To think, I was just about to put the UW-Tosa t-shirts up on the new Urban Milwaukee store, maybe I can hold off now? Apparently, UWM’s backing out of the fight to locate the School of Freshwater Sciences on the former Pieces of Eight restaurant site ruffled some feathers, and Michael Cudahy decided to return the favor by backing out of funding UWM’s proposed Wauwatosa location for the Engineering School.

The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Marquette University and Milwaukee School of Engineering announced that the universities are collaborating on seven energy technology research projects. These projects are being conducted as part of the Southeastern Wisconsin Energy Technology Research Center, which ties the universities together with local companies, such as Rockwell Automation and WE Energies, to conduct research in the area of energy technology. The initial projects involves green concepts and advanced technologies such as wind turbines, Li-Ion Batteries, CO2 recycling and sequestration via algae, and nanowire thermoelectric materials.

Despite the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s efforts with the Center for Sustainability Education (CSE), the hiring of a sustainability coordinator, construction of a green roof on Sandburg Hall, and maintain of the 11.1 acre Downer Woods the leadership at UWM who are pushing to develop an engineering school on the Milwaukee County Grounds seem to be missing the larger point, that there is nothing green about greenfield development.

“Kitty Corner, Across the Freeway.” This is how County Executive Scott Walker described just how close UW-Milwaukee’s new Engineering School could be from the Milwaukee County Research Park. I don’t think I could of summed it up much better myself. Kitty corner, across the freeway.

Normally people oppose projects because it is in their backyard, I oppose UW-Milwaukee’s expansion in Wauwatosa because it isn’t in my backyard. I know that’s a strange concept but the list of reasons to build the Engineering School in downtown Milwaukee, my backyard, are numerous. It’s not just my backyard, but the backyard of 600,000 residents of the City of Milwaukee.

I recently gave up and said, “fine, let the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee expand in Wauwatosa”. I argued this move would make life more difficult for students and that’s great because they will learn about the “real world”. Further I thought it was great that this move would allow the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to stay in Madison’s shadow. Of course I really think the best thing about the Wauwatosa site, will be the UW-Tosa t-shirts. It occurred to me that beyond these there are a few more “great” reasons for UW-Milwaukee to expand in Wauwatosa.

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.

Tom Daykin of the Journal Sentinel is reporting that RedPrairie is no longer moving to Delafield. The company had just recently announced that they were putting their plans on hold.

Back in March, 2008 I started an organization that worked to convince the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee that expanding into Wauwatosa was the wrong choice for the university, the City of Milwaukee, and Southeast Wisconsin. The range of issues the Wauwatosa site presents is broad, but generally we focused on showing how a downtown location could meet and exceed UWM’s goals without the additional hurdles that the Wauwatosa site brings with it.

Red Praire’s relocation story has been funny, especially now that they’ve finally decided to move to Delafield. To understand what’s going on it appears you don’t have to read between the lines, you just have to read the lines.