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Urban Ecology Center - Menomonee Valley
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Photo credit: Kristine Hinrichs Photography
Three Bridges Park
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Third Space Brewing Company
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Sobelmans
In the last 20 years, the Menomonee Valley has been transformed from a post-industrial wasteland contaminated by more than a century of heavy industry into an unusual amalgam of green space, light industrial and retail redevelopment. It happened because of active collaboration between the City of Milwaukee, numerous private entities and the non-profit Menomonee Valley Partners, which coordinated the redevelopment project.
“The collection of individual projects has been quite amazing,” says Dave Misky, who worked on the Menomonee Valley redevelopment financing as assistant executive director of the Redevelopment Authority of the City of Milwaukee. “The support from the private and public sectors, which have worked together, has gone surprisingly well. I think you are seeing similar patterns of public and private investment now being done in the 30th Street corridor and Harbor District. I think we learned how to do it in the Menomonee Valley.”
Slightly more than $1 billion was invested in the Menomonee Valley since 1998, says Corey Zetts, executive director of the Menomonee Valley Partners. This includes $162 million of public investment and $917 million in private investment. Today, more than 8,000 people are employed in the valley—5,500 of them in jobs that the redevelopment created. More than 100 businesses are thriving in the valley and vicinity, and the last two lots in the Menomonee Valley Industrial Center were sold recently. Three hundred acres of brownfields have been remediated and repurposed for industrial and recreational use, including 24 acres in the innovative Three Bridges Park, a green necklace on the south side of the valley, which extends from 37th Street east to Mitchell Park.
Michelle Kramer, director of marketing and business development at Menomonee Valley Partners, says that buyers of the city-owned parcels were required to use sustainable design guides and materials to create modern buildings that will survive into the future. She says attention was paid to attracting businesses that would employ enough people to create a certain workforce density. “We didn’t want warehouses to come in and employ two people and take up five acres of land. The idea is that anything we do down here, we ask: How does it impact the community, and how does it impact the economic picture?”
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How Green is Our Valley
Photo credit: Kristine Hinrichs Photography
Three Bridges Park
Walking west on the Hank Aaron Trail through Three Bridges Park in the Menomonee Valley, it seems almost possible at a point to step off the Hank Aaron Trail and walk right onto the roof of Miller Park. Once ensconced in Three Bridges Park—with views of Miller Park, the Menomonee River and Downtown Milwaukee—a visitor is uplifted both by the elevation and by the serenity of this park.
Built on an abandoned railyard, the park was sculpted out of the fill that was dumped there when the Marquette Interchange was built. Eventually, the area was graded into rolling hills, which were made to resemble glacial landforms, such as kames, drumlins and eskers—the natural topography of Southeastern Wisconsin. In the past five years, the Urban Ecology Center has planted tens of thousands of native herbaceous plants and hundreds of native trees. Creatures abound, including beavers, bats, coyotes and deer, many species of dragonflies and damselflies, two species of snakes and multiple species of turtles, frogs and toads. People are now fishing and kayaking in the Menomonee River.
Urban Ecology Center - Menomonee Valley
“The best thing about that park has been watching it come to life,” says Glenna Holstein, branch manager of the Urban Ecology Center—Menomonee Valley. “Just over six years ago, there were literally zero people using the park, and there were very few native species present.” Today, there are more than 50,000 visits to the center and the park annually, and hundreds of native plant and animal species are thriving. “It provides a great opportunity for community engagement, education, and dialogue,” she says. The Urban Ecology Center is the custodian of Three Bridges Park. “If you create a park and don’t give people a really positive and exciting way to use it, it could fall into other forms of use that are not exactly assets for the community,” Holstein says.
The redeveloped Menomonee Valley has an open, casual feel to it. New buildings in the Menomonee Valley Industrial Center are mostly big-box structures with a nice variety of façades. But, because of the 40 acres of green space in the 1,200-acre Menomonee Valley, the industrial park doesn’t seem like an ordinary industrial park, although it is built on brownfields from a previous industrial age.
