Progress Continues on Infrastructure, Economic Development Projects

A pandemic is not slowing down several major infrastructure and economic development projects in South Milwaukee.

Bucyrus Club

A lot has happened since the city acquired the property at 1919 12th Ave. in February, including hiring a property and project manager to serve as our day-to-day connection with project partners Skyline Catering and the South Milwaukee Industrial Museum, and to lead our efforts in hiring an architect and eventually general contractor. We also continue to explore funding sources to reduce the city’s contribution to the project. We expect to have a recommendation on the architect to bring to the Common Council in May, with renovation work to begin later this summer on this game-changing downtown development. Our commitment to this project remains as strong as ever … as do our continued thanks to the Bucyrus Foundation.

Public Space

The pandemic has slowed progress a bit on planning for the public space redevelopment at 11th and Madison. But Saiki Design — our landscape architecture and design partner — is ready to roll once we can more easily seek stakeholder and other public input into the project. Much more to come on that this summer and beyond.

Milwaukee Avenue Streetscaping

You may have noticed the construction crews near 10th and Milwaukee — a very visible sign that we have restarted work on this big investment in our city center. This includes the full or partial closure of stretches of Milwaukee Avenue in coming days and weeks for street reconstruction, including the full closure of the 1000 block of Milwaukee starting on Saturday. More details in this letter, and you can get updates on this page on our city website, and by joining the Facebook group we’ve started.

Memorial Drive, Pine and Hawthorne

The city is also moving ahead with the conversion of Memorial Drive from a one-way to a two-way street, as well as work on Hawthorne and Pine Avenues. The Common Council on Tuesday approved a contract with Payne & Dolan for $433,574.01 for the job, to be completed in time for the 2020-21 school year. Due to the curb and road condition, and extent of work at the intersection, reconstruction of Pine Street from the east side of Memorial to Chicago has been included with the project. The project bid package also included base patching and resurfacing of Pine Street (Fairview to Memorial) and asphalt patching of Pine from Lake Drive to Fairview.