Eschweiler Campus Development Again in Limbo

A proposed residential development on the Eschweiler Campus, the historic buildings themselves, a hoped-for charter school that would occupy them, and indeed UWM’s Innovation Campus plans – all are once again up in the air.

Presentations Tuesday to the Common Council by Phil Aiello of Mandel Group, the proposed residential developer, and by Mayor Kathy Ehley, revealed a potent set of conflicting challenges to the projects.

Basically:

·      Any proposal to tear down any of the historic Eschweiler Buildings would likely bring on an injunction from the Wisconsin Historical Society and a long and expensive legal battle.

·      The one proposal that would preserve all the historic buildings calls for them to be occupied by a Forest Exploration Center UWM charter school, but the Wauwatosa School District is adamantly opposed to that charter.

Aiello said Mandel supports the charter school in principal and now in practicality, because it is the only plan that the state Historical Society would not enjoin from going forward.

Mandel will continue working and planning toward a resolution, Aiello said, but would be unable to actually proceed with any other plan if the threat of an injunction was hanging over them. No financing would be available in such a scenario, he said.

Ehley and the full Common Council had also strongly supported the creation of the FEC charter school before the School District raised its opposition, but Ehley said Tuesday she can’t support anything that would materially harm Wauwatosa’s schools.

A number of aldermen have also said confidentially that a majority on the council would be obliged to oppose anything the city’s own schools are so strongly against.

School Superintendent Phil Ertl and the School Board last month asked Gov. Scott Walker to veto a budget provision allowing UWM to create charter schools outside Milwaukee, but he let it stand.

It is the School District’s position that a school chartered by another entity – until now allowed nowhere but in “failing” districts in Milwaukee and Racine – could potentially draw students out of the public schools, along with their per-student state aid.

The Wauwatosa Historic Preservation Commission has already approved a two-part plan proposed by Mandel: If the FEC can raise $2 million in donations in about 20 months, it can occupy the Eschweilers and they will remain. But if the FEC fails to do so, the plan would revert to an earlier proposal by Mandel to partly demolish three of the buildings, turning them into “walled gardens.”

Now, the walled garden approach faces the uncertainty of the Historical Society’s threatened injunction at the same time the public schools oppose the one effort that would keep the Society from challenging the project in court.

Also caught in the middle are UWM, which owns the property, and the city. UWM needs some version of Mandel’s development to move forward so that it can complete the sale and make its own payments on the land to Milwaukee County.

Wauwatosa needs Mandel’s development to proceed in some form because it has already borrowed more than $12 for infrastructure to support UWM’s Innovation Campus – with $5.5 million of it intended to come from TIF District No. 2, which includes the Eschweiler Campus.

Until something is built there, no funds can come from TIF 2, and TIF No. 6 would be burdened with the entire amount.

The city is also counting on the tax increment generated by a Mandel development to support TIF 6, as the two tax districts were created to overlap.

As for possible resolutions, Ehley said the city and FEC were talking to the School District about having it instead of UWM charter the school, but they’ve had only one meeting so far, with a second scheduled soon.

Aiello and City Attorney Alan Kesner said they were attempting to negotiate with the state Historical Society but had not yet been able to bring them to the table.