Harbor District Has New Coffee House
It's the Mineral Point Coffee Bar, on Komatsu Mining campus, near children's play area and boating launch and dock.
Mineral Point Coffee Bar at Komatsu. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
A mining equipment manufacturing plant may not seem like the ideal place for your morning coffee, or to wile away an afternoon with the family, but there is something for everyone at the new Komatsu Mining South Harbor Campus, featuring public spaces and amenities for visitors to explore, play and caffeinate.
Open to the public in the customer experience center, the Mineral Point Coffee Bar serves Anodyne coffee, espresso drinks, tea, smoothies, bakery and packaged snacks. Located at the front of the building, 401 E. Greenfield Ave., the cafe has indoor seating, a portion for visitors and a private section for Komatsu employees.
The experience center itself will open to the public later this year. It includes a company history exhibit, 360-degree video display, mining shovel simulator and 1/24th-scale mine with remote-controlled equipment.
The Mineral Point name for the cafe is presumably a tribute to the city in southwestern Wisconsin which was a center for lead mining in the 1830s and later had a discovery of zinc deposits, with the Mineral Point Zinc Company becoming the largest zinc oxide works in the nation in the 1890s. Urban Milwaukee reached out to Komatsu for comment, but did receive a response by the time of publication.
The new cafe’s location is ideal for those with children: the Harbor View Plaza, located at the eastern end of Greenfield Avenue along the Kinnickinnic River, includes a play structure for children, a water play area and water feature and a canoe and kayak launch and dock.
The area, bounded by E. Pittsburgh Ave. and E. Bay St., and S. 1st St. and Lake Michigan, is the meeting place of the city’s three rivers.
The development is the first major investment in what will eventually be a continuous network of RiverWalk and waterfront parks.
A 4,300-foot-long Milwaukee RiverWalk segment is planned for the district. The segment would run along the inner harbor from E. Greenfield Ave. to S. Kinnickinnic Ave.
Komatsu Mining recently celebrated the completion of its $285 million South Harbor Campus. Located at the eastern end of Greenfield Avenue overlooking Milwaukee’s inner harbor, the 59-acre complex includes a 430,000-square-foot factory and 176,000-square-foot office building.
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