 80 townhouses along Brookwood Drive, an apartment building and other retail, entertainment and commercial development.
Policy said the Packers hope to make announcements on the remaining Phase 1 building and the residential elements by the end of the year.