Draft of "Connec+ing MKE - Downtown Plan 2040" unveiled as Milwaukee looks to the future
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Milwaukee city leaders are planning for the future to ensure the city remains vibrant and evolving for the next several decades.
On Thursday a final public meeting was held at 3rd Street Market Hall, where community members could look at the plan.
For several hours the public weighed in on a draft plan that's designed to re-envision every aspect of the downtown area. The organizers of the effort acknowledge it's ambitious, but maintained they are ready to move forward and make noticeable progress.
Lafayette Crump is Milwaukee's Commissioner of City Development. He said, "We want to see everything in the city get its highest and best use."
Several city stakeholders say the Connec+ing MKE - Downtown Plan 2040 is critical to ensuring a safe, equitable, and accessible Milwaukee for decades to come.
Crump said, "We want this to really feel like the center of a magnificent city, and that's what we're working to create."
The plan revolves around eight "big ideas", like doubling the downtown population, a focus on walkable streets, creating world class gathering spaces, and reconnecting places divided by human-made barriers.
Milwaukee District 4 Alderman Robert Bauman said, "The 'Big Ideas' that you see around you are the product of those comments, the product of input from residents across the entire city of Milwaukee."
Increased safety and development were also a key focus. For two years the public has weighed in on what it wants.
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said, "It doesn't belong to just one group, one neighborhood, not just the people who live downtown. It belongs to all of us, collectively."
That feedback continued at Thursday's unveiling, and online.
Beth Weirick, the CEO of Milwaukee Downtown BID #21, said, "A lot of hard work from our engaged citizens who genuinely care about the future of their downtown."
Implementing some of the plan will require some public funding, but organizers say an extraordinary amount of private sector funding will also flow into the city once developers see the potential.
Crump said, "If there are things they're thinking about doing, that they know conceptually the city is already supporting, they can start working with others to think about how they're going to accomplish this."
The creative teams are ready to move forward right now. Just next week they will meet to plot out the next steps, and hope to have a five-year plan ready in the next couple of months.