UWM Accelerator Building Advances – on 'Discovery Parkway'

With a single, unanimous vote and no debate, the Wauwatosa Common Council approved the construction of UWM's business accelerator building in Innovation Park and named the city street that will be built to serve it.

Technically, both resolutions were amendments to existing documents.

The accelerator building is an amendment to a Business Planned Development for the Innovation Park project that incorporates the design plan for the structure.

Called a "business incubator" in the resolution, the 25,000-square-foot building will house a prototyping labratory and other facilities in which research will be put into practice to prove concepts.

Academic researchers will work alongside private developers to build those concepts into workable business models for new products and processes, particularly in the fields of biomedical technology and industrial automation.

With the second resolution, the official map of Wauwatosa will be amended to reflect the name of the planned roadway that will provide access to that building, as well as to future developments in Innovation Park.

That road will be named Discovery Parkway.

The UWM Real Estate Foundation, which is responsible for developing Innovation Park, had sought to have the road called Technology Parkway. But it met with resistance from those who felt the name was either uninspiring or misleading, since the route will be a city street that will also access public parkland east of the development.

"Discovery" met with approval both from conservationists and UWM foundation officials as an appropriate reflection of both discoveries made through labratory research and through encountering nature on the County Grounds.