The production of renewable energy continues to move forward in the Midwest as new projects are proposed and government adjusts to make construction of new developments easier. The most noteworthy is the planned 39 acre urban solar power plant in the City of Chicago’s West Pullman neighborhood.

The site selected for the solar power plant is a heavily contaminated brownfield on Chicago’s south side.  The site has been unused for 30 years, and even after remediation wouldn’t be suitable for recreational use.  Judging from other reports, all that stands between the plan and its implementation is the approval of a $48 million stimulus loan from the U.S Department of Energy Loan Guarantee Program Office to cover up to 80% of the project costs.

This 10-megawatt solar photovoltaic (PV) facility, featuring 32,800 solar panels that will produce enough clean energy to fulfill the annual requirements of 1,200 to 1,500 homes, will displace approximately 31.2 million pounds of greenhouse emissions annually (the equivalent of taking more than 2,500 cars off the road or planting more than 3,200 acres of forest).

View Chicago Solar Power Plant in a larger map

Also of interest, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Thomas Content has a good rundown of what progress has been made regarding wind power in Wisconsin, and what obstacles are holding its development.  From a high level things appear pretty good…

By many accounts it was a banner year for the state. Record development of wind power took place, with the opening of four large wind-power projects by companies including We Energies, Invenergy and Wisconsin Power & Light Co.

Eight times as much wind power is being generated today as there was a little more than a year ago. But electricity from the wind still accounts for only about 5% of the state’s power supply.

But there are significant challenges.  A couple key takeaways from the article…

• State Senator Jeff Plale (D-Milwaukee) and State Representative Jim Soletski (D-Green Bay) are lead sponsors of a bill to set up uniform siting standards for all wind farms that would be built in the state.  To put things in perspective, the last project that was approved by a local government happened in March of 2007.
• The Wisconsin Department of Transportation has been difficult to work with in order to obtain permits to move the parts throughout Wisconsin.  According to Port of Milwaukee marketing director Betty Nowak this has led to an direct decrease in the volume of wind-power parts coming through the port.  These issues have since been resolved. I would guess this is why WisDOT has been so feverishly expanding freeways around Milwaukee ( for the Zoo Interchange, and for I-94 to the state line), but judging by how Bucryus and Joy Global continue to produce massive mining equipment in Milwaukee, this can’t be the case.
• Wisconsin is behind marketing itself to wind power companies.

How does all of this affect Milwaukee? Besides the obvious change to a more sustainable of source of power, which will result in cleaner air for Milwaukee residents, there are numerous other pieces to this puzzle.  One already mentioned is the use of the port, a higher port utilization means more jobs.  On top of that, Wisconsin has for a long-time been involved in the manufacturing supply chain.  Despite that an incredible number of those jobs are gone for one reason or another, the capacity for such production still exists.  With the size and timing of such projects creating a rather large incentive to make the parts locally, Wisconsin and Milwaukee in particularly could benefit from the increased use of wind turbines for power.

The development of an urban solar power plant is something to also watch closely.  If it works on a Chicago brownfield, I can imagine it would work equally as well on a Milwaukee brownfield (or factory rooftop).

After a recent weekend trip to take in three Milwaukee Brewers games in St. Louis versus the rival St. Louis Cardinals, I spent a significant time reflecting on the differences (and similarities) between the stadiums each team calls home.  Miller Park is located 3.2 miles from Milwaukee City Hall, while Busch Stadium is located 1/5th (0.2) of a mile from the iconic Arch.  Miller Park has the roof, Busch Stadium has the view.  Busch Stadium has the proposed Ballpark Village, Miller Park has its own sales tax.  Miller Park has gameday bus service, Busch Stadium is located on a light rail line.  And least important for the sake of this analysis, they each have their namesake beer.  With all of that considered, which stadium does more for the city?

Market Size

The comparison is worthwhile to make as the size of the St. Louis and Milwaukee markets are quite similar.   Greater St. Louis has a 2007 estimated population of 2,871,421.  Greater Milwaukee has a 2007 estimated population of 1,739,497.  Missouri has an estimated population of approximately 5,900,000, and is home to the Kansas City Royals as well. The population of Wisconsin is estimated near 5,600,000.  The markets are extremely similar in size when taking the state population into consideration.  Furthermore, both stadiums are located in Midwest, making them subject to colder starts and finishes to the season than say the Houston Astros.

