Urban Ecology Center Adding Trail Connection, Greenspace to Riverside Park
Planned event hall development includes features designed for public access, recreation.
Site of future trail and greenspace at Urban Ecology Center. Photo by Graham Kilmer.
At the Urban Ecology Center‘s Riverside Park campus, the development of a new event venue is only the nucleus of a project that will also improve trail and parkland access on the grounds surrounding it.
The Urban Ecology Center (UEC) plans to redevelop a large Cream City brick warehouse at its Riverside Park headquarters, 1500 E. Park Pl., into a 300-person event space, as Urban Milwaukee previously reported. But the project will also involve constructing a new connection to the Oak Leaf Trail and accessible green space, including a new water feature.
The outdoor, recreational elements of the project are focused on a portion of the campus UEC staff call the East Gateway. It is a patch of undeveloped land between the Oak Leaf Trail and the future event space. All that stands there now is the husk of a former building.
“It’s a derelict three walls, right,” said Marcos Guevara, Director of Strategy & Operations for Community Engagement. “It isn’t even a full building.”
What’s left of the structure will be taken down, and 70 feet of trail will be constructed, connecting E. Park Place and the offshoot of Milwaukee County Parks‘ Oak Leaf Trail that lattices the forested area of Riverside Park.
“So because our mission is to connect people to nature and each other, opening up more ways for people to access a park is really exciting,” Guevera said.
In the plot sitting between the warehouse and the Oak Leaf, the UEC is also planning to develop accessible green space, including a bio-retention basin that will, at times of heavy rain, appear as a pond. There will be new pathways and bike parking and a bridge over the basin. The area, while on UEC property, will be open to the public and directly connected to the nearby public park, Guevara said.
If everything proceeds as planned, the UEC will be able to break ground on the project in late March or early April, Guevara said. The project is part of a larger campaign to expand and redevelop the UEC’s three branches: Riverside Park, Washington Park and Menomonee Valley.
The UEC is waiting on a few final approvals from governmental entities. The county needs to approve a permit allowing the new path to run into Riverside Park; the City of Milwaukee is reviewing stormwater management practices; and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is reviewing the soil management aspects of the project, as the site is a brownfield.
The area south of the park was once completely industrialized and developed. The Cream City Brick warehouse was once likely part of the Milwaukee Worsted Mills building complex, according to a 1910 Sanborn fire insurance map.
Guevara said the warehouse was once a streetcar maintenance facility. “There’s rails in the floor slab where the street cars would be pulled in for inspection and repair,” he said.
The UEC is working with The Kubala Washatko Architects to see if there is any way to repurpose the rails as a design element in the redevelopment of the building, he said. Once the project is finished, the new event space, called Riverland Event Hall, will include a mezzanine with space for 60 to 80 people, and a covered outdoor patio area with room for 100 people.
Riverland and UEC Buildings
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