Hans Weissgerber III wants to open a beer garden in Pere Marquette Park—a stone’s throw away from his Old German Beer Hall (1009 N. Old World Third St.) which offers indoor and seasonal sidewalk seating. His firm has operated the beer garden in Shorewood’s Estabrook Park since 2012 and ran Oktoberfest events in Pere Marquette from 2011-2016.
The Westown Association, which promotes Downtown’s west side, would partner with Weissgerber by surrendering its long-held liquor license for Pere Marquette in exchange for a portion of the sales. The group sells alcohol during events there. Association President Claude Krawczyk believes that “increased activity on a daily basis would help make the park a more inviting place.”
The 1.9-acre Pere Marquette Park borders the Milwaukee River as well as Old World Third Street, Kilbourne Avenue and State Street. A Milwaukee County Parks background sheet calls the park a “green oasis in Downtown” and a “vital link in the Riverwalk system.”
Weissgerber proposes funding the design and construction of a building for food-and-drink service and restrooms. A rough sketch calls for removing about a quarter of the park’s lawn and three mature trees. About 30 long tables on a gravel patio would seat up to 300. Weissgerber’s firm also would plant more trees and help maintain the park. Proposed hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, seven months a year, weather permitting.
Milwaukee County Parks Director John Dargle Jr. supports the beer garden concept, but added that “it’s still in the discussion phase.” He said upcoming meetings will include Weissgerber and representatives of the Westown Association and Milwaukee County Historical Society. The Society controls the park’s brick patio next to its headquarters and museum.
Executive Director Mame McCully said the Society has been “a partner with the county for decades at this location,” hosting 20-40 events a year. The nonprofit’s concerns include how much space a beer garden would appropriate and plans for loading logistics. She said potential impacts on Historical Society rentals are unknown, since some might find a beer garden attractive, while others would not.
Dargle said a beer garden would increase “cost recovery,” or revenue collected from park concessions, rentals and use fees. Beer garden concessions brought in nearly $1 million in 2016. He anticipates that up to 60% of the 2018 parks budget would need to come from earned income if Chris Abele’s budget is approved. (The tax levy would cover the rest.)
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He also said a beer garden would provide numerous “public health benefits,” including the conviviality of people gathering outdoors. Milwaukee County Supervisor Supreme Moore Omokunde, whose 10th District includes the park, did not respond to requests for comment. December’s Milwaukee County Board meeting is the soonest this proposal could be heard.
Private Enterprise and Public Parks
Not everyone welcomes a beer garden in Pere Marquette Park. Shay Sanders, who works Downtown and often catches the bus at Pere Marquette, thinks a beer garden would diminish the park and limit its uses. “Everything does not need to be about beer, beer, beer,” she said. Sanders and her husband are among Downtown workers who eat lunch at the park’s picnic tables; they also attend concerts, holiday light displays and other events there.
According to Diane Buck who, with her husband, David, has initiated and funded many park and public art restoration projects in Milwaukee: “Permanent beer gardens do not belong in small public parks, especially in Pere Marquette, which has very little green space and is the only Downtown public park on the Milwaukee River.” Buck notes that it already contains a music pavilion, boat docks, the Milwaukee County Historical Society’s offices and patio, a historic monument to Marquette and a contemporary sculpture.
Buck, who serves on the board of Preserve Our Parks and other civic groups, is not opposed to all park-based beer gardens. “I have no problem with permanent beer gardens in large, underused parks. They are great places to spend the afternoon with friends and family to enjoy a beer and perhaps a picnic,” she says. However, Buck thinks a permanent beer garden in Pere Marquette would “continue the creeping commercialization in our public parks. Will there be any public space left in our parks once the private sector continues its march to take over public green space?”
Other permanent beer gardens in county parks are within much larger parks and parkways, such as Hoyt, Humboldt, South Shore and Whitnall parks. Traveling beer gardens circulate in other substantial county parks.
The Westown neighborhood, located between the Milwaukee River and Interstate 43 and McKinley and St. Paul avenues, has just four acres of public parkland. Other parks are Clas, located south of the Milwaukee County Courthouse; Zeidler Union Square, which is along Michigan Street; and a city-owned, postage-stamp-size triangle on Plankinton Avenue that’s home to the Letter Carriers’ Monument.
Preserve Our Parks’ president, John Lunz, says the advocacy group opposes a permanent beer garden in Pere Marquette because “it’s not the proper size for such an establishment, and there’s already so much competition in the area for customers.” Lunz adds that “eating and drinking facilities should be placed in parks as a convenience to park patrons who are there for park purposes.”
Market Considerations
How might a beer garden affect the 70-or-so bars and restaurants within a half-mile of Pere Marquette, including those on Old World Third and Water streets? Multiple establishments can create buzz in an area and foster a vibrant scene. However, some say, too much of a good thing can become detrimental “over-saturation.” At least three nearby establishments offer al fresco riverfront seating and ever more enterprises have patio or sidewalk seating. The Milwaukee Bucks are also developing a multi-story entertainment mall across from their new tax-subsidized arena, a short walk from Pere Marquette.
Krawczyk said merchants hope that more bars and eateries will “grow the pie” of Downtown’s entertainment market, rather than yielding thinner slices. He also said Third Street businesses generally support Weissgerber’s preliminary beer-garden plans; a spokesperson for Third Street businesses did not respond to a request for comment.
The Park’s Fullest Potential
Although Pere Marquette Park boasts enviable views and exceptional trees, it’s become rundown. For example, large planter urns contain only scraggly remnants of long-ago-planted ornamental grasses. Some hope that any Pere Marquette changes are not piecemeal and recognize opportunities to aim higher for this park and revitalizing the blocks facing it.
Architect Chris Socha, who heads Kubala Washatko Architects’ UrbanLab Division and led a pro-bono assessment of challenges facing Westown’s “public realm,” notes that the success of a beer garden in Pere Marquette “would depend on the quality of the overall experience of the surrounding public space.” He said an effective design ideally would address the whole park and nearby streetscapes.
Stephen Filmanowicz, a board member of the Wisconsin Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism (but who was not speaking for the group), wrote in an email: “A beer garden might work here. But Pere Marquette Park would really benefit from a larger planning effort that recognizes it for the strategic asset that it is in Downtown Milwaukee,” adding: “What other public gathering space is so enmeshed in the city fabric, while also connecting to the city’s signature ribbon-like public space, the Riverwalk?
“When you think of the Marcus Center’s Peck Pavilion and chestnut grove directly across the river and the opportunities for joint programming, the potential is sizable, with the right investment,” Filmanowicz wrote. “If Milwaukee is ever to create a public space where our urban heart is always beating—like Millennium Park in Chicago but obviously smaller—this could be the place.”