Stadium Location

Busch Stadium is located in downtown St. Louis.  Almost every seat in the stadium has a view of a part of the skyline and the Gateway Arch.  The stadium is currently bordered by a few surface parking lots, garages, and hotels.  A few of those surface parking lots will become buildings as the mixed-use Ballpark Village is developed.  There are numerous hotels within walking distance of the stadium, many closer than the surface lots of Miller Park.  The St. Louis light rail system, Metrolink, runs right by the stadium with a stop conveniently labeled “Station” within a stones throw.  I-64 is immediately adjacent to the stadium.

Easily visible from almost every seat in the stadium.

Miller Park is located three miles west of downtown Milwaukee along I-94.  The stadium is surrounding on literally every side by surface parking lots, some stretching as far as a half mile from the stadium.  If the roof is open, and you’re in the top level of the stadium, there is a chance you could catch a glimpse of the US Bank Center, the tallest building in Wisconsin.  The nearest attraction is the Potawatami Casino, and there isn’t a hotel within walking distance.  The 90 bus line runs from Downtown starting two hours before the game, but must contend with traffic waiting to park once it leaves Wisconsin Avenue.

The amount of parking Miller Park requires because of the use of surface lots is really quite amazing.

Both stadiums are not the first iteration at their given location.  County Stadium preceded Miller Park, and Busch Memorial Stadium preceded Busch Stadium.

Cost and Ownership

Busch Stadium had a final cost of $365 million when it opened in 2006.  Of that cost, $45 million (12%) came from a long-term loan from St. Louis County.  Private financing came in the tune of $90.1 million in cash from the Cardinals, $200.5 in bonds paid by the team, and $9.2 million in interest earned on the construction fund the Cardinals held. The stadium has a seating capacity of 46,861 and is owned by the St. Louis Cardinals.  The stadium does not have a roof, or its own named expressway.  I was unable to determine who paid for the cost overruns of $20.2 million.

Miller Park had a final cost of $400 million when it opened in 2001.  The Brewers owners (led by the Seligs at the time) paid for 22.5 percent ($90 million).  The taxpayers of Milwaukee, Racine, Waukesha, Washington, and Ozaukee Counties are still paying (with a 2014 estimated ending date) a 0.1% sales tax to cover 77.5% of the costs ($310 million).  The stadium has a seating capacity of 43,000 and is owned in a partnership between the Southeastern Wisconsin Professional Baseball District (64 percent) and the Milwaukee Brewers (36 percent).  The stadium features a fan-shaped retractable roof.  The location of the stadium necessitates the construction and maintenance of Miller Park Way and the interchange with I-94, an expense I’m not sure is fully internalized in the cost of the stadium.

The most obvious difference between the two ballparks is the percentage of public financing.  Busch Stadium was 12% taxpayer funded, Miller Park was 77.5%.  Why was this?  The biggest aspect appears to be the team’s ability to pay.  The Cardinals had been banking money for years for a new stadium, while the Brewers, led by Bud Selig, did not have nearly the ability to pay what the Cardinals did.  Ironically, the Brewers were able to obtain the retractable roof, despite having less money to start with than the Cardinals.  The second most important factor in the funding for Milwaukee’s stadium appears to be the elected leaders, who were willing to go along with the Brewers plan (ultimately leading to a recall election and defeat for Senator George Petak of Racine).

A downtown stadium without a roof could have shaved at least $80 million from the sales tax burden, as the city could have offered TIF financing at least near $30 million and the retractable roof’s cost of $50 million would have been eliminated.

Busch Stadium has an open atmosphere that should work well with the neighborhood that develops around it.

Accessibility via Transit

As mentioned, Busch Stadium is next door to the Stadium Metrolink light-rail station, with connections to the airport, Illinois, and western St. Louis.  The station platform is packed after games, but I was unable to find ridership figures or estimates for gameday traffic.  The system itself handles about 60,000 riders a day.  The station is located along a standard route, encouraging familiarity and predictability with taking public transit to the stadium.  Unfortunately, a bus wasn’t anywhere to be found during my stay in St. Louis as a referendum was voted down in November and as a result bus service was reduced by nearly a third.

A sign announcing the cancellation of service to a downtown St. Louis bus stop. A frequent sight unfortunately.

