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MILWAUKEE OFFICIALS DROP PLANS FOR VA CENTER --
Say veterans' groups opposed their proposals.
Background here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/old%
20newsflashes%20JUL%2006/newsflash07-29-2006-4.htm
Story here...
http://www.jsonline.com/
story/index.aspx?id=571325
Story below:
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City officials drop plans for Zablocki VA
center
Veterans groups opposed proposals
By TOM DAYKIN
tdaykin@journalsentinel.com
Mayor Tom Barrett's administration is dropping plans to create a
high-tech business park and veterans housing at Zablocki Veterans
Affairs Medical Center, with city officials saying Tuesday that
opposition from veterans groups killed the proposal.
Barrett's proposal called for preservation of five historic buildings on
the VA grounds that are either vacant or largely unused. The restored
buildings would include Old Main, the original Soldiers Home that opened
in 1869 atop a hill that now overlooks Miller Park. The Soldiers Home
grounds, which include several 19th-century buildings, are adjacent to
the modern medical center complex.
Under the city's plan, Old Main would be converted into apartments for
elderly veterans. CommonBond Communities, a St. Paul, Minn., housing
developer, would have created 57 assisted-living units, along with 17
apartments set aside for veterans with spinal cord injuries.
CommonBond planned to renovate another building into 62 apartments for
veterans. A 14,000-square-foot building would have been used as offices
for veterans groups. The chapel would have been restored for its
original use, and the former Ward Memorial Theater would have housed
America's Freedom Center Museum.
Barrett also wanted to develop an office park on 27.5 acres of vacant
land east of the medical center, near Miller Park Way and W. National
Ave. The office park would have targeted biomedical firms and other
high-tech companies.
Some veterans, however, said the office park would interfere with
efforts to expand Wood National Cemetery, a burial ground for veterans
that borders the medical center and the Soldiers Home grounds.
Wood National Cemetery should be expanded on to that vacant land to
provide more burial plots, said Joe Campbell, vice president of the
Allied Veterans Council of Milwaukee County. Campbell said the city's
plan for a columbarium, a building for interment of ashes of cremated
vets, amounted to a "token" gesture.
Campbell said commercial development of the vacant land would intrude on
the tranquility of the cemetery and Soldiers Home grounds.
Also, both Campbell and Terry Troutman, state adjutant of the Wisconsin
American Legion, said the city's plan would have allowed non-veterans to
live in the CommonBond apartments if there were open units and no
veterans to fill them.
"This should be for veterans only," Campbell said.
The apartments, working with veterans groups, would have maintained an
active waiting list of veterans, said Andrea Rowe Richards, Department
of City Development spokeswoman.
Barrett said the city's proposal respected the cemetery, complemented
the Zablocki center's mission and sought to create job opportunities at
the business park.
But the opposition was too strong, Barrett said. Even when city
officials changed plans to accommodate the concerns of veterans,
including the housing plan, those efforts were "met with derision," he
said.
The city plan, including the development of vacant land, became "a very,
very emotional issue" for some veterans, said Rocky Marcoux, Barrett's
development secretary.
Funds for improvements
The city wanted to lease the land and buildings from the Department of
Veterans Affairs and spend $21 million on the improvements. That money
would have been repaid through property taxes generated by some of the
new developments. Additional funding would have come from CommonBond and
private fund-raising efforts.
City and federal officials also said the development would have created
new revenue for the Department of Veterans Affairs, allowing it to plow
more money back into maintaining and preserving the 19th-century
buildings.
Campbell said local, state and federal officials should work with
veterans groups to create an alternate plan to preserve the buildings.
He said possible uses could include a recreation center for Zablocki
patients, housing for families of veterans receiving long-term care at
the medical center, and a facility to help homeless veterans.
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Larry Scott --
