The Milwaukee County Grounds: A visual meditation

Two brief photo meditations, actually. The first is an update on construction progress for the Eschelon Apartments project at Innovation Park. Following that, signs of spring in Wil-O-Way Woods include early wildflowers and a concrete recycling operation on the future site of the Forestry Exploration Center.

Eschelon Apartments rising at Innovation Park

The Monarch Trail

Wil-O-Way Woods

Construction update on County Grounds: A photo essay

If you’ve driven along Swan Boulevard through the County Grounds lately you will have noticed, perhaps with some shock, the broad section of woodland that has been mowed down. Located directly across from the Discovery Parkway entrance to Innovation Park, this eventually will become the access road for the Forestry Exploration Center, which is planned to be built next to the DNR’s Wil-O-Way Woods. I was first alerted to this development by someone who noted the irony of beginning the Forestry Exploration Center project by clear-cutting the forest. (Although, to be "fair and balanced," while it is disturbing and I wonder why such a wide swath was considered necessary, a substantial percentage of those trees were invasive species.)

Future site of the Forestry Exploration Center - -

On the hilltop nearby, where Innovation Park is located, the Echelon Apartment complex is beginning to rise around the historic Eschweiler buildings, the fate of which (the last I heard) is still hanging in the balance.

At the other end of the Innovation Park campus new power lines are connected to the substation that has been added to the County Grounds power plant.

Meanwhile the hotel that was planned for the vacant lot overlooking that plant has been delayed indefinitely. According to a story in Wauwatosa NOW, the developer requested funding from the city because the fill that had been placed on the site has settled and needs to be stabilized. That request was denied by the common council.