South Milwaukee Blog

The long-discussed postal facility planned for the southwest corner of Pennsylvania and College Avenues may be “dead,” as the postal service continues to close facilities nationwide, according to BizTimes.com.

Check out the column here. From it:

The declining use of postal mail and the closures of many local postal offices could also signal the demise of a proposed new 820,000-square-foot mail center on 64 acres of vacant land at the southwest corner of College Avenue and Pennsylvania Road in Oak Creek. The new facility was proposed in 2008 with plans to replace the distribution center and mail processing facility at 345 W. St. Paul Ave. in downtown Milwaukee and a warehouse on South Second Street in Milwaukee.

The Oak Creek site is a prime real estate parcel at the city’s borders with South Milwaukee and Cudahy. The site also is near General Mitchell International Airport.

However, the project has been delayed indefinitely since the Great Recession began.

One postal official told BizTimes he believed the Oak Creek project is dead, but he had no official declaration.

Another Postal Service spokesman, James Mruk, said in an e-mail to BizTimes today, “Right now the Postal Service has more facilities, equipment, workroom floor space and staffing than it needs to handle our current volume of mail and retail lobby transactions. We expect this trend to continue in the near future. We still own the property in Oak Creek, WI, but have not made a decision regarding how we plan to use in the future.”

The last I heard about this project a few weeks ago was it is still on hold. I will keep you posted.

That’s how much value my home lost from 2010 to 2011 due to the revaluation.

Revaluation notices have been arriving in the last few weeks, and I thought I’d share details of my own, which is worse than the average anticipated decline of our around 10 percent across the city. Here are the messy details …

• In 2010, my four bedroom, 1.5-bath home at 1713 Cedar St. was assessed at $192,000, just shy of the $192,500 we paid for the house in November of 2006.
• In 2011, that had fallen $32,000 to $160,000, or 16.7 percent.

Is this disappointing? Yes, especially because this puts our refinancing plans in some jeopardy. Is it surprising? No.

I think we all know property values have fallen in recent years, and even a 16.7 percent decline over four years is honestly not that bad compared to some other areas across the country (even the state). We never had a bubble in South Milwaukee, so it never burst. But we also weren’t immune to the realities of the recession.

So I don’t plan to fight the revaluation, but details on how to do so can be found in my previous post on this topic and in this Q&A document prepared by the city.

Among the other key points to keep in mind:

• The new values take effect with your 2011 tax bill, which will be issued this December.
• Unless your property lost more value than the average for the city, your taxes will not go down due to the revaluation. The tax rate per $1,000 of value will go up because less value exists to share the tax burden.

The heat won’t ruin any more of Heritage Week.

Thursday’s Evening on the Avenue and South Milwaukee Downtown Market will be held as scheduled, organizers announced today.

Of course, it will remain hot — just not as hot as Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service — so do your best to stay cool. Organizers of the two events are also trying to do their part.

• The Downtown Market has cancelled its music act scheduled for Thursday due to the heat.
• We have also told our vendors to bring extra cold drinks. (My suggestion: A China Chef fruit smoothie. Yum!)
• Evening on the Avenue is also working to provide bottled water and a misting station to attendees.

Stay safe, and enjoy a fun (and hot) night out on the town!

Groovy Movie Nights are coming to South Milwaukee, as we become the latest area community to host outdoor movies.

The family-friendly shows will be held following the South Milwaukee Downtown Market at 8:15 p.m. on August 4, 11 and 18.

Here’s the Grooy Movie Night schedule:

• August 4: Megamind
• August 11: Gnomeo & Juliet
• August 18: Kung Fu Panda

Kid’s games begin at 7:30 p.m., and the market is staying open late (until 7:45) each night. So stop by, grab dinner, do some shopping and then stick around for a movie. And bring the family!

Learn more in this press release.

(The screen will be located at the south end of the market seating area on 11th and Madison. Bring your lawn chairs.)

This is a great week to live in South Milwaukee.

Heritage Days, the annual celebration of all that is great about our city, begins today with Grant Park Family Fun Day and continues with events throughout the week, including:

• Tuesday: St. Luke’s ice cream social and Muni Band concert
• Wednesday: Firehouse spaghetti dinner
• Thursday: Evening on the Avenue and the South Milwaukee Downtown Market
• Saturday: Heritage Days Parade

South Milwaukee Lionsfest is also planned Friday through Sunday.

For a full list of events, check out the listing on SouthMilwaukee.org.