In Milwaukee, the MCTS’s 90 bus route serves the bus starting two hours before the game.  Having ridden both after a game, there are significantly more people waiting to take the Metro.  The 90 bus only serves riders from downtown Milwaukee and along Wisconsin Avenue, unlike the St. Louis Metrolink line.  The gameday-only nature of the 90 bus also is rather confusing to many riders who aren’t familiar with the route.  The ride into the stadium is also far from smooth, as the bus must compete with stop and go traffic, from automobiles waiting to get into Miller Park parking lots, once the bus leaves Wisconsin Avenue.  There are many times where getting out of the bus and walking from the edge of the parking lots would be much faster than waiting to get dropped off at the front doors.

Edge to St. Louis and Busch Stadium for frequency of service, quality of service, areas for rides to originate, off-bus ticketing (a problem on buses for visitors), and predictability/reliability of service.

Accessibility via Car

Both stadiums are readily accessible by car.  Milwaukee is clearly more accessible by motor vehicle by virtue of the fact that there is nothing around it, making it ease for riders to find the one interstate exit to the stadium (conveniently labeled Miller Park Way).  Busch Stadium is served by multiple exits, but the large number of one-way streets in downtown St. Louis seem to induce rush hour congestion where none needs to be.  Overall, the traffic flow near Busch Stadium, despite the massive amount of pedestrian traffic, seems to flow just fine.

Ballpark Village will be built at the top of this image, just north of the stadium. Despite the presence of the interstate immediately next to the stadium, Busch Stadium seems less car-orientated than Miller Park.

Spillover Effect

What does each do for businesses, both nearby and far away?

Busch Stadium provides obviously a large boost for the hotels in the surrounding area, perhaps more measurable than Miller Park because of the immediate proximity.  There are also numerous vendors selling goods outside the stadium, something you don’t see at Miller Park.  On the flip side, grocery stores across the state of Wisconsin benefit marginally from the food sales generated by tailgating.

Numerous Brewer fans end up on Water Street and Bluemound Road after games, but not in the numbers that Cardinals fans show up in Laclede’s Landing to drink their In-Bev beers.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Busch Stadium was the lack of restaurants near the stadium.  There were a couple, but not in the number I would expect an urban stadium to bring.  Nothing like what is visible at Wrigley and Fenway.  Ballpark Village will hopefully ignite a process that brings a large amount of street level retail to the area.

Parking is the biggest difference between the two.  At Miller Park almost every parking stall by the stadium is controlled by the Brewers and your money goes directly into their coffers.  In St. Louis, a wide diversity of ownership is present near the stadium.  The result?  A diversity of pricing options, and light competition that works to keep prices down somewhat.  Similar to how things are with the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.

The real upside to Busch Stadium’s parking setup is that the stalls can be used for more than one purpose.  At Miller Park the surface parking lots are exclusively for stadium activities.  At Busch Stadium, the parking can be used for many purposes.

Ballpark Village will be a nice addition to the area around the stadium.

Tailgateability

Coining a new term specifically for this article, “tailgateability” is the measure of the ease of eating out of the back of your car an area provides.  Miller Park wins, but really not by a lot.  At Miller Park, you can fire up your grill at any parking stall, in St. Louis this is possible for a lot of the spots, but far from all of them.

This brings up an important point though, is tailgating possible at urban stadiums?  Certainly it is.  There is no reason why the roofs of parking garages and select surface lots couldn’t be sold at a small premium to tailgaters.  In Milwaukee shuttles could run between numerous areas like the lakefront parking lots and Summerfest lots to accommodate even more tailgaters.  Also, grills could be installed and public plazas could be constructed (or actually used) that would accommodate tailgaters.

Fans take to the streets after games in St. Louis as the street grid distributes them across the city. Cars are more confined to a lot of one way streets.

Conclusion

Each stadium has features that make it an enjoyable place to watch baseball.  The roof at Miller Park is nice, but was the $50+ million price tag worth it?  You could argue each way.

The location of Busch Stadium is much more enviable than that of Miller Park and leads to a number of efficiencies.  It’s underdeveloped at this point though, Ballpark Village’s development is a must.  St. Louis has a great asset in the stadium, and a fair number of buildings nearby that work well with it.  Adding more mixed-use buildings nearby will greatly improve the downtown and build a true 24-hour neighborhood.

