It wasn't too long ago that the designs for competing development proposals in Milwaukee ran the gamut from mediocre to dreadful.
It's a mark of how far we've come that the two developers vying to buy and develop a county-owned parcel in the Park East corridor have both generated beautiful architecture. As Bob Greenstreet, the city planning director, puts it: "I won't be disappointed either way, because the city ultimately wins, whichever gets built."
While Greenstreet says he has no preference for either scheme, both of which incorporate hotels, I do. For its capacity to integrate first-rate design with sensitive urban planning and historic preservation, I'd give the edge to Ruvin Development's proposal. (More about that in a minute.) Its rival, a plan by Rana Enterprises, is lovely also, and it includes the most ethereal gas station you've ever seen, its pumps and transparent canopy tucked discreetly between a scrim of trees and a glassy office building.
It's that gas station that has a lot of people scratching their heads. Did we really tear down the Park East Freeway spur to put up a gas station? "It could be the Taj Mahal of gas stations," says Ald. Mike D'Amato. "It doesn't fit." D'Amato says this is not a permitted use on that site under city guidelines for the Park East, and he vows a fight. Greenstreet, on the other hand, says there is nothing to prohibit a gas station there.
Comments