260 N 12th St
Milwaukee, WI 53233
Kneeland Properties · Land For Sale · 9.20 AC

The “Kneeland Properties” in Milwaukee’ s Menomonee Valley is undeveloped land near the I-94 freeway, just west of the Regional Intermodal Transit Center. Located on the north bank of the Menomonee River, the City of Milwaukee and partners are actively working to better connect this site to the road grid. During the 2018 Valley Design Charette, HGA Architects created design concepts for high-quality, sustainable, job creating development on this high potential site. On the 9.8 acre vacant parcel adjacent to the downtown post office and Milwaukee Intermodal Station, HGA envisions a new street grid to reach destination food and beverage manufacturing and retail, mixed use office, and light manufacturing facing an active riverwalk with boat slips. Access to food grade steam is ideal for food and beverage manufacturing. To connect the site to the city grid, HGA innovatively suggests extending Mt. Vernon Avenue under the 6th Street Bridge, traveling on grade along the river and through the existing colonnade under the post office, to Plankinton Avenue. Wetland features with native vegetation provide a dual use amenity and stormwater management component, mirroring the Menomonee Valley Industrial Center (www.TheValleyMKE.org/mvic) on the Valley’s west end. More detail below and in the attached PDF on the Valley Design Charette: HGA Architects proposed a new grid of streets and blocks on the Kneeland Properties which will serve to make a series of new parcels developable and an active part of Milwaukee’s urban life. These new streets could be lined with parallel parking on one side to allow for significant parking resources throughout the development. The new grid of streets also includes a riverfront street which will allow all new buildings to face south towards the river, taking advantage of the primary amenity of the Kneeland Properties. For the parcels on this new grid of blocks, HGA proposes Food and Beverage related industries to compliment other F&B industries in the Valley, and to take advantage of the existing food quality steam available at Kneeland. Four parcels could be developed, each with a tall bay factory floor wing to the north, and a front of house public wing facing the river to the south. Each front of house building would include office administration space for a F&B business, as well as public interface spaces like tasting rooms and presentation spaces. Some of these buildings might also be F&B condominiums, in which small companies can find the shared resources they need to grow. Each of the four buildings also has a storm water retention area at its south east corner, allowing storm water to be cleaned by native vegetation before it is returned to the river. These green wetland areas also punctuate the street along the river, adding a rhythm that enriches the riverfront with activity decks out over the vegetated water to be used by the occupants and visitors of the new buildings. Under the freeway, the HGA team proposes a surface parking resource to serve the industries and their employees, as well as an extensive storm water wetland feature at the south end of the space facing the river. Along the river’s edge, a new pedestrian Riverwalk is proposed, becoming a food truck plaza under the freeway. On some designated night, food trucks would converge under the rain cover of the freeway high overhead, bringing life and vitality to a currently inaccessible part of the City. Artists would be commissioned to turn concrete freeway pylons into works of art, making the spaces inviting and a destination in itself. At the east end of the Kneeland Properties an existing curving riverbank suggested a curving street, and a significant curving building overlooking this widening on the Menomonee. This may be a prime location for a Food Hall attached to an incubator for startup food businesses of the sort seen growing around the country. Sharing a licensed commercial kitchen, startups could sell their products to the public in the food hall, all with a spectacular view of glittering water to the southeast. On this widening in the Menomonee River, HGA further proposes a floating dock, with rental docks for pleasure boaters, as well as a dock at the Food Hall for cruise boats like the Edelweiss, a boat that might make a tourist stop at this new Food and Beverage destination in the Menomonee River Valley.