Placemaking – Milwaukee
Featuring Fred Kent – Project for Public Spaces
A day to talk about Placemaking in Downtown Milwaukee with Plenary Speaker: Fred Kent, President – Project for Public Spaces
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
8:00 AM – 4:30 PM
We Energies
231 W. Michigan Street
Milwaukee
We’ll connect people to ideas, expertise, and partners who share a passion for bringing businesses, housing and a sense of vitality back to downtown streets.
Placemaking Workshops
1. Placemaking around a new arena & Convention Center
Placemaking and creating a comfortable human scale environment around super-sized structures like arenas can be more difficult as they often span multi-city blocks and dwarf other structures in the immediate area. This session will focus on successful efforts and examples from peer cities that Milwaukee can draw from when considering the final design of the new multi-purpose arena in the west side of Milwaukee’s downtown.
2. 30th Street Corridor Placemaking
Participate in an indoor workshop focusing on neighborhoods adjacent to the north end of the 30th Street Industrial Corridor. Ways to make nearby retail and residential areas more inviting will be explored through the use of maps, photographs and resource experts who work in the Corridor.
3. Wisconsin Avenue from the Lakefront to Marquette University
Wisconsin Avenue is historically the center of Downtown Milwaukee’s commercial marketplace. In spite of the high numbers of office workers and pedestrians there has not been a strong coordinated effort to create a synergistic sense of place along the corridor. As a partial result, commercial uses have spread from the “Grand Avenue”, only to start recently returning. This mobile will discuss the recent successes and efforts to return the “Grand” to Wisconsin Avenue.
4. Vacant storefronts, restoring a sense of place
Across downtowns and commercial corridors everywhere, vacant storefronts destroy the strong sense of place by breaking visual interest and continuity making a location less desirable. Addressing vacant storefronts in innovative and creative ways in order to spur vibrancy, rather than detract, from a district’s sense of place is in an important consideration this mobile session will explore.
5. East Side Commercial Historic District Redevelopment (ESCHD) and Broadway Connection
The two-block stretch of North Broadway between E. Wisconsin Avenue and E. Clybourn Street is home to some of Wisconsin’s most iconic buildings and has the potential to be one of the most attractive, vibrant, and successful places in Downtown Milwaukee. The existing vacancies and surface parking lots are on the brink of substantial new investment that will build on downtown’s momentum and create a stronger connection between downtown and the Third Ward while respecting the historic buildings in the district. Developers in the district will overview their plans for this new downtown neighborhood.
Followed by lively panel discussions and a reception.
Hosted by 1000 Friends of Wisconsin with support from Milwaukee Downtown, BID #21