The fact that so little of Busch Stadium was paid for with taxpayer dollars is a plus.  Having a winning culture that sold tickets and a slightly bigger fan base helped put the team in that position though.  Consequently though, it did appear that every piece of food at the stadium cost a dollar more.  Pick your poison, although I’m sure most would choose the private funding.

Building Miller Park in downtown Milwaukee was studied (drawings included below), but there was likely a hidden cost to that.  Would Milwaukee have been to eliminate the Park East Freeway if the stadium was to be near the end of the freeway stub?  Probably not.  Suburban opposition to such a proposal would have been a lot stronger.

At the end of the day, not building the new stadium in downtown Milwaukee was certainly a missed opportunity.  The only beneficiary of its current location is the Brewers themselves.  But was it something that downtown Milwaukee needed desperately?  No, it’s pretty clear it wasn’t.  Milwaukee did miss out on a chance to accelerate all the good things going on in or near downtown though.

Miller Park Downtown

From Thursday Architects…

This project was commissioned by the City of Milwaukee as a background study in hopes of persuading the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers to locate his new publicly funded ballpark downtown rather than on the suburban fringe of the city. Promoted without success by a New Urbanist Mayor, the City proposed the demolition of a freeway spur on the north side of downtown, and the location of a new ballpark along the edge of the Milwaukee River as part of new neighborhood development at the northern edge of downtown. Parking was to be accommodated by new and existing lots and garages dispersed throughout the downtown area and immediate environs. The Brewers’ owner wasn’t buying it; and the $500M “Miller Field” will open this season in a 20,000-car parking lot west of Milwaukee.

Rendering includes Grace Lutheran Church and Blatz Condos.

Looking south down Water Street.

Broadway is the center of the action in the Third Ward, it works for business, pedestrians, and even automobiles. But just across I-794 it is a wasteland of surface parking lots and empty storefronts. While there are surely numerous factors in place that have hurt the vitality of this street, an area that can be addressed by the city to make it more attractive to business is to improve the pedestrian environment. Specifically the section of Broadway between Wisconsin Ave. and I-794 is vital because by improving these few blocks it would knit together downtown and the Third Ward.

Improving this section of Broadway will not only improve connectivity for pedestrians, but automobiles as well. The first improvement to this block should be to make it a two-way street all the way into the Third Ward. This will immediately bring new traffic on to the street which will help to make it more desirable location for retail business. The second and more infrastructure intensive improvement would be to remove a travel lane to create a center island with street trees. Now this may on the surface seem like a radical change but it really isn’t all that different from what is seen on the other side of I-794. Further, by placing the trees in the center as opposed to in the more common location of the sidewalks, it will create a environment different than other blocks in East Town. This island would narrow the streets and create a visual appearance that encourages drivers to slow down. The reduced speeds and improved appearance would create a safer more enjoyable environment for pedestrians, which again would encourage more retail activity. Finally, as the trees mature they would act as a screen partially blocking out views of I-794, once again enhancing the appeal of the entire area. The combination of reducing lanes, creating the island, and making the street two-ways through to the Third Ward could help spark the redevelopment of this part of downtown Milwaukee.

Of course beyond completing this street additional measures such as a TIF may be required to encourage the redevelopment of surface lots that border Broadway between Michigan St. and I-794, but the street improvements would play a significant role in bringing retail back to Broadway.

To get an idea of what this change could look like, I’ve included a small gallery of photos of the Pioneer Square area of Seattle, WA as well as photos of the current shape of Broadway in Milwaukee.

The debate swirling around the Janet Zweig art project got me thinking about the value of public art to our city and how other cities embrace opportunities to enhance their public places.  In Chicago the mix of architecture, and the hustle and bustle is in of itself valuable but public places like Millennium Park and the artwork that fills it add to the overall appeal of city life.

The most well know piece of public art work in Chicago’s Millennium Park is surely Cloud Gate, which is more commonly referred to as “The Bean.”  The way it distorts the view, creating a seamless connection between reflection and reality has adults acting like kids, and kids well being kids.  It fascinates people of all ages, it brings a little joy to people, and by doing so, it sets a tone.  By creating this fun and creative tone it encourages people to stop and enjoy, the work, the park, and the city.

Another intriguing work in Millennium Park, The Crown Fountain, is the large waterfalls with the video images that occasionally spout water.  These clearly draw and entertain a crowd, but what statement, purpose, or meaning beyond entertainment they have isn’t immediately apparent.  Nor does the work strike you as especially “high-tech” or even complicated.  But the work draws you in, gathers a crowd, spurs laughter, and creates a fun environment for all ages.  See this work isn’t the most famous draw to Millennium Park, or even the most creative but it adds another twist to Chicago.