More Work to be Done
Despite a lot of redevelopment in this former industrial and transportation hub that once provided employment to 50,000 people who worked in tanneries, breweries, stockyards, machine fabrication and railroad shops, the valley is still rough around the edges. Large electrical transmission trusses loom along its northern border, and numerous train tracks and railyards remain. Yet, the architectural remnants from its industrial glory days give it character and stand as testaments to its history. “We want people to come to the valley and love the valley but not get the perception that it’s done,” Kramer says. “There is still all of this land that has so much potential to bring hundreds of jobs to the city.” Forty acres of land remain to be redeveloped.
The Menomonee River runs through it, and Canal Street snakes around it, connecting the valley from the Sixth Street Bridge on the east to Miller Park on the west. Unless there is a game at Miller Park, Canal Street seems lightly traveled, providing a secret passageway from Downtown Milwaukee to the commercial district along Miller Parkway in West Milwaukee.
New plans are on the drawing board. Kramer says the Menomonee Valley Partners would like to see the Downtown Riverwalk extended to the valley. Because road access to the valley is limited, it would also like to see Mt. Vernon Avenue extended to Second Street Downtown. Currently, Mt. Vernon Avenue ends at the post office and serves as the roadway for bulk mail deposit. The Menomonee Valley Partners would also like to see a traffic ramp coming off the 27th Street Viaduct down to Canal Street, as well as better public transportation to accommodate the 8,000 people who work in the valley. Currently, there’s a Milwaukee County bus route present that only runs at shift times; workers sometimes have to climb the multi-story staircases to get onto the viaducts to reach alternative transportation.
Brisk Development in New Design District
New retailers and businesses are relocating at a lively pace on St. Paul Avenue, where only a few empty lots and vacant buildings remain. A new Design District is in the process of forming. Bachman Furniture will soon be joining BBC Lighting, Brass Light Gallery, House of Stone, ProStar Surfaces, Riverview Antique Market and Guardian Fine Art Services, on West St. Paul Avenue.
Third Space Brewing Company
Meanwhile, Plum Media, a video production company, recently relocated to the street. Third Space Brewing opened in 2016, and City Lights Brewery opened in 2017 there as well. BrewCity CrossFit recently opened a fitness center at 1539 W. St. Paul Ave. Architectural firm Christopher Kidd & Associates (based in Menomonee Falls) will open a new studio at 15th and St. Paul Avenue in the third week of December. Owner Christopher Kidd says he chose the location because he hopes that it will attract new young talent based in Milwaukee.
The new Bachman Furniture Store will open in January or February in the former American Radiator Company building at 1741 W. St. Paul Ave.—one of 22 buildings in the St. Paul Avenue Industrial Historic District that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Owner Joe Bachman chose the location after a four-year search for a new location; his company has been located at 60th and Capitol since 1958. “Nothing really excited me the way the location at 1741 W. St Paul did,” Bachman says. “I think the building is absolutely beautiful, with its 16-foot-high ceilings, front windows, timber beams and Cream City brick. There is so much character to this building. It stood out to me. We’ve always had unique European furnishings,” he continues. “I wanted a location and real estate that accurately reflected that.”
He says he is thrilled by the idea of being part of a Design District in the valley. “All major cities have them,” Bachman says. “Anybody doing any renovation is going to need lighting, countertops or hardwood floors.” He likes the easy access to the freeway and bought the parking lot across the street from his store. He adds Bachman Furniture will be partnering with BBC Lighting and will showcase BBC fixtures in its new 60,000-square-foot showroom. Bachman hopes that kitchen, bath, carpeting, flooring and tile stores will one day join the design constellation on St. Paul Avenue. “I think we’re on the brink of something great here on this once-quiet street,” he says.
