The first site is the former Solvay Coke and Gas Company. The site is located along Kinnikinnick Avenue flanked by the harbor to the east, the river to the south and the Amtrak rail corridor to the west. The only access is on Greenfield Avenue. Originally named Milwaukee Coke and Gas, it was incorporated in 1902. Solvay supplied Milwaukee with gas for gas lights and produced coke for steel production. At its peak, Solvay operated as many as 200 coke ovens 24 hours a day turning millions of tons of coal into coke and gas. A portion of the site was also used for tanning. The plant was shuttered in 1983 and mostly demolished between 2003 and 2005. The office building, machine shop and other small structures remain, but the building containing the coke ovens has been reduced to a pile of rubble with only the two partially demolished smokestacks remaining.
As can be expected with a heavy industrial and tanning use, the site is heaving contaminated with mercury, arsenic, cyanide and cancer-causing polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons. The contamination is spread over the entire site and the silt along the Kinnikinnick River has burred contaminates and has a ‘no anchor’ rule as to not stir it up. A Superfund Alternative Site, the ‘brownfield’ will require enormous clean-up before it is able to be reused.
The site exchanged hands a number of times in the 1990s and 2000s with the intent to turn the site into residential use, the most recent proposal had 14, 20 story towers valued at $1.5 billion. Seemingly with each new owner, more of the site was removed, particularly in 2004 with the removal of the main gas facility. That particular demolition was done negligently and haphazardly and released asbestos into the environment and left the rubble on the site, resulting in a $275,000 fine. The current owner, Golden Marina Causeway, LLC, seems disinterested in doing anything with the site and is currently tax delinquent. For all intents and purposes, the site is abandoned and given the current economic situation it is unlikely to be redeveloped for residential use. I propose to maintain the industrial context with a project which preserves the remaining office building and perhaps the smokestack and reinvents the site for a new purpose. The site would also make connections to the south side across the Kinnikinnick River, to the west across or under the railway corridor, and to the east with a new harbor area.