Janet Zweig’s work might not standout physically like either of these works, but the point remains the same.  To entertain, to draw people in, and to add a touch of enjoyment to the environment.  This encourages people to linger a little longer, to take a picture of our city, to stop and grab a coffee, to get a brat from a street vendor, or just say something positive about Milwaukee.  Each of these are again minor and might seem insignificant but as the little benefits add up they in totality create a uniquely vibrant place.  Quite simply, public art is one of the the unique twists that help make a city, a city.  Hopefully Zweig’s, all be it small, project will be given the opportunity to add a new twist to Milwaukee.

If you haven’t seen Chicago’s Cloud Gate or The Crown Fountain I’ve added a gallery below:

With the recent news of the federal approval allowing the City of Milwaukee to move forward on a modern streetcar system we thought it would be good to see what one of these systems might look like. A comparable system to what is being proposed in Milwaukee is Seattle’s 2.6 mile South Lake Union Line which launched in 2007. A key factor that plays a role in the ridership levels of a system is the level of population density. Milwaukee’s population density of 6,214.7/sq mi compares closely with Seattle’s population density of 6,717.0/sq mi, and this level of support has allowed Seattle’s new line to serve more than 500,000 riders in its first year of operation exceeding the initial estimates. Although the Seattle line is slightly shorter than Mayor Barrett’s proposed route it has similar features in that it connects undeveloped areas near downtown to downtown with the goal of spurring economic development. Specifically the Denny Triangle is in an area of Seattle that although more developed than the Park East is in need of economic development and has apparently already seen development occur along the line.

To learn more about what may soon be coming to Milwaukee check out the video below: (If you have trouble viewing this video you can also see it on streetfilms)

Maybe in a few years we could have events like TRAMix. Check out the video below:

Too often we, as Milwaukeeans, are too quick to assume all the good ideas in Milwaukee are trickling up from Chicago.  That Chicago gets the latest trends, fashions, fast food restaurants (see: Sonic), and other soon-to-be-passing fads before we do.

Of course that’s not always the case, with the Quadracci Pavilion being the best example.  You of course know that building better for the world renown architect that designed it, Santiago Calatrava.

There is something else in downtown Milwaukee that we beat Chicago to, the riverwalk.  Chicago has really only been building out a riverwalk system since just before the turn of the millenium, while Milwaukee has been working on such a system since the 1980s.

Chicago is working to expand their system this year, hoping to complete portions near Michigan Avenue by June.

Things aren’t finished in Milwaukee either, this year we should finally see the construction of the segment connecting the Brewer’s Point Apartments with Lakefront Brewery and Trostel Square and a segment with the new construction of The Edge.  The Aloft Hotel will include an accompanying RiverWalk segment as the building rises. With time, we’ll also see a large expansion of the RiverWalk as The North End “Neighborhood by Design” comes together.

Now let’s just get rid of this cold weather, so we can get back to using the RiverWalk.

As the RTA inches closer and closer to reality in Milwaukee, what else is going on in transit elsewhere in the country?

The Twin Cities are heading into a budget deficit for transit operations that could result in fare hikes, it appears the mixed-mode (detailed in the article) funding source for transit is failing.  Ironically, it appears largely due to declining auto sales.  On the plus side though, things are moving ahead on the Northstar commuter rail line into Minneapolis.  The Twin Cities continue to impress with their vision of a true intermodal system.  They have light-rail connecting the Mall of America, the airport, and downtown Minneapolis, an expansive bus system, commuter rail under construction to connect northwest suburbs, and a proposed light rail line to link downtown St. Paul with downtown Minneapolis.  The new baseball stadium is even logically located at a hub on this network.

In Montana, they want to expand Empire Builder service using stimulus funds and start manufacturing more rail equipment there.  Probably not the best idea, the money would be better spent relocating Montana residents to more urban centers, expanding manufacturing capacity in those centers, and growing inter-city rail between nearby major cities.  Long-haul Amtrak routes are plagued by delays, are less cost-efficient, and don’t generate the kind of positive goodwill that the Hiawatha between Milwaukee and Chicago does.

