Milwaukee County faces rebuild if O’Donnell deal falls through

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Milwaukee County would avoid an estimated $58 million parking garage reconstruction by selling O’Donnell Park to Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co.

Milwaukee-based Northwestern Mutual has explored buying the park plaza, pavilion and parking garage at 929 E. Michigan St. since at least 2012, when the company received a restoration consultant’s report on the parking garage’s deficiencies, including $7.64 million in repairs that should be done within nine years.

In July, Northwestern Mutual proposed buying the property for $12.7 million. The company is building a $450 million office tower across the street from O’Donnell and would use the parking garage for the 2,800 employees who could work in the new building.

If the deal falls through, Milwaukee County would be on the hook to eventually replace the parking garage, a project Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele would like to avoid, said Brendan Conway, Abele’s spokesman. The reconstruction would have to happen by 2035, according to a county report.

But several county supervisors have raised concerns about the sale, wondering if the park would remain public land. The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors is expected to consider the sale in September.

Supervisor Steve Taylor said he intends to vote in favor of the sale, especially because of the cost to rebuild the garage. The county’s annual capital improvements budget is about $36 million, he said, and that money covers only a small portion of work that needs to be done on the county’s roads and buildings.

“How can we afford $58 million?” Taylor said. “I don’t even know where we start because we have so many other issues.”

One expensive example is the county’s aging Safety Building in downtown Milwaukee, Taylor said. The building should be either gutted or replaced entirely, he said, and construction could cost about $70 million.

The county also faces an estimated $300 million in deferred maintenance throughout its parks system, and the proposed sale to Northwestern Mutual would yield $5 million that would be used to chip away at that backlog. The rest of the sale proceeds would be used to pay off Milwaukee County’s debt from building O’Donnell.

Potential costs related to the parking garage are not a major factor in Supervisor Mark Borkowski’s support of the sale, he said, but the $58 million reconstruction estimate should not be ignored. Without the sale, he said, the county would go from turning a profit to facing a big expense.

“You want to talk about a 180,” Borkowski said. “It’s a night-day extreme.”

Still, the county does not have a guarantee that Northwestern Mutual would preserve O’Donnell as a park, said Supervisor Gerry Broderick, chairman of the County Board’s Parks, Energy and Environment Committee. The sale could set a dangerous precedent for selling parkland to private interests, he said.

“They could decide the life of O’Donnell is over as soon as they sign the paper,” Broderick said, “as soon as the ink is dry.”

Northwestern Mutual representatives have claimed the company does not want to build on the site, and the county report cites city of Milwaukee zoning regulations and deed restrictions that would limit private use of the parkland.

But supervisors should not rely on the city to oversee what should be Milwaukee County’s responsibility, said Supervisor Pat Jursik, chairwoman of the County Board’s Economic and Community Development Committee. She said she is waiting on a second opinion about the garage’s predicted revenue, among other things, before deciding whether she supports the sale.

But, she said, she is worried about the potential effects of selling parkland.

“I’m not going to base a decision about O’Donnell,” she said, “on what potential replacement costs would be.”

Keeping the garage, though, would cost more than just $58 million, Taylor said. The roof needs immediate repairs, the most pressing of which would require a $1.3 million replacement of a portion of the waterproof membrane between the garage roof and the park plaza above, he said.

“If you don’t sell it, then you better have a plan on how to address the future costs,” Taylor said, “and right now, I haven’t seen that.” Follow @bkevit