Downtown Tax Dollars To Be Invested West of I-43

Mayor Cavalier Johnson unveils King Park neighborhood plan. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

A downtown tax incremental financing (TIF) district would be tapped to pay for repaving almost six miles of streets, improving King Park and building new housing in the area just west of downtown under a new plan released Wednesday morning.

Standing in a vacant lot, Mayor Cavalier Johnson unveiled the $22 million plan to amend the Brewery District TIF district (No. 67) to fund improvements in the King Park neighborhood just west of Interstate 43.

“This site represents the future of housing development, neighborhood investment and continued growth right here in Milwaukee,” said Johnson. “We’re focused on creating more opportunities for people to live, for people to work and for our neighborhoods to thrive.”

The mayor said the project is an example of how downtown development helps the city’s impoverished neighborhoods. The TIF district was created in 2006 to support the redevelopment of the former Pabst Brewing Co. complex, and now that the associated costs, which included a new park and several street paving projects, have been paid off, the excess tax revenue from more than $240 million in incremental development can be reallocated to public infrastructure within a half-mile of the district.

“With today’s announcement, we’re ensuring that the benefits of [The Brewery District] investment will extend across this artificial barrier we created in Interstate 43 years ago,” said Lafayette Crump, commissioner of the Department of City Development. “Today, we’re proposing a neighborhood-focused investment strategy totaling more than $22 million.”

The TIF amendment, subject to Common Council approval, will dedicate $17 million for public infrastructure, including multiple miles of paving projects; $1.5 million for housing development; $1.5 million for acquisition of urban renewal-era vacant lots; and $500,000 for the city’s Commercial Corridor grant program.

Of the $17 million, $2 million would be dedicated to Milwaukee County Parks to improve King Park. Planned improvements include reworking a berm that hides the park’s interior, rehabilitating athletic facilities and reimagining a long-disused ice skating rink.

“We know our beautiful green spaces help to provide a mental and physical refuge for our residents,” said County Executive David Crowley. He said the latest funding would build on earlier American Rescue Plan Act allocations to build new affordable housing in the neighborhood and to renovate the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center. It would also augment the new emergency mental health center, the new Marcia P. Coggs Center and the redevelopment of the former health center into housing projects. “Today’s announcement is really building on our momentum that we have built through the investments in housing, the commercial corridor programs and public infrastructure programs.”

Ald. Robert Bauman, who represents the southern half of the area targeted for investment, endorsed the effort. He said the lots the city would acquire and merge with its own holdings to create new housing would reverse the impacts of urban renewal, which saw a dense neighborhood cleared for a failed redevelopment scheme in the late 1960s.

“It’s really a great pleasure to me to finally see some action on this very interesting site with tremendous proximity, great location to Marquette University, [Aurora Sinai Medical Center], the courthouse complex, a lot of jobs in the immediate vicinity, a lot of jobs that are walkable from this location,” said the alderman. “I’m looking forward to the designs and looking forward to the mix of incomes that we hope to attract here.”

The city intends to acquire several vacant lots between W. Juneau Avenue, W. Highland Avenue, N. 14th Street and N. Callahan Place. (Look for a second column later Wednesday for more on the city’s housing plan for a cluster of 38 vacant lots.)

The street paving plan would see nearly every eligible street west of I-43 within the half-mile boundary repaved. Several streets in the Hillside and Haymarket neighborhoods north and northeast of the Brewery District would also be repaved. A total of 31,000 linear feet of paving projects is planned, split between high-impact paving that replaces the top layer of asphalt and full concrete reconstruction.

A traffic calming project is also planned for W. Vliet Street on the north side of King Park.

An earlier TIF district amendment was used for paving projects east of The Brewery District.

The Brewery District is a roughly 21-acre area bounded by W. Juneau Avenue, W. Highland Avenue, N. 9th Street and Interstate 43. The area was home to the Pabst Brewing Company for more than 150 years before the brewery closed in 1996, leaving behind dozens of vacant historic industrial buildings. In 2006, Milwaukee developer Joseph Zilber and Zilber Ltd. purchased the complex and launched a long-term adaptive reuse and historic preservation effort initially branded as “the Brewery.”

Since redevelopment began, the district has evolved into a dense urban neighborhood with apartments, offices, hotels, educational facilities, breweries and entertainment venues housed within restored Cream City-brick and new construction structures. Major projects include the Brewhouse Inn & Suites, UW-Milwaukee Zilber School of Public Health, Vim and Vigor apartment buildings and Eleven25 student housing development. More than 60% of the historic brewery complex was preserved as part of the redevelopment, which also became nationally recognized for its sustainability and brownfield remediation efforts.

Under state law, the TIF district must be closed in 2033. It has, as of the end of 2024, generated more than $33 million in incremental tax revenue. For an explanation on what happens when TIF districts are closed and how that impacts taxes and revenues, see our April coverage. For more on how downtown area TIF districts are funding development elsewhere in the city, see our coverage from last week.

TIF District #67 project map. Image from DCD.

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