Re-greening the valley

While a mixed-use development on the 22-acre Reed Street Yards property in Milwaukee’s Menomonee River Valley is in only its initial planning stages, the developer and architect are anticipating a project with architectural and “green building” features normally associated more with Europe than the Midwest.
Redevelopment of the rail yard is part of a wide-sweeping redevelopment effort of the river valley. The area to be redeveloped extends from I-94 on the north, the Milwaukee River on the east, Bruce Street and the Soo Line Railroad tracks on the south and Highway 41 on the west.
“The whole Menomonee Valley is being transformed into a place for high tech and light manufacturing opportunities,” said Mayor John O. Norquist. “And the Reed Street Yards will only accelerate this process.”
Formerly owned by Chicago-based CMC Heartland Partners, the Reed Street Yards property was sold in December of 1999 to Atlas Development Corp. Atlas Development also redeveloped the Tannery Complex, an adjacent property, into commercial space.
According to documentation of the public-private partnership responsible for the redevelopment effort, the Reed Street Yards project is a good opportunity for enhanced connections into Walker’s Point, and the eastern extension of Canal Street. It could also spur redevelopment of adjacent and nearby private buildings, including the historic Teweles Seed Building.
While details for the site are still sketchy, representatives of Atlas Development Corp. and Gastrau Fuerer Vogel Architects both feel that the progressive, European-influenced architecture will meld successfully with the city’s plans for waterfront-oriented development at the site.
The property is bounded on the east by the 6th Street Viaduct, by railroad tracks and Oregon Street to the south and by the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District and Seeboth Street on the north. The South Menomonee Canal borders the property on a north and west diagonal, and the resulting triangular shape is dramatically reflected in the preliminary architectural design.
According to partner Eric Vogel of Gastrau Fuerer Vogel, the development will probably be roughly 50% residential and 50% commercial, and will be characteristic of the firm’s ability to “integrate high-design and quality construction with sustainable design.”
Peter Moede of Atlas Development was attracted to Gastrau Fuerer Vogel because of the firm’s very European, progressive design style; the firm has an office here and in Gossau, Switzerland. Moede doesn’t want to create a development similar to many recent Milwaukee redevelopment efforts – including the Midwest Express Center – which shoot for a more classical, historic look.
“It’s largely going to be office space, with a very progressive style of architecture,” Moede said. “You’re not going to see any of these classic ‘let’s mimic what old Milwaukee used to look like’ buildings. We’re going more for the European look. These are new buildings, and everyone’s going to know they’re new. Why try to make them look old?”
Gastrau Fuerer Vogel’s involvement would seem to indicate that the Reed Street Yards project would be visually distinctive. The firm is planning to put its stamp on the Milwaukee River in with the River Tower, a startlingly narrow residential tower with the first double-glass façade on Edison Street along the Milwaukee River in the city. Vogel said that as buildings rise from grade, he and his partners feel they should become transparent, while at grade they should fit into the natural landscape.
Vogel said his goal is to create a “high-density development with the feeling of open space and the canal rather than the feeling of parking lots.”
The Reed Street Yard development, as planned, would feature a triangular, landscaped sloping parking structure and, potentially, a glass-façade residential structure similar to the River Tower. The whole thing sports a look more reminiscent of The Jetsons than Milwaukee’s image as depicted to the nation in LaVerne and Shirley and Happy Days.
“I don’t think anyone else has the guts to do this – or is as stupid as I am,” Moede of Atlas Development said. “I’ll have to be the first guy who is a guinea pig and shows that the valley can be more than an industrial park. We don’t want to end up with another low-thought type of property. You could say this site is just 20 acres – let’s build some condos and make it look just like East Point. I want to do something that will take a lot more thought. I mean – I could make money putting up condos, but I couldn’t live with myself. I want to do something more lasting and timeless.”
Greening the valley
While both the architects and the developer look forward to a visually stunning property, aspects of the development will be progressive environmentally as well as visually. Vogel said he feels that it is in fact possible to integrate the visual and environmental aesthetics.
“In the 1970s, there was a popularization of sustainable design like Buckminster domes,” Vogel said, referring to the geodesic domes based on a concept created by inventor Buckminster Fuller. “But did you ever try to live in a dome? Until recently, there has never been a concept of integration of green design with the design tradition.”
At the physical center of the development, as currently planned, would be a triangular two-level sloped parking structure – the top of which could be the largest green roof in the country. Green roof development involves the creation of planted green space on top of a human-made structure. A special root-repelling membrane, a drainage system, lightweight growing medium and plants turn the roof into an oxygen- and shade-producing facility.
“You’d like to say you can return the Menomonee Valley to the days of wetlands, flocks of geese and wild rice,” Vogel said. “It’s not possible. But you can think of the buildings as part of the natural landscape.”
While there would be plantings on the top of the parking structure, some trees will grow up through the ramp from the ground. Green-roof purists insist that a green roof must involve plantings on a surface other than the ground, but environmental and other benefits will still accrue in this case, according to Wisconsin Green Building Alliance Director Connie Lindholm.