New Art Exhibition Space Opens Next Month
Guardian Fine Art Services (1635 W. St. Paul Ave.) opened in 2017. The company provides state-of-the-art high-tech storage for artwork and other collectibles for private collectors and institutions. Owners John Shannon and his wife, artist Jan Serr, own about 3-4,000 works and needed to find storage space for their own collection. Prior to owning the building, they had to go to Chicago to store their collection. They chose the five-story building because it was made of brick and concrete and is fireproof.
In December, The Warehouse, a new 4,000-square-foot exhibition space at Guardian Fine Art Services, will have a public opening. Part of the exhibition space will be devoted to displaying Shannon’s and Serr’s permanent collection on a rotating basis but also will host shows by local, national and international artists, says Laura Sims Peck, curator of The Warehouse. “We wanted to be off the beaten path a little,” she says. “This building is the right size, and it is built really nicely. If we spark more galleries to move onto the street, that would be wonderful. Milwaukee has a really strong arts community; any way that we can make sure that flourishes would be fantastic.”
On Feb. 21-24, Wild Space Dance Company will perform at the gallery, and on Friday, March 8, On Belonging—a photographic collaboration between local artists Nirmal Raja and Lois Bielfeld—will open. The photographs explore the notion of belonging in the context of the Milwaukee community. The exhibition space will be open to the public by appointment. “What makes this space unique for Milwaukee is that it is not a sales gallery,” Peck says. “It is strictly an exhibition space for people to come together and really look at artwork in a smaller space than a large-scale museum.” Peck says The Warehouse will host curators and scholars for learned discussion based on the works that are exhibited there.
Sobelman Welcomes New Businesses
Sobelmans
With lots of new kids to welcome on the block, Dave Sobelman, a valley pioneer and owner of Sobelmans Pub and Grill, remembers St. Paul Avenue as it was in 1999 when he opened his now-famous restaurant. Back then, his clientele included many homeless people who made a living distributing coupon magazines. He often cashed their checks. In ’99, St. Paul Avenue was well off the beaten path.
New to the restaurant business, Sobelman wanted to expand his business and focused initially on finding the best burger patty and bun. In the early years, he bought his hamburger buns from Breadsmith Bakery on Silver Spring Drive in Whitefish Bay. He says that, when he was making his bun run to Silver Spring every morning, he gave out coupons good for free burgers. One day, he recalls, he gave a coupon to an attorney from Foley & Lardner who ended up coming in. The attorney brought his friends along, and they in turn brought their friends.
Sobelman says a favorable 13-line review in the Shepherd Express also brought him new customers. “Around the same time, the lunch crowd started to bring in managers, owners and sales people from businesses in the valley,” he recalls. “At night, it was blue collar. Eventually, it became a place where people from all walks of life came,” he continues. “Who woulda thunk it? If I didn’t have good food, they wouldn’t have come. But, it was fun for people to wander off the beaten path into a place which could be perceived as a dangerous environment, which it’s not.” Sobelman continues to host overflow crowds at his St. Paul Avenue location and has also opened stores near Marquette University and in Mequon, Wis.
Wise Public Investment Earns Award and Reaps Rewards
Public investment in the Menomonee Valley was substantial and has proved to be a good investment. In 2018, the multi-year redevelopment of the Menomonee Valley received the Chase Economic Development Award as part of Local Initiatives Support Corporation’s Milwaukee Awards for Neighborhood Development Innovation (MANDI).
If the investment of public funds in the Menomonee Valley is compared to the recent Foxconn deal—in which Wisconsin promised the company $4.5 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies, and Foxconn promised to bring 13,000 jobs to the state—the Menomonee Valley redevelopment project seems like a model of fiscal restraint. The New Yorker magazine recently reported an estimated taxpayer investment of $220,000 to $1 million per Foxconn job. In contrast, the public investment in the valley was less than $300 per newly created job.
If successes similar to the Menomonee Valley redevelopment project are realized in the Harbor District and the 30th Street Industrial Corridor, Milwaukee could well see more environmental, economic and community improvement through the use of public and private investment in blighted industrial areas.
