Menomonee Valley

Commerce, Life Flowering Again
At Milwaukee Industrial Site

by Pamela Dittmer McKuen

Milwaukee’s Menomonee Valley, a 1,200-acre stretch just west of downtown, is undergoing one of the most massive redevelopments in its history, and this one is with built-in sustainability.

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The project was launched nearly a decade ago when the city adopted a 1998 land-use program designed to breathe new life into the area. Once a thriving marshland, the Valley later was an industrial hub and railroad yard. In recent decades, since the demise of the Milwaukee Road, stockyards, tanneries and other waste-making enterprises, the land turned barren and brown. Most of the soil was unstable, and some was contaminated.

The revitalization is the largest in Wisconsin’s history, and about $700 million in public and private money combined will have been invested through 2008. The final outlay is undetermined because the large amount of private investment. Work is expected to last through 2010 or 2011.

“The city had the vision of what the Valley could become, but to bring that vision into reality, we had to utilize public sector resources, such as building roads and infrastructure,” says Rocky Marcoux, commissioner of Milwaukee’s Department of City Development. “The private sector, once they see the city taking the lead, follows with many, many dollars.”

The Valley spans about 4 mi, from Miller Park on the west to the Milwaukee River on the east. Flanking the north and south boundaries, about .5-mi apart, are residential neighborhoods. The Menomonee River flows through the Valley and into the Milwaukee.

Marcoux says the vision is to restore the Valley to its manufacturing heyday, infused with recreational amenities and cultural attractions. It would be built with environmental soundness and bring back the jobs that were lost during the downturn.

The recreational amenities include a 500,000-sq-ft expansion of the Potawatomi Bingo Casino, a new 130,000-sq-ft Harley-Davidson Museum and lengthening the Hank Aaron Trail from 4 to 12 mi. When completed, the trail will run from Lake Michigan to the Milwaukee County line.

But all that called for a lot of help, and the city enlisted the ranks of governmental agencies, community leaders and business owners. It also formed the nonprofit Menomonee Valley Partners as its promotional arm.

Cleaning Up the Valley

The earliest work addressed cleanup, infrastructure and access, essentials for any business owner and employees coming in. Old buildings were demolished, flood plain was raised and utility lines were put in. Canal Street was extended to create an east-west thoroughfare. Pedestrian bridges were built over the rivers and a bus route was created.

The city’s signature project is the 140-acre Menomonee Valley Industrial Center on the west side. Half is being sold in flexible lot sizes. The other half is a community park, integrated with an innovative combined stormwater system that collects and treats runoff so that owners don’t have to do it individually.

The Sierra Club last year named the industrial center one of the 10 Best Redevelopment Projects in the nation.

“Our concept is to provide for potential buyers sites that do not require any further remediation in a beautiful natural setting and that are equivalent to anywhere else in the area,” Marcoux says. “If you come to the Valley, your costs will be either the same or less, and you’ve got the advantages of being close to downtown and an eager workforce.”

MSI General, an Oconomowoc-based design-build firm, has been working on two corporate headquarters projects in the industrial center. Badger Railing, a manufacturer of custom metal railings, took occupancy in June, and Taylor Dynamometer, a manufacturer of machines that measure torque and rotational speed, moves in this fall.

“When we built Badger Railing, there was no power in the Valley no water, no sewer, no telephone,” says MSI project manager Jeremy Flint. “That was going on simultaneously as we were building. We were actually a couple of weeks out from completing the building when we received power hookup.”

Crews got the job done with the help of generators and water trucks, an essential for mixing concrete.

On the eastern side of the Valley is the Canal Street Commerce Center, design-built for developer Ziegler Bence by Design 2 Construct in Jackson, Wis. The 150,000-sq-ft facility will welcome its first tenant in November.

“Although the sites are in a good location and the area is turning around, the Valley has two major hurdles that need to be undertaken,” says Design 2 Construct owner Jim Blise. “The majority of sites have major environmental issues and major capacity issues.”

For example, the commerce center site, a former stockyard, had methane contamination and groundwater only 4 ft below grade. Countermeasures from the design team were to place the single-story building atop a crawl space and 286 piles driven 130 ft into the ground.

“The crawl space keeps us out of groundwater and gives us the ability to ventilate the methane gas,” Blise says.

Earth Friendly

For every project, earth-friendliness is an essential component.

The city developed point-based sustainable design guidelines to help reduce energy consumption and building life-cycle costs. The guidelines are based on the LEED green-building rating system by the U.S. Green Building Council. Within the industrial center and Canal Street Commerce Center, builders are required to attain a certain number of points. On other sites, builders are encouraged to follow the guidelines.

LEED guidelines are not being followed in a strict sense in part because the LEED standards were not yet written when the valley established its own guidelines. As a result, a specific LEED level is not being sought.

“Companies can make decisions on which things are most important to them, or if certain pieces are difficult to meet because of site conditions or costs,” says Laura Bray, executive director of Menomonee Valley Partners.

Wherever possible and practical, materials are recycled and reused. Piles of surcharge, a heavy mix of stone and dirt used to compress soil, are moved from site to site. Old wood fencing was turned into picnic tables and benches, and old concrete is crushed for use as base material under new asphalt and concrete.

“There are a lot of green ideas there,” MSI’s Flint says. “The way they are handling the stormwater is a natural filtration system, by taking the stormwater into natural ponds and filtering it with plant life before it goes back into the system.”

Financing Renewal

Through 2008, completed and anticipated projects will cost $148 million in public funds. About 60% is from city coffers, and the remainder from sources such as the state of Wisconsin, Wisconsin departments of Transportation and Natural Resources, congressional earmarks and a tax-increment financing program. Private investments tally $542 million.

“We are attracting over $3.5 million in private investment for every dollar of public money we spend,” Milwaukee’s Marcoux says.

Project leaders put together an arsenal of financial incentives to attract new businesses. Among them are tax credits and deductions, accelerated depreciation, technical assistance, grants and low-interest loans.

“We have a broad range in our economic toolbox,” Marcoux adds. “What we try to do is bring to the attention of the owners all the things available to them, and how to access them.”

So far, several new businesses are operational, and the industrial center is half sold. About 2,100 new jobs have been created, with another couple of thousand to come, he says.

When the revitalization will be complete is difficult to answer. The Menomonee Valley Industrial Center expects to be sold out by 2011 or sooner, but the parks, trails and landscaping will always need care.

“The first several years we were focused more on planning and getting Canal Street built,” Bray says. “Now we’re helping developers through the building process. Once that’s completed, the work of helping companies that made the decision to be here with the recruitment and retention of employees and everything the location offers will go on.”

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