Franklin's "downtown" finds more public scrutiny than similar projects elsewhere

Drexel Town Square. 84South. The Mayfair Collection. The Corners of Brookfield. We've all heard of, or even shopped or dined at these new destinations. They are part of a growing trend in Milwaukee's suburbia - denser, more urban destinations with a bit of suburban flare. All partially funded thanks to those communities putting up tax incremental district (TID)s. Franklin currently has a proposal in the works that is somewhat similar, Ballpark Commons, yet since the first meeting to discuss the project it has not received similar fanfare here versus the other projects mentioned.

Why?

There's probably a long list some NIMBY has in their back pocket for reasons, but FT points to several that might be putting more headaches and bumps in the road to construction for Franklin's "downtown".

For starters, FT highlighted our concern regarding the lack of any real concrete announcements when it comes to what Ballpark Commons is attracting to this project. We got a concept that is growing more solid by the week with the locations of the baseball stadium, apartments and office/retail buildings, but as of right now that's all we got - a bunch of empty shell buildings with no names associated with them. The encouragement is still out there to the developers to hasten the process of getting some names of businesses/restaurants/retailers/hoteliers announced, as this might play a role in changing some minds.

Another one is simply looking at who's next door. All the mega projects mentioned earlier are located in more commercialized areas. Thanks to Franklin's shooting-in-the-foot decisions of the past, many of our major commercial corridors (or what should be such) as now lined up with subdivisions or condominiums (mostly the former). In the case of Ballpark Commons, thanks to Franklin's leadership of years past, lands near the Rawson/Loomis area were designated for estate homes, and subsequently a developer pounced on land and built the high-end subdivision of Stonehedge. When folks moved in, they were promised one thing but apparently didn't realize that times change, and along with that change so does the politics and demographics of the community at-large. Instead of more high-end homes, as the southern suburbs of Milwaukee County grew and the ski hill turned into a year-round sports destination for the metro area and beyond, developers begin viewing lands around the site in a different light. At the same time, political leaders are more the wiser and are slowly acknowledging that the city needs to do more to keep Franklin's primary thoroughfares truly commercialized, or as commercialized as possible. Along with this, the whole 76th/Rawson/Loomis triangle became center focus of many as a "downtown" for the community, and Ballpark Commons helps achieve this goal with denser development and a destination. Unfortunately, the reminder of past bad planning decisions has reared its ugly head in the form of many NIMBYs, where most have large bank accounts to back up their positions.

Lastly is the true lack of knowledge of this project versus its counterparts. We discussed part of this earlier regarding what's going in the development, but there's also resident concerns over anything and everything with this project that either hasn't been fully answered, or has been addressed but the message was lost in getting back to the person(s) with said concerns. This leads to continued bashing of the project via avenues like social media with arguments that make the phrase "beating a dead horse" rather helpful. But onward these folks go, and still they grab more attention each time they do it. The longer Ballpark Commons stays a project with no shovels in the ground, the tougher it becomes to calm what's in some cases misguided fears.

Finality is needed for Franklin's "downtown" project, regardless of whichever direction it goes. Then the rumors can be put to rest, reality will settle in, and a community can move forward....or stay stuck in neutral while its neighbors are operating in high gear.