Milwaukee is planning to turn a stretch of North Market Street next to City Hall into a new public plaza called City Hall Square, with a projected price tag of $3.75 million. The site sits between East Kilbourn Avenue and East Wells Street, right alongside the landmark government building that gives the plaza its name.
The plan comes from the city's latest long-term downtown vision, which calls for a public plaza on that stretch of North Market Street, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The newspaper's reporting lays out the plaza's location and projected cost but does not detail a construction timeline, funding source, or finished design for the project.
A Name With Roots Back to the 1890s
City Hall Square is not a brand-new name invented for this project. Milwaukee's City Hall was completed in 1895, and around that time, according to WUWM, people began using the terms Market Square and City Hall Square interchangeably to describe the same ground next to the building. The square even had its own local curiosity back then: a 9-foot-tall statue of animal-welfare advocate Henry Bergh once stood in the middle of it, per the public radio station's account. That statue was eventually relocated and now stands outside the Wisconsin Humane Society at North 45th Street and West Wisconsin Avenue, WUWM reports.
Part Of A Broader Downtown Plaza Push
The City Hall Square proposal lands amid a wider wave of downtown Milwaukee public-space investment. Milwaukee's redevelopment authority is set to consider amendments the following week that, if approved, would make $33 million available for safer streets, transportation, and what officials have called vibrant public spaces, according to FOX6 Milwaukee. That funding discussion has included a proposed Highland Avenue plaza between King Drive and the Milwaukee River, which the station reports would be folded into an $8 million amendment to Tax Incremental Finance District 84.
A similar $33 million infusion from two tax districts has also been tied to a pedestrian plaza planned for Westown near the Deer District, with construction on that project slated to begin in spring 2024, according to design firm RINKA. Elsewhere downtown, the city has already delivered a finished example of this kind of investment: the $4.6 million Gary P. Grunau Memorial Plaza, dedicated along the Milwaukee RiverWalk, connects the RiverWalk to the Highland Avenue pedestrian bridge, as reported by Finance & Commerce. That plaza was built by converting a former half-block of West Highland Avenue, with $3.59 million in public funding through a tax incremental financing district and the remainder covered by private donations, the outlet notes.
Costs Can Climb Once Plans Firm Up
Not every Milwaukee plaza proposal has stayed close to its early price tag. The city's proposed Vel R. Phillips Plaza, envisioned for a city-owned parking lot at West Wisconsin Avenue and North Vel R. Phillips Avenue, was originally estimated at $5 million in 2019 but had climbed to more than $16.5 million by 2023, according to Urban Milwaukee. Officials attributed that jump to enhanced design, inflation, rising construction costs, and contaminated soil removal, the outlet reported. The 30,000-square-foot plaza design included a 2,900-square-foot food or beverage retail space, a manicured garden, event space, an informational kiosk, and public art.
Milwaukee has also experimented with lower-cost approaches to creating public space downtown. The city's Interim Plaza Program converts underused streets or portions of streets into gathering spots using materials like paint, movable planters, flexible delineator posts, and seating, according to the City of Milwaukee. That program reflects a different scale of investment than the multimillion-dollar plaza builds now on the table, including the City Hall Square proposal itself.
For now, the City Hall Square plan remains defined by its location and projected $3.75 million cost, with the Journal Sentinel's reporting not yet addressing when construction might begin, how it will be paid for, or what the finished plaza will look like. If it moves forward, the project would add another name to the stretch of downtown Milwaukee blocks being reimagined as public gathering space, bringing a historic name back to its roots next to City Hall.
