War Memorial expansion

The site for a proposed veterans’ museum between the Milwaukee Art Museum/War Memorial Center building and the Vietnam War Memorial has been shifted to the VA Grounds near Miller Park. We opposed the Disneyesque design for the museum, billed as America’s Freedom Center, because it would interfere with more lake views and with the sightlines for the north face of the Saarinen-designed Memorial Center. We applaud the decision to move the project to the VA grounds.

But other plans emerged for an extension of the Memorial Center north, through construction of a parking garage and, possibly, a showy north entrance to the building along with glassing in of the current atrium. We have adopted a wait-and-see stance until plans are more definite. We do believe that if the parking structure is completed, the ground-level blacktopped area now used for parking should be ripped up and re-landscaped in greenery.

Even if the parking structure is not built, we believe that the blacktop should be scaled back to a line set earlier and that landscaping should be added.