Turn a derelict patch of asphalt into stormwater-fed groves of winter-worthy bamboo and grasses - - a public space complete with lighting and benches? No; might attract rats.
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Whitney Gould writes:
Risk-averse. Resistant to change. Parochial.
Those were the old stereotypes about Milwaukee. Thankfully, they have begun to fade. Credit, among other things, an influx of creative types, the downtown renewal and architectural breakthroughs like the Calatrava addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum.
But last week, at a neighborhood meeting in the Historic Third Ward, I thought for a moment that the bad old days were back. The meeting, organized by the city to address concerns about a proposed waterfront plaza at the terminus of Erie St., seemed about to revive the nasty, not-in-my-backyard attitudes that for years had sent young people with new ideas fleeing to other cities.
Early this year, a well-regarded Boston firm, Stoss Landscape Urbanism, won an international competition to design the quarter-acre Erie St. Plaza, which would be funded with about $850,000 in increased tax revenue from nearby condo development.
Stoss envisions turning what is now a derelict patch of asphalt into storm-water-fed groves of winter-hardy bamboo and islands of marsh grasses and lawn; the site would be dotted with fiberglass benches lighted from within.
Erie St. Plaza
Rendering/Stoss Landscape Urbanism
It's an inviting, environmentally sustainable project that any forward-looking city would kill for.
But don't tell that to critics, many of them residents of developer Peter Renner's nearby Harbor Front and Hansen's Landing condos who had bought their properties after the plaza was approved by several Third Ward organizations.
To hear the naysayers, you'd think a toxic waste dump was being proposed. Or a rat motel.
"When you put all these kinds of things in combination next to the Milwaukee and the Kinnickinnic rivers, you create a delight for rodents," charged Gary Marsack, president of the Hansen's Landing condo association.
Link: JS Online:Plaza puzzler: Erie St. resistance a reminder of bad old days.
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