McKinley Marina Could Benefit From Trust Fund

A view of Milwaukee’s Bradford Beach, McKinley Marina, and Veteran’s Park. June of 2012. Photo courtesy of MMSD.

Milwaukee County Parks thinks McKinley Marina could benefit from a trust fund.

McKinley Marina is a large but heavily used asset for Milwaukee County. It’s also expensive to maintain.

Since 2018, the county has spent or budgeted more than $9 million on infrastructure at the marina, including a major overhaul of the parking lot and reconstruction of the flushing channel. The asset does not lend itself to flashy, headline-grabbing projects and the department has struggled to find political support for infrastructure maintenance there in the past.

“McKinley Marina is a large facility that generates a good deal of revenue to support the entire Parks system,” Jeff Orlowski, director of recreation and business services told Urban Milwaukee. The proposal is to withhold some of that net income going to the Parks and invest it in a kind of endowment for McKinley Marina. The money “would go to a trust that would help address maintenance needs such as power pedestals, dock replacement, parking lot repair, restroom work” and other maintenance needs for the marina, Orlowski notes.

The county would use funding from slip fees to fund the trust, generating approximately $39,500 a year, according to the department’s budget request. “There have always been ongoing maintenance needs, and this trust would help provide dedicated funding to proceed with improvements,” Orlowski said.

This wouldn’t be the first time the department created a trust account to fund maintenance for a specific asset. For example, the department has a trust for playgrounds and another for the John & Hildegarde Voight Trial Garden at Boerner Botanical Gardens.

The trust would provide funding for a range of maintenance needs, but “most are anticipated to be larger in nature due to the expansive nature of the marina and the supporting infrastructure,” Orlowski said.

The parking lot overhaul that Parks finished this year was certainly an expansive — and expensive — project. The approximately $6 million project included new green infrastructure and stormwater retention and improvements to the boat launch, a new fish cleaning station, improved lighting and boat parking.

“There is a continued need for investment in the facility, including parking lots, buildings, and dock infrastructure, but we realize that there are broad needs across the county as a whole,” Orlowski said.

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