More Ideas to Improve Downtown Greendale

Editor's note: This is a letter to the editor from Jackie Kraemer, a member of the ad hoc committee that focused its efforts on ideas that would improve Downtown Greendale.

As a member of the Ad Hoc Committee, I wanted to share with the Patch readers some of the ideas that came out of our committee for the downtown area. Just so you know, the Ad Hoc Committee was required to submit all ideas to the Board of Trustees. Sixteen members of this community have met since September trying to come up with ideas to make the downtown area work better and bring in visitors, our main focus was the Municipal Parking Lot area. Our final consensus, after months of debate was: It is the finding of this committee that the Municipal Parking Lot is a vital and needed space in this village for patrons of the village shops, the church and the Middle School It has been the consensus of the Ad Hoc Committee that improvements which would either remove parking or create a greater demand for parking would be a detriment to the future of the Village Center. 

One idea that was strongly supported by all members of the committee was to expand the green market and make Greendale the "Place to be on Saturdays" by having a market every weekend, expanding it to add gourmet food trucks, musical artists sharing their talents for playing and singing, and even expand into crafts to make Greendale the best Green Market in town. This was sent to the Board early and not all members liked this idea. We have a gentlemen's agreement with Hales Corners to have our market every other weekend that would alternate with them. Some shop owners felt that food trucks would take away their business, but for those businesses that do not open as early as the Green Market starts, this does not seem to interfere with their business and it would bring in more patrons overall.

Our number one idea was to re-route the drop-off and pick-up at the Middle School. For all you parents out there that have had to navigate the knot of cars trying to get your kids to and from school, picture this: By removing just about 15 feet of grass and woods that are currently behind the Hose Tower (there are about 2 dozen trees of varying sizes) we could bring in the new "loop" by the church, creating a new parking and driving lane that would increase the driveway size, as well as remove the old loop creating more vitally needed parking spaces. This would address the safety issue of children filtering through a moving parking lot to get to their parents cars and create a better flow for drivers. This would all be done on Village property and should not affect school property. Of the approximately 13.5 acres of trees in the woods, we would need to remove about 1.48%. I know that there are members of the community that won't tolerate loosing even one tree and some were on our committee, but the trees that would be removed are not in the best condition if you look at them, some are Ash trees that will die with the Emerald Ash Boar currently invading Greendale.

Other ideas were to support the ongoing project of renovating the Hose Tower. Since the Historical Society has been fundraising to supplement Village funds to refurbish this building, this is an ongoing project and we support it. The Historical Society wishes to add an addition and patio onto the Hose Tower, and if we place the addition to the north of the building (which is acceptable per the State Historical Society), and put the patio in front so it would service village events and create a pathway into the village, this could accomplish both of our highest priority items all at the same time. The Historical Society has put many articles in the Patch with copies of their ideas.

A Family Park/Splash Pad/Fountain area was very popular with the group, it would be similar to Bayshore and Summerfest fountains. These are considered "zero gravity pools" and cost about as much as the archway and would draw people to the area and create a family friendly atmosphere that hopefully would increase traffic to our village shops. According to Bayshore, they are shocked at how much traffic their splash pad brings in. It could be set to music and be as simple or elaborate as we wish.

Some ideas were more difficult for our group of distinctly different personalities to agree on. The fate of the old Police Building was a debate point throughout our meetings. Some members said no matter what the cost, the building must be kept. Some felt that the building was in a bad place and could not be financially saved and should be torn down. The reality is that it costs over $10,000 per year of taxpayer's money to maintain this building that has not been used for over 16 years. We had three members of our committee state they had looked into buying the building but the cost to bring the building up to code exceeded a million dollars. The committee even sent a separate idea to the Board to put the building up for sale, and if it could not be sold to consider its final fate. One additional idea that came forward was a compromise of the two ideas. If the building cannot be saved, we could turn the area into a "Ruins" by taking the building down to the height of about 4 feet tall, leaving the openings to windows and doors and creating a patio area with benches and picnic tables and plaques that would designate what part of the building you are in, i.e. Judges chambers, Chief's office, jail cells, etc. Part of the building could even be saved creating public bathrooms which we are sorely missing in village, especially during events and the added traffic our ideas would bring in. Bricks retrieved would be saved for repair of the Village Hall and Hose Tower or could be used for a fundraiser. Attached is a drawing of many of our concepts working together.

Other ideas are in no particular order: Linkages (sidewalks and bike paths to connect attractions in Village and rentable bikes), adding an art show, add parking to the middle school behind the school by expanding the teacher's parking area, a minimalistic approach to the parking lot of just beautification, concessions stand/bathroom, an Altera type coffee shop, free movie night at the Hose Tower, abating the police station, college involvement to renovate the police building, residential properties, business development family center, amphitheater, English garden, parking structure and Rent-A-Village and a hotel.