AS DOWNTOWN PLAN UPDATES, WE LOOK AT DEVELOPMENT SINCE 2010
New vision likely to continue strategies from existing one
Milwaukee is updating its downtown development plan — so this is a good time to review the past decade since the last plan was created.
That 2010 plan, like its 1999 predecessor, included several sites where city officials envisioned major developments.
Some of those sites now house downtown’s larger commercial projects — while a few continue to languish.
Those underdeveloped sites might be part of this year’s plan update. The Common Council is expected to approve funding that update at its March 2 meeting.
It will be paid for with $50,000 from the city, and $100,000 from the Milwaukee Downtown Business Improvement District, a group funded by special assessments on downtown commercial properties.
The update will likely continue many of the development strategies outlined in the current plan.
“A lot of the plans that were put in place in 2010 are still very relevant,” said Beth Weirick, business improvement district chief executive officer.
“I look at this as a refresh of that plan,” Weirick said at the Feb. 23 meeting of the council’s Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee.
The updated plan also will bring a greater focus on racial equity and social justice, said Weirick and Kyle Gast, a Department of City
Development senior planner.
“We really want everyone to feel that downtown is their’s,” Gast told committee members.
Here are the projects envisioned in the 2010 plan, and their 2021 status:
Broadway Connection
North Broadway between East Wisconsin Avenue and East Clybourn Street has the potential to be one of downtown’s “most attractive, vibrant and successful places,” the 2010 plan said.
“Currently, however, it is a desolate stretch of surface parking lots and vacancies separating downtown from the Third Ward,” it said.
The plan envisioned a retail- or leisure-anchored mixed-use complex at East Michigan Street and North Broadway, linking downtown and the Third Ward, as well as lighting improvements beneath I-794.
The mixed-use complex didn’t happen, But the 11-story, 163,000-squarefoot Huron Building opened in October at 511 N. Broadway.
The office building is anchored by Husch Blackwell law firm, which is leasing 71,000 square feet on the top three floors. Tupelo Honey Southern Kitchen & Bar opens this spring in 8,500 square feet of street-level commercial space.
Meanwhile, lighting and other improvements have come beneath I-794.
Other neighboring projects include Kinn Mke Guesthouse, a 32-room boutique hotel that is reviving a historic building.
Wisconsin Avenue
“The area centered around Wisconsin Avenue has the highest volume of pedestrian circulation downtown,” the plan said.
“In spite of this and the high numbers of office workers, there has not been a coordinated effort to create a setting for a synergistic shopping experience,” it said.
The plan recommended a downtown retail incentive plan centered around Wisconsin Avenue between North Milwaukee Street and North Fourth Street (now North Phillips Avenue). It also suggested converting nearby buildings to apartments or other new uses.
A decade later the Grand Avenue Mall no longer exists.
But, it’s being redeveloped as The Avenue, which features 54 apartments in the historic Plankinton Arcade, as well as 140,000 square feet of offices, anchored by engineering firm Graef USA Inc., and 3rd Street Market Hall food hall in another former mall building.
Meanwhile, the former Boston Store is now HUB640, a mix of offices and retail, while more apartments are coming to the Plankinton Arcade’s upper floors.
Also, that stretch of Wisconsin Avenue features the new Bradley Symphony Center — which revived the long-vacant Warner Grand Theatre.
Station Plaza
The Milwaukee Intermodal Station’s surrounding neighborhood doesn’t serve as “a destination or a place in which positive first impressions are made,” the 2010 plan said.
The station is isolated from downtown and the Third Ward due to the I-794 overpass, lack of commercial or architectural connection to the Third Ward, and “lingering semi-industrial uses surrounding the station in the form of the Iron Mountain (now Life Storage) and USPS facilities,” the plan said.
Station Plaza was seen as an expanded Intermodal Station campus that links to a new streetcar and other transit options, with commercial development created nearby.
The station has been upgraded, and has added more transit options.
But there’s been little neighboring commercial development aside from Stone Creek Coffee opening a two-level café at its nearby roasting facility.
There are conceptual plans to eventually convert the Postal Service’s adjacent mail processing facility into stores, restaurants and offices. That massive building sits between the Intermodal Station and the redeveloped Pritzlaff complex of apartments, offices and other uses.
Downtown streetcar
Downtown’s “relatively large area and dispersed development pattern” make it difficult to travel by foot, especially when the weather is bad, and driving between downtown locations wastes time and money, the plan said.
