Lincoln Park’s Henry Aaron Field Getting New Lighting

Henry Aaron Field. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

Milwaukee County Parks plans to provide We Energies a free easement so the department can add new lighting in Lincoln Park, more or less.

Parks already has funding for the lights themselves, but it needs a new electrical service to run them on. The department has requested the service from We Energies. But the utility will need an easement for nearly a quarter of an acre of parkland to install it.

Because Parks is requesting the new electrical service, the department plans to provide the easement to the energy utility at no cost. In 2021, the county budget included approximately $595,000 for the new lighting at Henry Aaron Field, which includes the cost of the new electrical service. If the board approves the easement, Parks will finally be able to get the project underway.

Then: let there be light; and facility rentals.

In 2015, storms damaged the 80-foot poles that bathe Henry Aaron ball field in Lincoln Park with the light needed for night games. Parks deployed emergency lighting, but Parks reports it “has been inadequate to accommodate full rental of the fields.”

This means the department is losing out on cash it desperately needs. The parks department now regularly generates more than 50% of its budget through money-making ventures like beer gardens and popular amenities like golf. But another chunk of this annual budget also comes from facility rentals.

The board has been hot and cold on utilities easements, particularly the board’s Committee on Parks and Culture. Sometimes easements sail through the committee and other times they don’t, even when there is a benefit for the county. The primary issue has been that supervisors think We Energies gets easements on parkland for a song. This time parks needs the work done so it will grant the easement at no cost, but the county will potentially make money on the back end because of it.

Henry Aaron Field was the home stadium for UW-Milwaukee’s baseball program for for 27 years. In 2019, the program moved to Franklin Field at the Ballpark Commons development in Franklin.

Update: This story has been updated to reflect that the county will pay for the new electrical infrastructure, not We Energies.