30th Street Industrial Corridor update

By Rocky Marcoux, Commissioner, Dept. of City Development
Summer 2008

The City of Milwaukee continues to work with local, state and federal partners on a long-range initiative to bring more properties in the 30th Street Industrial Corridor back into use to grow businesses and attract jobs to the area. Many refer to the corridor as Milwaukee’s next Menomonee Valley, a renewal project that after 10 years of planning, investment and marketing is yielding new jobs and businesses. But unlike the Valley, the 30th Street Industrial Corridor lies within residential neighborhoods, therefore our successes will depend on the strength of our partnerships with residents.

We believe the availability of a readied workforce in the immediate 30th Street Industrial Corridor can be a tremendous selling point with existing and future businesses. Our focus in preparing the corridor to better attract businesses includes initiatives to match job training of local residents to the needs of employers, creation of partnerships between businesses and residents to strengthen neighborhoods and citizen involvement in renewal efforts. A few examples to share:
 

» This spring, residents in the corridor were invited to an open-house hosted by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Department of City Development. The session offered information and solicited input on brownfield remediation work within the immediate neighborhoods. Residents who attended were able to view a map of existing sites and learn more about what it takes to tackle these challenging properties.   » On June 14, we marked the continuing partnership between Harley-Davidson and the residents who live in the immediate neighborhood of this corporate citizen with a dedication ceremony of 20 donated trees for a new Foundation Park at 3700 W. McKinley. Foundation Park, in the Harley Davidson TIN Thirty additional trees will be distributed to area residents. Foundation Park represents the ongoing relationship between the residents of the Harley-Davidson neighborhood and both the Harley-Davidson Foundation and Greater Milwaukee Foundation to revitalize and improve the quality of life in the neighborhood. Neighbors gathered to celebrate the transformation of a vacant lot into Foundation Park. Work over the past three years has resulted in 16 rehabilitated homes available for first-time home-buyers, neighborhood collaboration on large improvement projects, increases in public safety and decreases in litter. The Harley-Davidson Foundation invested more than $160,000 in the effort as part of the City of Milwaukee’s Targeted Investment Neighborhood (TIN) program. TIN is a neighborhood revitalization strategy in which the City of Milwaukee, working with a neighborhood community partner, focuses resources in a relatively small area (6 to 12 city blocks) in an effort to stabilize and increase owner-occupancy, strengthen property values and improve the physical appearance of a neighborhood.   » The City of Milwaukee has also established additional Targeted Investment Neighborhoods (TINs) in the Corridor. Those TINs include:Bishop’s Creek (33rd to 37th Streets from Congress to Hampton Ave); Eaton Neighborhood (Capitol Drive to Congress from 24th Pl to Soo Line Railroad); Metcalfe Park (27th to 38th from North Ave to Center); and Sherman Park (40th to 45th from Hadley to Burleigh).   Local contractors working on installing rain gutters in a TIN home. Since 2007, $3.1 million has been invested in housing revitalization in the 30th Street Industrial Corridor. We know that when people have affordable, attractive housing options in the neighborhood, there’s a greater sense of ownership and pride in the area. Gutters removed from a home that’s undergoing rehab in a TIN.

We invite companies in the Corridor to discuss with us opportunities to create partnerships with area residents. In the near future, we look forward to providing an update on another ‘match-making’ initiative between area residents and employers: a job training pilot program that develops specific skills-based job training to match future workforce needs identified by three corridor companies.