Although some development has occurred in and along the Park East corridor on privately owned property and a site formerly owned by the city, the vast majority of the land where the Park East Freeway spur once stood remains vacant, about six years after it was torn down.
Most of the vacant land in the corridor is owned by Milwaukee County.
The Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) recently unveiled plans to build a parking structure and athletic field development on a vacant lot northwest of Broadway and Knapp Street in the Park East corridor. The structure would be located just north of MSOE’s Kern Center, an indoor athletic facility.
MSOE plans to build a $30 million development on the site, consisting of a 780-space parking structure with an artificial surface soccer and lacrosse athletic field on top. About 500 of the parking spaces will be leased to businesses and the public. The project will also include a small public park on the north end of the site and a small retail space for a restaurant or café adjacent to the park in the lower level of the parking structure.
Part of the site is owned by Milwaukee County, so MSOE needs county and city officials to approve the project.
Milwaukee County Supervisor Theodore Lipscomb backed off of his initial criticism of the MSOE project. Originally Lipscomb told the news media that he did not think a parking structure would be the highest and best use of the property. However, he told BizTimes Milwaukee that he will keep an open mind about the proposal.
“I’m not ready to say I would support it, nor am I ready to say I am opposed to it,” he said. “There is no proposal in front of us yet. Nothing has been submitted.”
A parking structure would be a departure from the original vision for the site laid out in the city’s Park East corridor plan, which called for a building of at least four stories tall on the property.
“This is a major shift in the vision for those parcels,” said Lipscomb, the vice chair of the county board’s economic and community development committee. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t important. It just means it’s a different thing.”
City officials are showing more enthusiasm for the MSOE project and say it could help attract development to other vacant Park East properties. Most downtown developments include structured parking, and often those developers seek a subsidy from the city to help pay for the cost of the parking structure. Since about 500 of the spaces in the proposed MSOE parking structure will be available to the general public, it could help attract developers for adjacent parcels who could use some of the spaces in the MSOE facility for their tenants.
“Will this project catalyze the Park East? It has the potential to,” said Alderman Nik Kovac, whose ward includes the MSOE site.
“I think there’s a legitimate argument to be made (that the MSOE structure could spur nearby development),” said downtown Alderman Robert Bauman.
But Lipscomb is skeptical that other developments will use spaces in the MSOE structure.
“I think maybe as an overflow basis it would serve that,” he said. “But I think with most new developments the presumption is that parking is on site. Parking a block or two away is a presumption if you are in a class B building. The class A user is expecting to park, get on an elevator and ride up, not walk two blocks.”
The MSOE parking structure would make development deals for adjacent properties, “easier,” said Department of City Development Commissioner Richard “Rocky” Marcoux. Projects on nearby sites will still need their own parking, but might need less if they can use part of the MSOE structure he said.
“(The MSOE structure) helps to alleviate (area parking needs),” Marcoux said. “It will be part of the solution. As we develop that area we are going to need the parking. Every block of the Park East is not going to be a high-rise building. This is a big step forward.”
The project also will help attract development because the athletic field on top of the parking structure will boost the value of adjacent properties because it will look more attractive than a vacant lot, Marcoux said.
“This is a dressed up parking structure,” said Bauman, who often opposes new parking structures downtown. “They could have proposed just a parking structure. But they tried to be creative. It’s a good project. I like the athletic field component. It’s a good addition to the school.”
The MSOE project provides several other advantages for the area, Marcoux said, including:
- The privately used spaces would provide tax revenue.
- MSOE students and staff that currently park along the streets in the Park East corridor would be able to park in the new parking structure, freeing up street parking for new Park East developments.
- The new parking structure would reduce the parking demands for the surface lots on the MSOE campus, freeing up those lots for new MSOE buildings as the school expands.
- The public park, which would be located at the north end of the site, would be created and maintained by MSOE. The park could make the coffee shop/restaurant space in the parking structure more attractive.
- The athletic field will bring more people into the downtown area to participate in and watch soccer and lacrosse games. MSOE’s teams compete at the NCAA Division III level, and its soccer and lacrosse games are currently played at Uihlein Soccer Park at 7101 W. Good Hope Road, on the far northwest side of Milwaukee.
“I think we have enough of these vacant lots,” said Rick Barrett, the developer for the 30-story Moderne apartment and condominium building development. He plans to break ground soon on his project and said he supports the MSOE project and any other project that helps bring more people to the Park East corridor.
“Anything that brings more vitality to downtown, I’m a big supporter of that,” he said.
Part of the site for the MSOE project is currently owned by Marshall & Ilsley Corp., and part is owned by Milwaukee County. MSOE plans to purchase 2.5 acres and wants to work out a land swap between Milwaukee County and MSOE.
“This is a pretty complex transaction,” Lipscomb said.
“We look forward to working with M&I, the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County to create an important addition to downtown Milwaukee,” said Dr. Hermann Viets, president of MSOE. “As a major stakeholder in the downtown and Park East area, we view the availability of parking as an excellent opportunity to spur development without the need for city or county dollars.”
At times, city and county officials have clashed over Park East corridor development plans. Marcoux continues to call for the county to either sell its Park East land to the city or to allow the Department of City Development to manage the development process of the property for the county. DCD has far more experience and expertise in managing real estate developments than the county does, he said.
Lipscomb said county officials would be concerned about turning control of the Park East land over to the city because the city does not have community benefits standards for the land, which the county does. The county board adopted the Park East Redevelopment Compact (PERC) for reviewing developments on the county-owned land in the Park East corridor. The PERC requires developers to pay union-scale wages for construction projects on the county land. In addition, the PERC indicates that developers that hire local employees, provide job training or create green space would be more likely to be selected.
However, developers criticized the PERC, saying it would discourage development. Since the county has yet to attract any development to its Park East property, some have continued to criticize the PERC.
But Lipscomb says developers tell county officials that bad economic conditions, not the PERC, is the reason for the lack of development in the Park East corridor.
“Developers say they do not find (the PERC) to be a problem,” Lipscomb said. “The problem has been the financial markets and the change of demand.”