All that said, rail service in Montana is a good idea (provided it connects population centers).  But the most important thing is that we build the most cost-effective routes first to generate momentum going forward (and one would guess they’re not in Montana, with a state population about the same as Milwaukee County).  That momentum will help reorient the country to using rail as a substitute for short-flights and inter-city driving.

In New York City weird things happen when street lights go out, traffic gets calmer.  Perhaps something more intersections in Milwaukee could use.

Also in New York City a coalition wants to tear down the Sheridan Expressway.  It’s recently been labeled “the worst highway in the nation.“  If they tear it down, hopefully they get the land deal structured better than we did in Milwaukee.

If you’re looking for a good article on cross-country train travel, GOOD Magazine has a great feature piece.  Please note the difference between inter-city rail, and cross-country, long-haul travel.

Seattle is struggling through potential transit cuts due to sales tax collection reductions.  This same problem has been rearing its head in other cities.  There hasn’t been much data that I’ve come across that indicates if these systems pushed too hard on the tax as a funding source (and didn’t leave enough in a rainy day fund), or if something else is at work.  What is known is that its the opposite of what we have seen here in Milwaukee, with collections rising despite the economy faltering.  Are people in the Midwest simply traveling less?  I’ll follow up on this in a future article.

In other news, maybe there is hope for Janesville, WI.  A former GM town in Indiana appears to be on the rebound.  I still think the best bet is to relocate the people to our urban cores, and not for the state to throw dollar after dollar into the dying city itself.

The Milwaukee Brewers, in an attempt to fight back against the Chicago Cubs fans and their Wrigley Field North signs and shirts, are offering a promotion to send Brewer fans to Wrigley Field in September via Amtrak in hopes of turning it into Miller Park South.

The first 100 fans to arrive at Miller Park on February 20th with a ticket in hand to the September 17th Brewers vs Cubs game at Wrigley Field will receive a free round-trip ticket to and from Chicago on the day of the game and a Wrigley Field South t-shirt.  The next 1,500 will receive just the shirt.

Now the exciting part of the promotion isn’t the Wrigley Field South aspect, there are simply too many Cubs fans that invade Miller Park every year (like the coauthor of this site) to make it seem like Brewer fans are legitimately fighting back.

The exciting part is that positive brand association Amtrak receives.  They currently advertise at Miller Park, but it’s not the kind of ad that makes you want to take any action at all.  This offer seems to be the exact opposite, promoting the passenger railroad as a great way to get to Chicago.  No one can doubt the strength of the Brewers’ brand at this point, and the association with Amtrak should help improve the image of the Hiawatha line between Chicago and Milwaukee.

Hopefully this is just the first of a yearly promotion.  Every little bit of positive recognition Amtrak can get, especially in areas that are potential future destinations (Madison, Green Bay), will help the railroad.

The UWM Center for Urban Initiatives and Research (CUIR) undertook the first comprehensive study on Milwaukee’s “condo boom” to understand who was actually living in the condos stretching from the northern part of Walker’s Point up to North Avenue on the East Side.

They found a couple really good things from the perspective of an urbanist (or anyone that lives in Milwaukee for that matter).  First, that the condo owners in 88% of the cases are using their condos as their primary residence.  A sign that they’re likely spending and investing their time and money in Milwaukee, and most likely in the very neighborhood in which they reside.  Second, 45% of respondents said location was the most important factor in purchasing their condo.  A great sign that things are working in some of Milwaukee’s densest neighborhoods.

The study also isn’t some fly by night guess at what condo owners might be like, 2,606 unit owners were contacted, and 804 responses were collected.

A couple of other key highlights include that for residents using the condo as their primary residence 45% previously lived in the city of Milwaukee.  That number grows to 65% if you consider all of Milwaukee County.  Nearly 10% of owners are from Waukesha County.  Only 4% of condo owners using their condo as a primary residence previously lived in the Chicago area, but 18% of condo owner’s last primary residence was out of state.

Only 2% of total condo owners live in the Chicago area and don’t don’t use their condo as a primary residence.  Out of all the condo owners that responded, only 4% of condo owners don’t use it as their primary residence and live in the Milwaukee metro area, with almost half of them living in Milwaukee County

In what did they live before?  The study found that 38% lived in apartments, and an equal and opposite 38% lived in single-family homes.

What does the study show?  You can make a lot of assumptions from the study, but you can’t deny that it appears people want to live in Milwaukee.

