A Plan To Save Third Ward Swing Bridge

Milwaukee River Line proposal for Historic Third Ward Swing Bridge. Rendering by John Everitt.

Architect John Everitt has a big plan to repurpose the disused railroad swing bridge between the Historic Third Ward and the Harbor District as a marquee public gathering place in Milwaukee and a year-round cafe and bar.

Everitt wow-ed the Historic Third Ward Architectural Review Board Wednesday with the quality of the plan, created as his graduate thesis to earn his master’s in architecture in 2022 from UW-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Planning.

The 800-ton bridge, which is believed to have sat idle since at least the 1980s, would be rehabilitated so it can again swing and would also gain two new pedestrian paths, mirroring the railroad tracks that once ran across it, as well as a second level with a central cafe and bar. A structure would be built in the middle of the bridge to house the cafe and bathrooms.

“We can create a unique experience that can only be found in Milwaukee and set precedent for the rest of the country. These urban relics are Milwaukee’s heritage and can be adapted for use once more,” said Everitt. He compared its potential reuse to The High Line in New York City, an elevated park created from a former rail line, the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis and the Reichtstag government building in Berlin.

Everitt showed off his vision by using a combination of renderings, drone footage and 3D laser surveys.

The rehabilitation would be designed so that the bridge would rest primarily in the closed position, connecting Trestle Park in the Historic Third Ward with the planned site of Mandel Group‘s Harbor Yards development in the Harbor District. A new trestle connection on the south side would retract to allow small boats through. And if large boats came, or if an operator wants to entertain visitors, the bridge could swing out of the way.

“I’ve been told with a little grease the bridge can be up and running,” said Everitt of its ability to swing. City officials in attendance noted it would need a new electrical connection to the shore and possibly more than that.

Everitt thinks his idea would work during all four seasons.

“When I first started this project, I kept driving by this thing in January and realized this thing was going to be a ghost town in winter,” he said.

A sliding, translucent enclosure would be tucked into the bridge, with large doors that could be closed to create a heated interior space. A bubble-like, translucent roof would be installed to create an enclosure to make the space comfortable in the winter. A control tower currently on top of the bridge would be removed.

“You can turn on the lights, maybe close the doors in the fall, and the bridge turns into a lantern on the water and a beacon to everyone out on the town,” he said. It would be the “coolest nightlife spot in the city.”

“I hope you got an A for this,” said Alderman Robert Bauman, chair of the design board (he did).

“Your presentation is amazing,” said Department of City Development planner and review board member Greg Patin. “I mean you could be sitting here from [world-renowned] Norman Foster Architects right now. The quality of your presentation is as good as I’ve ever seen.”

Everitt worked on the project with architecture history professor Matt Jarosz through UWM’s Historic Preservation Institute and Pierce Engineers principal Sarah Frecska.

Want to see more or ask questions? Everitt will be displaying his scale model during Gallery Night, July 21, in a pavilion in the middle of N. Broadway. He’ll be south of E. Chicago St. at approximately 181 N. Broadway. You can also see the project on his website.

If you want to see what the bridge would look like if it could swing, you can watch a video on YouTube of its southern sister bridge between Bay View and the Harbor District.

There are plenty of reasons Everitt’s plan is a long shot. Starting with money and ending with the web of federal regulations that would govern its development, with city officials noting that the Army Corps of Engineers would likely be the actual permitting agency. But Patin, Bauman and others repeatedly praised Everitt’s work and encouraged him to continue to pursue the project and others.

Union Pacific, the bridge’s owner, would reportedly be willing to sell the bridge for $1. Bauman floated the idea of buying it in 2018. But ownership would include the liability to maintain it if the U.S. Coast Guard orders it out and any environmental contamination cleanup costs.

The Mandel Group, in 2018, began conceptually discussing leaving the bridge in its open position and building a new, retractable bridge through it to connect both sides of the river.

The bridge was built in 1915 by the Chicago & North Western Railway and long served as a critical piece of infrastructure on the company’s mainline between Chicago and St. Paul. Over 100 trains a day would roar over the bridge, known as Drawbridge #1556 in company documents, as they went north into the long-gone Lakefront Depot or south towards Chicago. The passenger trains of the era were in a hurry, as they had to live up to their name: the 400, which reflected the number of minutes it took to go between Chicago and St. Paul.

Everitt said it is the largest swing bridge in Wisconsin.

The idea of the swing bridge as a pedestrian bridge isn’t new. La Dallman Architects has won multiple national design awards for a plan to repurpose the swing bridge as a park in the middle of a new pedestrian bridge. NEWaukee predecessor Art Milwaukee proposed the “Art Island” on the bridge in 2013.

Everitt currently works for Bray Architects.

Renderings

2018 Mandel Group Plans

Trestle Park Photos

Existing Bridge

Bridge Model