Milwaukee plans downtown streetcar, developers and lawyers respond.
Plans to remake Milwaukee’s lakefront have been in the works for
years, and while they still face hurdles, the inclusion of a new
streetcar line landing in the lobby of the 44-story Couture tower has
some residential developers excited about the possibility of a downtown
resurgence aided by public transit.
The Couture was first announced in 2012 as a hotel and condo project.
Developer Rick Barrett and designers Rinka Chung Architecture nixed the
hotel from the project, which would be among the tallest buildings in
Wisconsin. New renderings show a lakefront stop for the Milwaukee
streetcar loop in the Couture’s lobby—a 20,855-square-foot public
transportation concourse connecting passengers and passersby to bus
stops and to the lakefront via a pedestrian bridge over Lincoln Memorial
Drive.
The Couture was originally proposed as a hotel and apartment tower.
Plans for the hotel were scrapped, but developer Rick Barrett has added a
public transit concourse at street level.
Downtown development in Milwaukee was largely stagnant after 2004,
but along with plans to remake the lakefront War Memorial building and
overhaul Northwestern Mutual’s corporate headquarters to the tune of
nearly half a billion dollars, the market appears to be on the rebound.
The average sale price of downtown condos is also rising.
Barrett is not the only downtown developer seizing on plans to expand
Milwaukee’s planned streetcar system. Avenir, a mixed-use apartment
building at East Lyon and North Jefferson streets, will quietly
advertise its location near the approximately 2-mile long route when it
begins marketing the units, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
They will do so quietly because developer Stewart Wangard does not want
to appear too bullish on a project that has yet to break ground.
In August, the Wisconsin Public Service Commission ruled it was
unreasonable for utilities and their ratepayers to foot the bill for up
to $65 million in utility relocation required by streetcar
construction—a decision likely to set off a legal challenge from Mayor
Tom Barrett, whose administration has lined up $54.9 million in federal
aid and $9.7 million from a tax incremental financing district to build
the route.
It is not the only legal hurdle in the way. Part of the rationale for
the Couture’s public transit accommodations is an ongoing debate about
the Public Trust Doctrine, which some local park advocates point out
precludes private development on the lakefront—a stipulation they say
applies to the Couture. But a state decree passed last year says the
building site is on the private side of that line.
The Couture also includes the redevelopment of the downtown transit
center. Barrett is negotiating to buy the county-owned site at a
discount, and in exchange has offered to develop 81,560 square feet of
public space that would include a 29,385-square-foot park on the top of
the development’s four-level parking structure, as well as the transit
connections mentioned earlier.
