County Parks and Greendale Consider Land Swap

(Left) Grootemat Woods. (Right) Daffodil Park Playground. Photos by Milwaukee County Parks.

Milwaukee County Parks and the Village of Greendale are considering a land swap, with parks trading some parkway in exchange for a forest and trails.

Since 1995, the Village of Greendale has maintained a portion of the Dale Creek Parkway southwest of the intersection of W. Loomis Road and W. Grange Avenue. It’s officially county-owned parkland, but the village has programmed and funded maintenance at the park for the past 30 years through a lease agreement.

The lease expired at the end of 2024 and as the department and the village work out what comes next, the potential for a land swap has been floated.

“Dale Creek is like the downtown park for Greendale,” said Jim Tarantino, deputy director of Milwaukee County Parks. “They care for it. They care about it. They want to improve it more. And so this just sort of makes sense from that perspective.”

The property includes the Daffodil Park playground and a public gazebo.

The deal, as it’s currently being discussed, would turn the approximately 21.9 acre Dale Creek property over to the village in exchange for the the 13.7-acre Grootemaat Woods property, which sits on the northwest corner of the intersection of S. 43rd Street and W. Ramsey Avenue.

Parks views the land swap as the simplest arrangement going forward, Tarantino said. He noted the village’s interest in the project and the ability for Parks to pick up some natural area in the process, which is typically cheaper to maintain than a park.

While the village has maintained and programmed the Dale Creek property over the years, one “very troublesome” responsibility that remained with the parks department was tree maintenance along the creek, Tarantino said.

“It kind of winds through a lot of different backyards, dozens of backyards, so it’s really a challenge operationally,” Tarantino said. 

Nothing related to the deal has been finalized yet. Parks is bringing the proposal to the Milwaukee County Board in March to keep policymakers informed about the potential for change to the county’s parkland.

But for Parks, the land swap seems like a win-win.

“They want to do it,” Tarantino said. “Let’s let them spend the resources on it while we focus on a natural areas program.”