Downtown Development Agreements Will Help Fund County Parks

The Oak Leaf Trail as it rises out of Juneau Park to meet Mason St. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Several hundred thousand dollars worth of repairs will be made to Milwaukee County Parks thanks to financing plans created by the City of Milwaukee for two major private companies.

Since late 2022, the City of Milwaukee Common Council approved two new tax incremental financing (TIF) districts to subsidize two major projects. As part of the TIF districts, funding was set aside to make improvements at nearby public parks.

One of the districts supported the $40 million investment by Fiserv, the Broofkfield-based financial services company, to bring its headquarters to the HUB640 building in downtown Milwaukee. The other was related to the $500 million project by Northwestern Mutual to redevelop its 18-story North Office Building, giving it a glassy facade.

In total, the two TIF districts are contributing $850,000 to projects in nearby county parks. Jeremy Lucas, Parks director of administration, told the Milwaukee County Board’s Committee on Parks and Culture Tuesday that the grants from these TIF districts will not require any matching funding from the county, as federal grants so often do.

The Fiserv TIF district will provide $100,000 to improve the pathways and new lighting at Zeidler Union Square.

The Northwestern Mutual district is providing $250,000 for improvements to Oak Leaf Trail where it slopes down from E. Mason Street to Lincoln Memorial Drive; $400,000 for pedestrian pathways, lighting and both building and landscaping improvements in Juneau Park; and $100,000 for improvements in Cathedral Square Park to pathways, lighting and, potentially, removal of the unused and dilapidated fountain basin.

Lucas also noted that Parks worked with the county’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to repurpose some Community Development Block Grant funding for pathway maintenance and new rubber surfacing for the playground at West Milwaukee Park.

“Parks is always looking for different ways to fund projects and major maintenance,” Lucas said.

In fact, Parks is currently collaborating with the think-tank Wisconsin Policy Forum (WPF) to study new ways for the department to approach financing the park system’s maintenance backlog, estimated at approximately $500 million.

Part of that study is looking at how Parks can more closely work and coordinate with local municipalities on park projects. This includes financing instruments like TIF districts that the county doesn’t have access to.

The county’s long-running financial trouble has widdled away at the Parks budget causing the department to become, to a certain extent, self-sufficient. In 2022, the department generated on its own more than 50% of the revenue it used to operate the parks system.

Under state law, TIF districts can expend money within a half-mile of their boundaries for public improvements. The districts are funded by increased property tax revenue generated by development within their borders. Provisions of the state TIF law allow the increased revenue to be sequestered in the district for no more than 27 years, while also allowing the property taxing entities (i.e. the city and county) to raise their levy to avoid foregoing revenue during the district’s life. When a district is closed, the increased revenue flows to the general fund of the taxing revenue, theoretically reducing the property tax burden of other property owners.