Witzling guides plans from vision to reality at lakefront, Park East area, Menomonee Valley

In 2000, Mequon officials started creating a plan to encourage urban-style development in a community that epitomizes suburban sprawl.

Last year, Mequon Town Center, featuring two four-story retail and apartment buildings and two other commercial buildings, was completed. That slow journey from vision to reality was spurred in part by longtime planner Larry Witzling and is among dozens of Milwaukee-area projects he has influenced.

Witzling, 71, is being honored with a national award for his career, which includes working on projects such as Milwaukee's lakefront development, the Menomonee Valley's rebirth and the creation of new apartments and other commercial buildings on downtown's Park East strip.

"You're going to find his fingerprints on an awful lot of urban design projects throughout the city," said Robert Greenstreet, dean of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's School of Architecture and Urban Planning. Witzling is a former UWM professor.

"For better or worse, I’ve always tried to work on projects that have major transformational potential," Witzling said. "That’s really what it’s all about."

Witzling, a principal at Graef, a Milwaukee-based design, engineering and planning firm, has received the American Planning Association’s 2017 National Excellence Award for Planning Pioneers. It is one of five national awards presented annually by the Chicago-based association.

The pioneer award, which Witzling called "an unexpected honor," is based on a planner's historical impact on the industry and that person's national significance.

Witzling has served as a design competition adviser for projects such as the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York, the expansion of Pittsburgh's David L. Lawrence Convention Center and new housing in Seattle’s Denny Regrade neighborhood. All led to developments with award-winning designs, according to the association.

However, Witzling, who was a UWM faculty member from 1972 to 2015, has made his biggest marks in the Milwaukee area.

"Larry is just one of those guys that everyone knows in the real estate community," said developer Blair Williams, who operates Wired Properties LLC.

"We've all touched deals that Larry has some sort of influence on," Williams said.

That includes Mequon Town Center, which Wired Properties and Shaffer Development LLC built at Mequon and Cedarburg roads.

Witzling's firm, Planning and Design Institute (which Graef bought in 2008), was hired by Mequon to help create a vision for that site. After years of delays, caused in part by the recession, construction started on Mequon Town Center, which is anchored by a Cafe Hollander.

Witzling's plans also helped encourage the development of Drexel Town Square, at S. Howell and W. Drexel avenues in Oak Creek. It includes a mix of stores, restaurants, a hotel, higher-end apartments, a health care center, and a new City Hall and Oak Creek Public Library.

Witzling's plans help provide an initial vision for a community and prospective developers.

"His biggest influence is getting municipalities and developers to think about planning," said Williams, whose firm has developed apartment and retail buildings at Drexel Town Square.

And that influence is tied to Witzling's credibility with community officials and developers, Williams said.

Witzling is "a trusted thought leader and steward of quality development,” said Rocky Marcoux, Milwaukee development commissioner.

Witzling, who earned his PhD in city and regional planning at Cornell University, has "an extremely powerful intellect," Greenstreet said.

Witzling also is persistent.

"If you don't want him to do it," Greenstreet said, "it's bloody hard stopping him."

But he's no diva.

While Witzling is a licensed architect, his personality resembles that of a planner, Greenstreet said.

"Planners tend to be a little more grounded and down to earth," said Greenstreet, who was Milwaukee's city planner from 2004 to 2009.

Those qualities helped Witzling when he was a consultant to Menomonee Valley Partners Inc., the nonprofit group that helped lead the valley's redevelopment.

Witzling in 2002 oversaw a design competition that helped bring about the Menomonee Valley Industrial Center and its neighboring community park. Those projects, and additional developments, helped make the valley's renewal a nationally recognized success story.

"The key was to create a visualization," he said. "That’s what the competition did."

Also, Witzling's firm in 2003 helped launch the city's redevelopment vision for the former Park East freeway strip on downtown's northern edge and other nearby parcels.

While several projects, including apartments, retail space and a hotel, were built on those neighboring parcels, it took many years before development started on the county-owned freeway strip.

Along with the first phase of The Avenir mixed-use project, 1437 N. Jefferson St., the strip is now seeing construction of the new Milwaukee Bucks arena parking structure, the future Bucks training facility and the neighboring Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin McKinley Health Center.

From Witzling's long-term perspective, that delay isn't unusual. The strip has large parcels that require big investments, he said.

The Park East area has seen "peaks and valleys," Witzling said. "But it’s generally an upward trend the whole way."

The lakefront is more of a mixed bag.

Witzling worked on a study that in 1986 recommended replacing a parking lot near  E. Wisconsin and N. Prospect avenues, with a parking structure topped with a public plaza and park. It was later named O'Donnell Park and opened in 1993.

O'Donnell Park replaced a blighted site with a pedestrian connection from downtown to the lakefront.

But O'Donnell's design has its critics. And a falling concrete panel killed a 15-year-old boy on his way to Summerfest in 2010.

"Even though people have mixed feelings about O'Donnell Park, it was quite transformational to get people to look at the lakefront differently," Witzling said.

Since O'Donnell Park was built, the Milwaukee Art Museum has twice expanded, Discovery World was built and is now planning an addition, and plans are proceeding for the nearby Couture apartment high-rise.

"Every project has pluses and minuses," Witzling said. "But if you look at the lakefront now compared to what it was back in 1980, it is a spectacular asset."

Witzling sees plenty of future development opportunities looming throughout the Milwaukee area, including ongoing plans to redevelop the inner harbor area.

Still, the changes that have already happened are elevating Milwaukee to a different league from where it was when Witzling came to the city over 40 years ago.

"Milwaukee is like the new Portland," he said.

Tom Daykin can be reached attdaykin@jrn.com