27th Street is open again, and Green Infrastructure is helping protect our area from future flooding too!

While some construction activity continues, the stretch of 27th Street in front of our office at Century City Tower is back open again!  It was a long summer of detours as the new storm sewers were installed under the street.  Since the beginning of September traffic has returned to N 27th Street and buses are once again picking up in front of our building.Through all of the construction activity, we're thankful that Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) is making an investment in a major stormwater facility to reduce the risk of floods in the neighborhood.  After record storm events caused floods in 2008 and 2010 in the north area of the 30th Street Corridor, we knew that the situation had to change.Two large green stormwater basins will be connected to the new storm sewers near N 27th Street and W Roosevelt Drive.  The "North Basin" is north of the DRS parking lot, and the "East Basin" sits in between DRS, Century City Tower, and the neighborhood.  Construction activity on the basins also continues, but these photos show that the facilities are getting closer to being complete.Other recent national news about the flooding associated with Hurricanes Harvey and Irma prompted MMSD Executive Director Kevin Shafer to share this:"What we can do is make sure that our infrastructure – all infrastructure – is resilient and can respond quickly to minimize the impacts to our public. We need to change the way we develop our cities. We cannot build our way out of events like Hurricane Harvey; however, if we remove homes and businesses from the floodplain, preserve open space in low areas, take steps to reduce impervious cover, manage some water where it falls, and try to work with nature, we can reduce the storms’ long-term impacts. These newer approaches complement a very robust grey infrastructure that includes flood management projects, the tunnel, sewers, and our water reclamation facilities."Read his full editorial about the value of green infrastructure as a response to changing weather patterns.