County Threatened With Lakefront Lawsuit
County committee okays negotiations with The Couture developer, despite a casual threat of lawsuit.
The Couture Rendering
At the Monday special meeting of the Milwaukee County Economic and Community Development Committee, the plan to start negotiations between Milwaukee County and developer Rick Barrett to purchase the Downtown Transit Center received approval. Barrett plans to develop a 44-story, $125 million high-rise known as The Couture. The building would include a hotel with 80 rooms and 179 apartments if built.
Despite supporting Sup. Patricia Jursik‘s efforts to block this measure from being heard in July, County Board Chairwoman Marina Dimitrijevic actually brought the resolution to open the negotiations forward. The resolution includes various conditions that must be met before the county board would approval a land sale. These included: getting a fair market value price for the land, signing a development agreement that includes parts of the Park East Redevelopment Contract, which includes minority and resident participation requirements, and gaining assurances that the site isn’t in violation of the Public Trust Doctrine.
Despite the information provided by the DNR, John Lunz, President of Preserve our Parks, spoke in opposition to the project, insisting that this is a protected site. Lunz warned the committee members that “there’s always the possibility that someone is going to take them to court.”
The resolution was unanimously approved and will go before the full County Board of Supervisors on Thursday, July 26th.
More about the Couture
- Eyes on Milwaukee: Couture to Start Construction in January - Jeramey Jannene - Nov 23rd, 2020
- Eyes on Milwaukee: The Couture Developer Applies For Federal Loan Guarantee - Jeramey Jannene - Sep 5th, 2020
- Eyes on Milwaukee: The Couture Developer Secures Financing - Jeramey Jannene - Jun 26th, 2020
- Eyes on Milwaukee: Is A Couture Deal Finally Coming? - Jeramey Jannene - May 13th, 2020
- Eyes on Milwaukee: Still No Deal For The Couture. Yet - Jeramey Jannene - Dec 11th, 2019
- Plats and Parcels: NBA Player Plans Downtown Apartments - Jeramey Jannene - Oct 13th, 2019
- Transportation: Couture Streetcar Extension Decision Pushed to June 2020 - Jeramey Jannene - Oct 2nd, 2019
- Transportation: City Struggles on Couture Streetcar Extension - Jeramey Jannene - Sep 12th, 2019
- MKE County: Supervisors Question Couture Project - Graham Kilmer - Sep 11th, 2019
- Plats and Parcels: The Couture Getting New Signage - Jeramey Jannene - Aug 25th, 2019
Read more about Couture here
What an unbelievably stupid waste of time. Shame, shame, shame on these people who cannot see the forest for the trees. They humiliate themselves and everyone else in Milwaukee by totally misunderstanding what is quality development and what is not. No one is taking away parkland here. This is an enhancement to the lakefront, not a hindrance.
Everything planned for our lakefront is an “enhancement of the lakefront” – everything – in the eyes of its planner. There is a map of many dots, of all the things – even a “Clown Museum” – that could have been located on the lake front had there been no rules about usage.
@Bill Right we do have rules about usage. And from what I can tell (this is my understanding) it is about lakebed grants, not simply lakebed or filled land as otherwise that could apply to the Menomonee Valley, much of downtown Milwaukee, and all sorts of sites in Wisconsin. And the line for the protected lakebed grants is in the middle of Lincoln Memorial, which is what the DNR informed the County in 2011.