Lobby bill for county park hit $210,000

Northwestern Mutual wanted O’Donnell

Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. spent $210,000 in 2014 to lobby Milwaukee County officials in an unsuccessful bid to buy O’Donnell Park, county records show.

The bulk of the spending — fully $175,000 — came in the final six months of the year as the company publicly announced its offer to buy the park in July and County Board committees held meetings on the plan.

The County Board narrowly rejected Northwestern Mutual’s offer on a 9-8 vote at a Dec. 18 meeting.

The company had offered to pay the appraised value of $14 million.

No other company, union or organization spent more than $9,000 on county lobbying in 2014, according to an annual summary released Thursday by County Clerk Joe Czarnezki.

Northwestern Mutual registered five lobbyists in support of its proposal last year, including Sandy Botcher, vice president at Northwestern Mutual and head of the company’s downtown campus expansion project.

Lobbying contacts began in January 2014, company spokeswoman Betsy Hoylman said Thursday.

The company is not a regular lobbyist of county government.

Northwestern Mutual reported no county lobbying expenses for the five-year period 2009 to 2013, preceding its bid on the park.

As of Thursday, Northwestern Mutual had not registered to lobby county government in 2015, Czarnezki said.

The reason: the company is no longer pursuing O’Donnell Park to meet its downtown parking needs, Hoylman said.

O’Donnell Park — a 6.8acre plaza atop an underground parking garage — covers two city blocks west of N. Lincoln Memorial Drive, between E. Michigan and Mason streets. The Betty Brinn Children’s Museum is inside the three-story Miller Pavilion on the southwest corner of the plaza.

Northwestern Mutual had said it would use the underground parking spaces for employees working at a new $450 million global headquarters under construction downtown.

Work is scheduled to be completed in 2017.

Company chairman and CEO John Schlifske had pledged to keep O’Donnell Park open to the public under current deed and zoning restrictions.

The company would have paid the county $12.7 million after deducting a $1.3 million credit for immediate repairs to the roof of the underground parking garage.

A rubber membrane between the roof and the plaza is leaking.

After the Dec. 18 board vote, Northwestern Mutual announced it would build parking as part of a proposed mixed-use development immediately west of its downtown Milwaukee campus.