Marketing Milwaukee's Park East corridor: "We want to ignite the fire"

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele and Mayor Tom Barrett unveiled a new website on Tuesday, June 10th. It is specifically created for the city's Park East corridor. It is part of an effort to market the land which has remained untouched ever since a freeway spur was demolished. As part of that effort, a new website has been created. It is ParkEastMKE.com.

The City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County are actively trying to fill those vacant lots. The empty space is located near Juneau Avenue an Old World Third Street, and it's been vacant for years.

The city and county both own parts of the land, and have joined forces with the state and with the Commercial Association of Realtors Wisconsin to get businesses and investors interested in it. They've placed signs, made brochures, a logo, and a website, and are actively seeking out possible companies to fill the space.

“What you’re seeing here is the beginning and it’s not the end of an aggressive, proactive, reaching out to opportunities, not waiting for them to come here,” said Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele.

“I think for a while people stopped thinking about it and we want to ignite the fire and let people know, look we want to move this, we want something significant to be happening here,” said Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.

Right now, there's no set plan as to what could be built there, but officials say they're open to anything from retail, to industrial, to corporate offices.

“There is a lot of activity surrounding this area, the Park East, and it’s a great spot to put whether it’s a company or other amenities,” said Stephen Provancher, a principal with NAI MLG Commercial.

They came close to filling this space about 2 years ago, with Kohl’s Corporate Headquarters, but it ended up falling through.

“There was a lot of confusion of what this site was about, and who owned it,” said Provancher.

It's clear now- the owners are the city and county, and their attention now is on getting the space filled.

“It’s not a visually pleasing lot, and there's so much good stuff going on in downtown we want this to be part of the fun,” said Mayor Barrett.

The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation is providing a $17,500 community development investment grant to help further this effort.



Some interesting information about the Park East Milwaukee logo: