We are bringing another tool to the table in the redevelopment of South Milwaukee’s city center.
You may recall that state officials recently recommended to the federal government that a South Milwaukee census tract be included as one of 120 in the state eligible for “Economic Opportunity Zone” status, as part of a new program under the tax reform bill. Last week, we were informed the U.S. Treasury Department had indeed chosen our tract (all of of the 120 submitted, in fact) for this designation.
More details here, and a map of the tract is in this blog post. You will see it includes all of our downtown and much of the former Bucyrus campus.
What does this mean? A lot remains to be seen, as it seems details on the program are still being worked out. At the very least, it will put another pool of money in play as we continue the work of our reinvigorating our city and downtown.
Thanks to state and federal officials for their support of our application, and thanks to Stephanie Hacker, our economic development director, for working quickly to make our application a reality once we heard about the opportunity.
More to come!
I believe a major obstacle to the re-development of the downtown area is a lack of parking or off-street parking. An option that could be considered is the purchase and razing of some of the most blighted buildings for conversion to parking lots.