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Milwaukee to create land bank for water-related businesses
Published November 14, 2008 - BizTimes Daily
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City of Milwaukee officials are working to establish a 150- to 200-acre bank of land to attract water-related businesses, Department of City Development Commissioner Richard "Rocky" Marcoux announced today.
Speaking at the sixth annual BizTimes Commercial Real Estate & Development Conference in Milwaukee, Marcoux said business, government and academic leaders in the metropolitan Milwaukee area intend to establish the region as a major hub for water-related businesses.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is working to create a School of Freshwater Sciences, which will be the first such school in the nation. In addition, there are already 120 businesses in southeastern Wisconsin that deal with water technology and water services, a larger water industry cluster than in any other city in the United States, according to Franz Hoffmann, president of Procorp Enterprises LLC in Milwaukee and chair of the Milwaukee 7 Water Council.
The region, of course, is strategically located along Lake Michigan, part of the Great Lakes, which comprises about 20 percent of the world's fresh water, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The city intends to provide locations for water-related businesses that want to move to the Milwaukee region and be part of the water industry cluster, Marcoux said.
"We can be and we will be the water capital of the world," he said.
City officials are working to assemble the land bank, which would be located near the lake and the city's rivers. The land bank would be comprised of scattered sites close to water, Marcoux said. There is not enough available land in the city to create a water industry land bank all in a single location, he said.
Marcoux declined to name specific sites that the city is trying to acquire for the water business land bank.
The theme for this morning's conference was "Milwaukee's Fresh Coast Advantage."
