Officials unveil The Couture’s transit concourse, launch full Hop L-Line service

The base of the 46-story Couture near the lakefront in downtown Milwaukee was the site of great celebration on Thursday morning, as dozens of mass transit boosters, city and county officials, and the apartment tower’s developer, Rick Barrett, gathered to mark the opening of the structure’s long anticipated travel concourse and the full launch of The Hop streetcar’s Lakefront Line.

Part of plans for the Couture development since 2014, the nearly 2-mile streetcar route serving The Couture site as well as stops along Michigan, Jackson, Clybourn and Jefferson streets had been delayed for years due to construction delays for the tower.

Plans for The Couture were first unveiled in 2012 and in 2014 they were updated to include a transit hub with a stop for The Hop with the L-Line passing through the base of the building. However, construction on The Couture didn’t start until 2021.

The tracks for the L-Line were laid in streets leading up to The Couture site and had sat unused for years waiting for construction of the development to move forward.

In late October, The Hop began limited operations of the L-Line, but only on Sundays and without utilizing the lakefront station at The Couture.

On Thursday morning, with construction workers busily applying some of the final exterior panels to the commercial plaza above, Barrett called seeing The Hop stop in the concourse for the first time, a surreal experience.

“Good things take time. Extraordinary things take longer,” said Barrett, chief executive officer of Barrett Lo Visionary Development. “Today I want to thank all of our partners for making this extraordinary (development) a reality.”

‘Regional connectivity’

As The Couture prepares to welcome its first residents this month, Barrett noted that the “multimodal transportation hub,” which starting June 2 will also serve as the eastern terminus for the Milwaukee County Transit System’s (MCTS) Bus Rapid Transit line CONNECT 1, will serve “countless visitors annually, directing them to area retail, downtown businesses, nearby attractions, and public lakefront pathways.”

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson also celebrated the milestone Thursday. Crowley noted that the land at 909 E. Michigan Ave., where The Couture stands was the once the site county-owned Downtown Transit Center.

“This project really represents a major transit-oriented development opportunity on a former county site along a beautiful lakefront,” he said. “The land where we’re standing currently used to be (the transit center) and now it’s the home to a brand-new multimodal transit concourse that represents the future of regional connectivity in Milwaukee and southeastern Wisconsin.”

Thanking Barrett, fellow city officials, and partners at the county who preserved to help make the Lakefront Line extension for The Hop a reality, Johnson asked those gathered to think about the people who will benefit from the new service.

“It’s important to recognize the people who will use this new facility. Think about the businesspeople. Think about the festival goers. Think about the residents who will all take advantage of this incredible destination that we now have in Milwaukee,” Johnson said. “Think about the young people who convince their parents to bring them on The Hop’s Lakefront Line. The Couture destination provides connectivity, and it adds transit options for residents and visitors alike.”

Alderman Robert Bauman, a longtime streetcar booster, called Thursday’s unveiling a “joyous occasion.”

“I was around the council back in 2014 when this concept was hatched and at the time we were debating the merit of fixed transit. There was pushback to say the least. And when this project came forward and I remember very vividly being ushered into Mr. Barrett’s conference room and all these very large renderings were set up on,” Bauman said.

Bauman said that after the plans for The Couture’s travel concourse were unveiled, the public attitude on the streetcar changed.

“That was the missing piece of the puzzle that brought a substantial percentage of the corporate community downtown to the realization, well actually, maybe this makes sense,” he said. “So, I applaud leadership at the time and now.”

The Hop L-Line

The L-Line will connect to the Hop streetcar’s existing M-Line and many of Milwaukee’s most-visited destinations, including the Henry Maier Festival Park, Milwaukee Art Museum, Discovery World, Veterans Park, and other spots along Milwaukee’s downtown lakefront.

Riders will be able to transfer between the M and L Lines at five stations where the routes overlap. The L-Line will operate independently from the M-Line, however, served by one streetcar operating in a figure eight pattern proceeding east on Michigan Street, south through the Couture site, west on Clybourn Street, north on Milwaukee Street to Kilbourn Ave, and south on Broadway to St. Paul Avenue.

CONNECT 1 bus

Launched in June 2023, MCTS’s East-West Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line CONNECT 1 is a streamlined bus service designed to provide faster connections between Wauwatosa and the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center (MRMC) riders in downtown Milwaukee and west side neighborhood. The service has fewer stops and a dedicated bus lane aimed at moving passengers along the busy corridor more quickly.

With a stop at The Couture travel concourse, the service will now be able to connect riders to the lakefront and destinations in that area.

To support the busy summer festival and tourism season, CONNECT 1 buses running on Saturdays will arrive every 10 minutes through August 24, transit officials said Thursday.

Planned pedestrian amenities

With the travel concourse at The Couture now up and running, some might be wondering about the status of pedestrian amenities envisioned as part of the overall Couture development – two pedestrian bridges designed to connect the concourse and commercial plaza to the rest of downtown and the planned Lakefront Gateway Plaza.

Asked about those projects this week, a spokesperson with the city’s Department of City Development said that while the infrastructure improvements remain part of the city’s plans for the area, there has been no funding allocated toward making them a reality.

Discussing the plans on Thursday, Bauman said the question of whether the city can afford to construct the pedestrian and park amenities will depend on how much economic development is generated by The Couture and the new transit service, as well as any redevelopment opportunities that emerge from a possible removal of the 794-freeway spur.

“It’ll depend on what’s done with the freeway, and how much additional development opportunities can be created, what kind of tax base they can create, what ability we’ll have to use tax incremental financing,” he said. “Those are expensive projects, and the funding source would almost certainly be tax incremental financing. You need the development to make that happen.”