“One of the benefits of a green roof – besides the aesthetic benefit, which is significant – is that you are minimizing heat islands in cities; cities tend to be five to eight degrees warmer than surrounding areas,” Lindholm said. “Of course it takes more than one green roof to have an effect. Normally you have an asphalt or concrete roof, which absorbs sunlight, heats up and radiates the heat out of it. With a green roof, you have plants and flowers and trees that absorb sunlight and release oxygen. You know how it feels when you walk into a garden – it’s just much cooler.”
A green-roofed parking structure would serve a number of purposes. The structure could provide an attractive green area in the center of the development and perform the more obvious function of providing parking. But according to Vogel it could also moderate the need for environmental soil remediation on the site.
Because of the structure, “most of the site will be limited contact,” Vogel said. “This limits human contact with the contaminated soil.”
Vogel said he hopes that that will mean they will only need to immediately remediate the portions of the site nearest the canal, which would be landscaped to look “as natural-looking and rugged as possible.”
The presence of the trees may also help to slowly cleanse the contaminated soil beneath the parking structure itself, through a process known as phytoremediation.
“Fast-growing trees can naturally remediate soils,” Vogel said. “The Germans are pioneering this concept.”
The success of such an approach would depend on a number of factors, according to Lindholm, who is an engineer by training.
“It really is going to depend on how much contamination there is,” Lindholm said. “Contaminated soil can be cleaned by the process of going through the roots of plants. Nutrients and water are filtered through the root. That’s one of the ways a septic system works. The dirty water is filtered through a septic field and is cleaned out by passing through the sand and particles in the soil. But they are also cleansed by the roots of plants.”
Timeline
Once the project is off the drawing board, there will be some delays due to neighboring projects and environmental issues, according to Moede.
“We hope to have the project defined by summertime,” Moede said. “We will work on remediation issues, demolition of existing buildings and sitework. We have some existing tenants we have to work around.”
Significant progress will be put off further since the Lynde & Harry Bradley Technical and Trade School, as well as the 6th Street Viaduct project, will be using the site as a staging area. Ground has been broken for the new high school while the current viaduct will be demolished starting in May. Structural work for the new bridge has already begun.
“We’re going to have our hands tied during those two projects and some infrastructure planning,” Moede said. “In the meantime, we will be concentrating on the Tannery residential component. Access to residential units will be through the Reed Street Yards area.”
Ultimately, according to Moede, construction is a couple of years out.
Once construction does begin, the soil remediation issues will have to be addressed. Because there are not plans to remove contaminated soil from much of the site – but only to prevent contact with it through the design – the site has become part of the Voluntary Party Liability Exemption Program offered by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR). According to John Lewis of Northern Environmental, the remediation contractor for the project, participation involves increased DNR scrutiny of the project in exchange for exemption of the current property owner and any future owners of liability associated with any detected contamination, which makes the property more marketable. In other words, contaminated soil stays at the site, but the owners will not be held liable for the contamination.
“It’s garden-variety stuff,” Moede said of the remediation work that must be done. “There is some lead. And some leaking tanks created some hotspots. A third factor, which we didn’t think of at all, is that the organic matter left from when the Menomonee River Valley was a wetland has created a tremendous amount of natural methane. So we are going to have to find some way to vent that methane into the air.”
Oddly enough, environmental regulation for methane is more stringent for residences than for commercial properties.
“They seem to be only concerned for residential and not commercial units,” Moede said. “So it is OK for people to breathe and work in a methane area but not live in one.”
“Methane is associated with decaying peat and organic sediments, and occurs naturally,” Lewis said. “The site is considered a landfill, and therefore falls under regulations for construction on an abandoned landfill. One of the requirements to build on a landfill is to test for methane. In this case, at the Reed Street Yards, the previous consultant who did the Phase I and Phase II environmental assessments tested for methane and found some elevated levels.”
The methane levels are not that much of a problem, according to Lewis.
“It’s really simple. Basically, you lay a collection system and vent that collection system to the atmosphere,” he said. “It usually involves 6 to 8 inches of gravel with some ventilated pipe which vents to the atmosphere. The top of the gravel is capped with a non-permeable barrier. The system is either active or inactive. Depending on the methane concentrations, you make that system active by putting a blower or fan on it to control the methane.”
Currently, the DNR wants more information on the methane levels to determine whether the site will require a passive or active system.
Unique and
marketable
The project’s location near Milwaukee’s downtown, and the unique architectural aspects will both serve to make the commercial space in the project marketable, Moede said.
“The commercial development will have very little in common with many of the structures planned for the Menomonee Valley, and elsewhere in Milwaukee,” Moede said, adding that this will protect the development from feeling the effects of an economic downturn.
“We’re in a whole different niche,” Moede said. “Obviously, we are going to be building high-class office space. From a pricing standpoint, we’ll be very competitive. The guys who will have to worry will be the suburban market. There is a trend of people coming back downtown.”
Ready access to T-1 lines in the downtown area is helpful in assuring the development’s success as well, according to Moede.
“These technologies can’t hurt,” he said. “If you look at some of the newer office parks – they have only one fiber provider. At the Tannery, we have three or four different fiber vendors.”