“These factors, along with a substantial downtown office population and large nearby residential population warrant new transit services that are suitable for and convenient to all types of downtown users, including office workers, residents and visitors,” it said.
The streetcar, known as The Hop, was launched in October 2018.
It drew more riders than expected in its first year, and some developers have cited the streetcar as a factor in their investment decisions.
As with other transit services, The Hop’s ridership fell after the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March. Also, Mayor Tom Barrett’s streetcar expansion plans have faced Common Council opposition.
Meanwhile, the completion of The Hop’s lakefront loop has been stalled by delays in the Couture apartment highrise — which is to include a transit concourse.
Pére Marquette Square
The area, centered on the block just west of Pére Marquette Park then occupied by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, is “ideal for a concentration of commercial, entertainment and residential uses,” the plan said.
“An attractive group of existing public open spaces including Pére Marquette Park, the Marcus Center plazas, Red Arrow Park, the Riverwalk and floating platforms on the river could be programmed to include complementary temporary and permanent entertainment oriented cafés, kiosks and small shops,” it said.
“The Journal Sentinel block is wellproportioned to include an indoor/outdoor public atrium or winter garden to provide a focal point for gatherings in winter and during inclement weather while still preserving the historic 333 W. State St. building for Journal Sentinel operations.”
The Journal Sentinel’s subsequent owner, Gannett Co., in 2019 sold the newspaper’s buildings to a group led by developer Joshua Jeffers, and is now leasing space at the 330 Kilbourn office complex,
Jeffers is converting the six-story Art Deco main building into Journal Square Lofts, with 116 apartments and around 8,800 square feet of street-level retail space. Its addition to the east will have 77 apartments for 189 Milwaukee Area Technical College students.
Meanwhile, renovations are planned for the former Milwaukee Sentinel building to house the Seeds of Health charter school, while a 155-room Tempo by Hilton hotel has been pitched for the newspaper’s former parking lot.
Lakefront Gateway
Traffic patterns, as well as the O’Donnell Park parking garage and the Downtown Transit Center, create a barrier for pedestrians between downtown and the lakefront, the plan said.
The solution: reconfigured traffic lanes near North Lincoln Memorial Drive and East Michigan Street and a relocated transit center to spur development west of Lincoln Memorial Drive, and more lakefront activities on the street’s east side.
The traffic lanes have since been reworked as part of I-794’s reconstruction , creating a large development site west of Lincoln Memorial Drive and south of East Clybourn Street.
Also, the Downtown Transit Center was demolished after Milwaukee County sold the underused facility in 2016 to an affiliate of Barrett Lo Visionary Development LLC.
Barrett Lo’s plans to develop the 44story Couture have run into numerous financing delays.
The latest snag, however, is apparently being resolved with personal guarantees provided by developers Richard Barrett and Tan Lo. Meanwhile, the 18story 833 East office building was developed just west of the Couture site.
The plan also called for a plaza east of Lincoln Memorial Drive. But fundraising for that project has been in limbo awaiting the Couture’s development.
Haymarket Square
The Haymarket area, north of West McKinley Avenue and west of North King Drive, is an underdeveloped neighborhood featuring industrial/warehouse uses and parking lots, the plan said.
The Park East Freeway’s 2003 demolition increased its potential for development.
The plan envisioned a new mixeduse neighborhood featuring incubator businesses and live/work housing centered on a public square at West Vliet Street and what is now North Phillips Avenue.
There’s no public square.
But a neighboring historic former industrial building was converted into the 72-unit Haymarket Lofts affordable apartments.
Also, two big projects are pending: American Family Insurance Co.’s plans to redevelop a historic former factory into offices, and the proposed new home for Milwaukee Public Museum and Betty Brinn Children’s Museum.
Kilbourn Avenue Extension to MacArthur Square
The 2010 plan recycled this project from the 1999 downtown plan.
It again cited MacArthur Square’s isolation. The 8-acre site was cut off from downtown in 1967 with the construction of the parking garage beneath it, and the tunnels to and from I-43.
The 2010 plan suggested bringing more activity to MacArthur Square by expanding Milwaukee Area Technical College southward into the square.
The plan also recommended extending a stretch of West Kilbourn Avenue from its current end, at North Sixth Street, to North Lovell Street. Neither has happened. However, MacArthur Square got a small improvement last year: a mural by artist Ken Brown called “The Hero in You” featuring essential workers.