Second Street job could spark development

Published: June 24, 2009
Tags: development, Milwaukee, Pragmatic Development LLC, repaving, Second Street, streetscape

Sean Ryan
sean.ryan@dailyreporter.com

Milwaukee must commit to rebuilding Second Street before area property owners agree to turn their redevelopment plans into actual projects.

“Ideally, it’s what we call a complete street,” said Juli Kaufmann, Fifth Ward Association member and president of Milwaukee-based Pragmatic Development LLC who is considering a project on the corner of Second and Bruce streets. “It’s a street that is a community. It is a neighborhood.”

The city of Milwaukee is holding public hearings on reconstruction plans for the stretch of Second Street between National Avenue and the Menomonee River. Neighborhood company and property owners regard a repaving project as an opportunity to attract more business, said Ursula Twombly, principal of Milwaukee-based Continuum Architects + Planners SC and president of the Fifth Ward Association, which argues the repaving should include sidewalk improvements such as tree plantings and more parking.

The street is quiet and beat up and does not get much traffic, she said.

“Originally, the city has planned to repave Second Street for a number of years because I think it was kind of destroyed during the Marquette Interchange reconstruction,” Twombly said. “Even before we started talking specifically about the street, there’s been a lot of discussion about what our neighborhood should be like.”

Kaufmann said she is developing a plan to replace a brownfield on Second Street with a $6 million sustainable building with a restaurant and an incubator for local businesses.

She said there are opportunities in the neighborhood because residents are trying to improve it, but she needs a commitment to the street project from the city before she will invest. She said she wants to start the project in 2010.

“I certainly want to be sure that I’m making a smart investment,” Kaufmann said, “and timing is critical with that.”

Nathan Bernstein, owner of a warehouse at 170 S. Second St., said the building is supporting itself with rent money. However, he said, he cannot realize any plans to renovate the building without the guarantee of Second Street getting new life.

“One of the challenges to developers in the area is they have to carry the building on ad infinitum because we don’t know when the neighborhood will turn,” he said.

Local Alderman James Witkowiak supports the plan and said the city could pay for the roughly $2 million project either with the help of Wisconsin Department of Transportation money or by creating a tax-incremental finance district.

“Getting 80 percent of the funding from the state is huge,” he said. “If they decide they do not like our design guidelines and they’re not going to contribute, that would be significant.”

Kaufmann, who laid out before the Public Works Committee on Wednesday some of the neighborhood’s desires for the Second Street project, said she walked out of the meeting encouraged.

“Now that we’re all moving in the same direction,” she said, “the question becomes: How will we pay for it?”

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