Pave Over Paradise, Put Up A Parking Lot

After months of inaction and stalling, those involved in the planning of Innovation Park at the county grounds can’t seem to get things moving fast enough.  And the direction they are moving does not appear to be the one they assured people that they would take, but one that would be of the most benefit of the developers.

Despite an outpouring of dissension from the public and from UW-M students, Chancellor Carlos Santiago, the County Board and the private land developers involved are still gung-ho in following with their poorly thought through plans to build a school where no one else wants it.  I have also learned that many faculty members at UWM also think this is a very bad idea, but unless they are tenured, they are afraid to speak out, as that Santiago has already demonstrated that he is more than willing to mete out retaliative actions against those that would openly state their opinions.

But trying to ignore the public’s opposition to this course of folly is not the only issue facing those that would destroy the county grounds for personal gain.

There appears to be serious money issues.   The estimate from the architects for Phase I of the plan is $75 million and another $75 million for Phase II, as illustrated in this document:

However, Chancellor Santiago has only put in a $35 million dollar request per this document.  Santiago is hoping to gather most of the rest through gifts and through General Fund Supported Borrowing (GFSB).  But he has two problems with this.  One, Michael Cudahy, who was supposed to be giving tens of millions of dollars, has pulled his support, and money is not exactly pouring in.  Secondly, with the poor economy, GFSB is not the way to go, as reported here.

For someone that is supposed to be a economics professor, it makes one wonder what Santiago was thinking when he went down this path.

And if these things weren’t enough, the initial planning has been altogether unacceptable.  I have had the opportunity to see the design presented by the architects, and it is very poorly done.  The design I saw had a three-story parking garage within feet of the sycamore tree.  It also had a new building to the northwest of the Eschweiler Buildings, next to one of the oak tree groves.  Both of these are prime roosting spots of the monarch butterflies .

The developers, UWM and the County Board all promised that these areas were to be protected, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, based on the design I saw.

I have been told that the architects were supposed to produce an updated, and hopefully improved, design sometime this week.  But this will not give all of the environmentalists and other concerned parties a chance to review the plans before the County Board and the Board of Regents act on it.

If these august bodies mean to keep their word, they will table their votes until such time as that all parties have had a chance to review and offer their input.  Otherwise, it would seem that they never meant to preserve these green spaces and as much natural habitat as they said they would.

Milwaukee County First will continue to monitor and report on this situation as further developments occur.