Vogel feels that the mixed-use aspects of the planned project would be attractive to businesses, as workers and professionals could live in the residential portions and walk to work. Other businesses locating at the development could be retail and consumer service providers catering to the development’s residents.
“We would love to see a mix of technology and service businesses,” Vogel said. “Not that you couldn’t have a distribution-oriented business, but we’re not catering to that. Currently, service-oriented businesses moving to Milwaukee have no space downtown wired for computer use.”
Mayor Norquist and other downtown boosters feel the addition of new, progressive-looking structures will be a good complement to the mix of office space already available in the midtown area.
“The unique architecture of the older structures is attractive to the high-tech industry and offer certain advantages that high-tech companies are looking for, such high ceilings and floor strength. Atlas’s new buildings are being designed to accommodate new, smaller high-tech and light industrial companies,” Norquist said. “The Reed Street Yards is a natural place for high-tech development as well as mixed-use development that takes advantage of its waterfront location.”
River access
is valuable
The canal frontage, despite water-quality issues, adds value to the site. As a matter of fact, access to the Menomonee River and the harbor may be a real sleeper of a feature, according to fisheries staff at the DNR.
The canal itself receives a warm water discharge from the Wisconsin Electric Power Company site. That means that while the canal stays open all year long, it is too warm to support many fish with the exception of carp and suckers. But Vogel sees value in the warm water discharge as well, in the beauty of the steam rising from the water in the winter.
While the river will never be the unspoiled land it once was, there is still potential for boating and fishing. For fishermen, the downtown section of the river may primarily be a thoroughfare to more promising river stretches, however, due to high water temperatures.
“Historically, a 10,000-acre marsh had existed there,” DNR fisheries biologist William Wawrzyn said of the river valley. “The canals had been dug to accommodate commerce. Before the area was drained and filled, we had a lot more species diversity in there for forage and recreational sport fish. There are some anecdotal accounts of lake sturgeon having once used that area. But recently, things have probably gotten better over the years in terms of water quality. There are migratory trout and salmon that go up and down those waters. We hear stories from fishermen doing very well with sunfish species like crappie. There has been an effort to restore the walleye fishery down there. There is no evidence of reproduction taking place yet, but that could be because initial numbers are not high enough.”
DNR Fisheries biologist Pradeep Herathota feels that the temperature of the downtown section of the river is a primary issue for the waterway’s health.
“During the summer we haven’t seen much in terms of varieties of fish species due to high temperatures,” Herathota said. “Mostly we saw carp, and some suckers. From our observations during our multiple trips, we have recorded water temperatures as high as 83.6 degrees Fahrenheit in the canals. Even in October the temperature was as high as 81 degrees Fahrenheit. As you may have expected, certainly the resident cool-water fish species will be temperature-stressed in this area. Walleye seem to migrate down to this warm habitat during the late fall from the lower Milwaukee River. We also have seen a few largemouth bass, gizzard shad and some sunfish during the summer survey.”
The downtown section of the Menomonee is also a migratory route for Lake Michigan trout and salmon as they head upstream on their fall and spring spawning runs.
“I would expect the high temperature in the fall would certainly cause stress, and they may even avoid moving up the river,” Herathota said. “Warmer temperatures may enhance fungal or bacterial infection on the migratory salmonids. Certainly the warm-water discharge creates a unique environment. Some fish may be attracted, some may be deterred. I have seen people fishing for yellow perch, northern pike and brown trout in the open water behind the post office in the winter.”
Despite warm water temperatures in its downtown stretches, the Menomonee River is also a prime spot for steelhead fishing. The big migratory rainbow trout come upstream from Lake Michigan, and are caught as far upstream as Miller Park. Anglers posting to www.lake-link.com report catching as many as four of the fish a day this February and early March.
The river would also provide boat access to the inner and outer harbor, which according to Wawrzyn is an excellent resource in itself, particularly as smallmouth bass populations in the harbor continue to grow. But the main issue, he said, in using the Menomonee River Valley’s river frontage is the addition of amenities, green space and public access.
Vogel said green space and public amenities like a boat launch and slips are on the agenda, along with the potential for a riverwalk similar to the successful riverwalk along the Milwaukee River through the downtown. In general, Vogel anticipates a European concept of private land being made open to the public as a public service, and to accommodate commerce.
Vogel’s concept of “high-quality private space with high-quality public amenities” would center around two public areas – one at Seeboth and 3rd streets and the other at Oregon Street. Apart from waterfront-oriented opportunities, Vogel said the firm would hope the development would attract businesses like a movie theater, grocery store and a gym.
“As long as things improve and you provide public access, people will come back to the river,” Wawrzyn said. “I can recall back in the 1980s being contacted by prospective developers and asked what my vision for the river was. Is it going to be an amenity or will it continue to be kept in a sewer-like condition? Clearly, the inner harbor has potential. Anywhere in the state, you look at the value of land that adjoins water relative to other real estate values and they’re just out of this world. I don’t imagine it’s too much different no matter where you go.”
April 27, 2001 Small Business Times