You can read the entire study yourself at the UWM CUIR website.

What’s the cost of parking in downtown Milwaukee? It might just be more than the cost of plugging the meter. The low cost of parking in Milwaukee might actually be preventing new development from happening downtown.

Consider the prices for parking in downtown Milwaukee (thanks to SBT and Colliers International)…

• The median monthly unreserved parking rate in downtown Milwaukee is $120, compared to the national average of $153.79, according to the report.
• The median monthly reserved parking rate in downtown Milwaukee is $150, compared to the national average of $185.78.
• The median daily parking rate in downtown Milwaukee is $12, compared to the national average of $15.42.
• The median hourly parking rate in downtown Milwaukee is $4, compared to the national average of $5.10.
• The median metered hourly parking rate in downtown Milwaukee is 63 cents, compared to the national average of $1.48. (emphasis ours)

At a glance, the most drastic difference from the national average comes in the form of Milwaukee’s parking meters. The difference is so great that in downtown Milwaukee people are paying 50% less for metered parking than the national average.

A now dated study from HNTB indicated that the city had an adequate supply of parking in 1998, but was short on metered parking. By 1999, the city had increased the number of parking stalls by 1,525 during John Norquist’s term alone. More have been added since, helping to lead to what today is believed by many to be an oversupply.

There is by this author’s pound-the-pavement, visual survey a disproportionately high number of surface parking lots in downtown Milwaukee compared to many other major cities. To make matters worse, there is a great number of free street parking spaces just north of the MSOE campus that are filled daily. These are problem areas for a variety of reasons.

This oversupply is bad for development downtown because building a parking structure is often required to obtain financing for a new development, yet is currently a huge money losing venture. To put it in perspective, per-stall costs are well over $20,000 and will be pushing $30,000 if material prices keep rising. Underground parking is significantly more expensive. The market currently doesn’t generate the revenue required to pay back the costs per stall. Informal sources have put the break even point for a new parking garage at $180 a month per stall. Building facilities to parking cars isn’t cheap, and Milwaukee’s below-average parking costs are a hidden burden on making new developments happen.

The end result is that developments don’t get done because downtown Milwaukee has too much parking. Infill developments that do happen (The Residences on Water being a good example) help the problem very slowly by replacing surface parking with buildings, but aren’t enough at the current rate.

The cheap cost of parking in downtown Milwaukee is definitely is a huge obstacle, if not the biggest, for new developments downtown.

What can be done to help the private market, encourage development downtown, and fix the surface parking lot problem?

First, Milwaukee needs to implement parking benefit districts downtown.

What is a parking benefit district? In short it’s market rate street parking with the money generated in excess of city expenses and enforcement costs going towards improving the neighborhood through improvements like bicycle lanes, expanded sidewalks, and other streetscaping improvements. The decision on what to spend the money on would be made by the Business Improvement District (BID) or a similar organization. Prices would be adjusted to ensure 80% of stalls are occupied during peak business hours.

A parking benefit district would actually make parking easier in downtown Milwaukee. Higher rates for on-street parking would discourage all-day parking, leaving more spots open for people coming in and out of the neighborhood. It would also ease congestion slightly, by opening up the street and eliminating people circling looking for spots. More information is available from various sources after a quick search.

Second, the city should explore ways to reduce and eliminate surface parking lots.

Surface parking lots break apart neighborhoods, both visually and physically. They offer rates cheaper than parking garages. Modern parking garages integrate with neighborhoods much better than surface lots. To make matters worse they’re a great source of run-off. Surface lots by lowering the market rate for parking in Milwaukee, actually prevent new developments from happening. Surface lots should be looked at as an opportunity to turn a negative into a positive. Converting unsightly, polluting pieces of blacktop into wealth-generating buildings should be a priority in Milwaukee.

The city can do this by offering incentives to develop surface lots or by imposing taxes or fees on them. Taxes on early bird specials, and special taxes or fees on surface lots are sure to be met with political opposition. More politically appealing may be the route of offering incentives to developers in the form of TIF districts. Incentive packages could also be made for lot owners to sell the lot, as many have been reluctant to sell to-date.

Milwaukee needs to move to market-rate metered street parking and work to eliminate more surface lots to encourage new development, help existing parking garages, increase safety and walkability, and most importantly keep downtown as the economic and social heart of not only the city, but the region.